Our church just finished a series on "Sacred Space"; or, more specifically, the Recovery of Sacred Space in Jesus Christ. We defined Sacred Space in this way:
Sacred Space is the habitation or dwelling place of God. It’s the realm in which God is present in relation to His creation. It’s not where God is, as if “heaven” were a geographical location; but it’s how God is with respect to His creation. We can say that it’s the “place” of relationship, of intimacy between God and His creation, focused primarily in Man as Image-Bearer, but flowing out from Man to the entire created order.
In this series, we saw that the Bible focuses on a singular, grand purpose of God: the “summing up of all things in Christ”, as Paul says in Ephesians. This “summing up…” is the restoration of the entire created order in a “Shalomic Paradise” (the Kingdom of God!) that Eden only typified. God’s purpose in redemptive history is the consummation of all things in His Son, the lord Jesus Christ! The Bible, from beginning to end, is the record of the progress of the purpose of God to fulfill His promise in the Garden; that the Seed of the Woman would crush the serpent’s head and thus reverse the curse and restore Creation (all of creation) back to God. I’m not talking about a universal redemption for mankind; I’m saying that the Bible speaks of a universal, or Cosmic Redemption in Christ that has the entire Created Order in view. The Bible speaks of a return to Eden, so-to-speak, only in the fullness of what Eden typified—a Cosmic renewal with the New Heavens and New Earth in a perpetual state of Shalom!
I mention our series on Sacred Space to give some foundation for how we have defined the Biblical principle of Shalom throughout the study. Taking our cue from Plantinga, this is how we defined Shalom:
That state of harmony within the created order in which every created thing finds itself in perfect conformity to itself and its created function, and therefore relates with integrity, in truth to every other created thing and to God Himself.
This is the goal of redemptive history: The recovery of Sacred Space consummating with the restoration of the state of Shalom in the perpetual Shabbat of God’s rest—all accomplished in the Person and Work of Christ!
I’ll have more to say about Shalom and our participation in it in upcoming posts. For now, however, let’s remember that the purpose and goal of God in redemptive history is not simply the “salvation” of (some) men through the forgiveness of sins; this is too small a goal! The purpose of God is nothing less than the Recovery of Sacred Space—the “redemption” of the Cosmos. The goal of God, to borrow again from Plantinga, is Shalom—“The Way Things Ought to Be”.
3 comments:
You always have had this thing about shalom...
Back at the beginning of the post, you were talking about how different people think of the idea of shalom. I just wanted to add that what most people think of as shalom (peace of mind/parties, no war, everything is perfect, etc.) is actually just the outworking of what shalom is - everything being in its perfect created order.
Good point Abbinator--people have an "idea" of what shalom might/should look like even in their estrangement from the only One who, in Himself, can grant shalom. This is just another example of how it is that human beings testify to the fact that we all (still, after The Fall) bear the Image of God; we "know" the truth, but we deny it in our unbelief.
Very good post! Thanks! It seemed like an excellent overview to the series.
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