After spending the first 200 pages of his new book talking about objections to the gospel and reasons for the gospel, Tim Keller devotes the last few pages to the Christian life. Here are some excerpts. Let me know what you think.
"How do we respond to this [gospel]? When we look at the whole scope of this story line, we see clearly that Christianity is not only about getting one's individual sins forgiven so we can go to heaven. That is an important means of God's salvation, but not the final end or purpose of it. The purpose of Jesus' coming is to put the whole world right, to renew and restore the creation, not escape it. It is not just to bring personal forgiveness and peace, but also justice and shalom to the world. God created both body and soul, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both body and soul. The work of the Spirit of God is not only to save souls but also to care for and cultivate the face of the earth, the material world...
What does it mean, then, to become part of God's work in the world? What does it mean to live a Christian life? One way to answer that question is to look back into the life of the Trinity and the original creation. God made us to ever increasingly share in his own joy and delight in the same way he has joy and delight within himself. We share his joy first as we give him glory (worshipping and serving him rather than ourselves); second, as we honor and serve the dignity of other human beings made in the image of God's glory; and third as we cherish his derivative glory in the world of nature, which also reflects it. We glorify and enjoy him only as we worship him, serve the human community, and care for the created environment...
The story of the gospel makes sense of moral obligation and our belief in the reality of justice, so Christians do restorative and redistributive justice wherever they can. The story of the gospel makes sense of our indelible religiousness, so Christians do evangelism, pointing the way to forgiveness and reconciliation with God through Jesus. The gospel makes sense of our profoundly relational character, so Christians work sacrificially to strengthen human communities around them, as well as the Christian community, the Church. The gospel story also makes sense of our delight in beauty, so Christians become stewards of the material world, from those who cultivate the natural creation through science and gardening, to those who give themselves to artistic endeavors, all knowing why these things are necessary for human flourishing. The skies and trees sing of the glory of God, and by caring for them and celebrating them we free their voices to praise him and delight us. In short, the Christian life means not only building up the Christian community through encouraging people to faith in Christ, but building up the human community through deeds of justice and service...
Christians then are the true 'revolutionaries' who work for justice and truth, and we labor in expectation of a perfect world in which: 'He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things is passed away (Revelation 21:4)...'
-----Timothy Keller, "The Reason for God"
3 comments:
If the work of the Spirit is to care for and cultivate the face of the earth, why will it destroy it with fire in the end? It seems a little strange if God is both going to preserve and perfect the world, and then in the end roll it up like a scroll and melt the elements in fire.
It seems like the Bible speaks of a new creation that takes the place of this old one.
But how it will really all work out in the end, I don't know.
Besides that theological problem with Keller, history also poses a problem. How come in the last 2000 years Christianity has had such a negative influence on the world? Rather than making it better, bringing justice and shalom to the world, it has brought corruption and conflict. Is God just taking a long time to get started?
JT, thanks for being the only brave soul to post on here. Your points are well taken. Keller talks a great deal about things of which we need to repent from as Christians, one of which is our past. I think we have to agree with him rather than resigning ourselves to our fate. If it's anything we should be about, it's repentance.
Ultimately, I'm not sure how Keller would answer your conjectures, but I think my own answer would have something to do with the fact that how we tend creation and treat others has direct effect upon their reception of the gospel, or lack thereof.
I won't attempt to explain how that works in a blog post, but suffice it to say here that I think it has something to do with witness and stewardship of the gospel. Taken in this light, caring and cultivating the earth is more instrumentally valuable than intrinsically valuable. i.e. It's going to be rolled up in the end, but what we do with it now speaks volumes about the new reality in which we live (in Christ).
Hi Chris. I hope you are doing good. My first thought is that Keller should footnote N.T. Wright for the excerpt you quoted.
Secondly, I'm not going to say Christians shouldn't do good to non-Christians in their neighborhood or take care of "skies and trees", but some current popular ideas that rub me the wrong way are the following:
"The purpose of the church is to bless the community." (typically through works of service)
or
"If our church dissapeared, would the community miss us?"
or
"When we do mercy and justice we incarnate the gospel."
I'm not saying that Keller is saying exactly these things, but he's in harmony with those that do, in my opinion.
In Acts the apostles primarily were busy preaching the forgiveness of sins (this line - "we see clearly that Christianity is not only about getting one's individual sins forgiven so we can go to heaven." is a caricature, in my opinion) and building up the church through teaching. I don't see much evidence of them making mercy ministries for non-Christians a high priority - not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)
I've listened to a few of Keller's sermons and I liked them, but when he starts talking about his philosophy of the church's mission it turns me off. I track closer with Mark Dever's thoughts on this - see session IV here:
http://t4g.org/08/media/
Have a good one.
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