By Steven L. Childers and John M. Frame

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Transcript

The Scriptures tell us the Triune Lord carries out his plan of redemption in history to bring salvation to fallen humanity and creation. Therefore, the central message of the Bible is “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2:9).

The ultimate goal of salvation is not merely to forgive and relocate believers to heaven, but to restore fallen humanity and creation so they will flourish in a new earth for eternity. The Greek word in Scripture that we translate “save” means to make whole.

The essence of salvation is the restoration of God’s original purposes in creation. What needs to be restored is humanity’s broken relationship with God, self,[1] others, and creation[2] because of the Fall. 

Paradise Created

In the beginning, God created and ruled over everything—and it was good. God made human beings in his image to be in a healthy relationship with him as they carried out his purposes for the world. In the original creation, before the Fall, we see a glimpse of true human flourishing according to God’s creative order and design.

It was heaven on earth. There was no pain, suffering, disease, sickness, or death. The Hebrew prophets use the word “shalom” to describe this state of full peace, completeness, wholeness, and blessedness.

In this garden paradise, Adam and Eve experienced the blessedness of shalom—the fullness of happiness, love, joy, and peace.[3] Their interwoven relationships with God, themselves, each other, and creation reflect God’s highly relational triune image.[4] These relationships are the building blocks for all of life. When they are functioning properly we experience the fullness of life that God intended.

Paradise Lost

However, paradise didn’t last. When sin entered the world, something terrible happened—not only to people, but to all of creation. After the Fall, by God’s grace there is still a significant remnant of paradise left in our lives and world, even though things are also horribly ruined and no longer the way they are supposed to be.[5]

In Genesis 3 we learn that, because of sin, humanity became alienated from God and under his just curse because of our guilt and moral corruption. This alienation and curse then flowed, like a polluted river, into all our other relationships. For example, our alienation from God flows into our alienation from ourselves when we experience shame and fear (Gen. 3:10). And it flows into alienation from others, resulting in a loss of transparency and intimacy in all our relationships (Gen. 3:10, 11-13).

Our alienation from God also brings about our broken relationship with creation. Our work is now cursed with toil and vanity. The curse of sin has even spread to our physical bodies, resulting in disease, sickness, and death (Gen. 3:16-19). All of creation and nature itself is now subject to decay (Rom. 8:18-25).

Creation Restored

But there is good news! God now promises to apply the riches of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ to all the broken relationships of those who truly believe in him and follow him as Savior and Lord.

First and foremost, God promises to restore our alienated relationship with him by graciously giving us a new standing and a new heart in Christ to replace our guilty standing and corrupt heart because of sin.

Our new knowledge of God in Christ brings healing to our broken relationship with ourselves, which in turn deepens our relationship with God.

Our restored relationship with God also restores our relationships with others, especially as God unites us by his Spirit in a new community, his Church. God designs this new community to be a living display of his kingdom and an instrument to carry out his purposes on earth.

Our restored relationships with God, self, and others flow into our relationship with creation as we seek to influence all our spheres of work as faithful servants of the king, in order to carry out his will on the earth.

All these restored relationships give us a foretaste of God’s kingdom that is still to come, in all its fullness, when Jesus returns to make all things new forever in a new world.

Sound theology reflects this good news of God’s saving grace that restores fallen humanity and creation to the full beauty of his original design.

Footnotes:

[1] Most of us do not think of having a relationship with ourselves. Whether we realize it or not, we talk to ourselves constantly. Often it’s subconscious. Our self-talk is a reflection of being an image bearer designed by a triune God, who at creation revealed his self-talk saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26a). On many occasions, the authors of Scripture write words to themselves. The Psalmists frequently speak to themselves. In Psalm 42 and 43 David talks to himself when he is experiencing fear, saying things like “Why are you cast down, my soul?” In the first sentence of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, he writes: “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” Calvin’s thesis is that our knowledge of God and of ourselves is so “bound together by a mutual tie” that one cannot be separated from the other. Only through knowing God can we truly know ourselves. And only by knowing ourselves can we truly know God.

[2] Most of us do not think about “having a relationship with creation.” In Genesis 1:28 we find the first explanation of why God created human beings–to exercise authority over his creation as his representatives: “And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.’” In Genesis 2:15 we find a more direct explanation of God’s purpose for creation and humanity: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” As we compare and contrast the imagery in Genesis 1 with that of Genesis 2, we go from a picture of God exercising sovereignty through humans over all creation (Gen. 1), to God exercising this same sovereign rule through individual humans in very specific places on the earth–such as the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2). Here we learn that God designs us in his image so that we will cultivate and protect the realms of his creation which he places under our influence, to accomplish his will on earth. These realms or spheres include our marriages, families, work, education, politics, art, etc.

[3] Although this paradise in Eden was perfect, it was still an incomplete foretaste of the far greater blessing to come if Adam and Eve had obeyed God.

[4] As the Trinity, God always exists and acts in the context of relationships. Therefore, we should not be surprised to learn that he designs us as his image bearers to reflect his interpersonal nature in all our relationships.

[5] See Plantinga, Cornelius. (1996). Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans.

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