by Alexander J. Kaye
As we have studied Creation at the Joseph and Alice McKeen Study Center this year, God has put a few things in my heart. The first of which is joy, derived from the salvation from our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ. The second is pain, which we all feel as we travel through this broken world. The third is our awkward, transitory position on this earth – which, to borrow a term mentioned in Bible Study, I will call the ‘messy middle’ – and what we should be feeling, doing, and thinking in the years that we have now after being saved. Each of these three ideas is related to Creation.
Joy
Joy is a fundamental idea in Christianity but where does this joy come from? It comes as a result of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ upon the cross around two thousand years ago and his subsequent resurrection and what that means for those who believe in it. In the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9 ESV). Joy, I think, comes from being “saved” – but what are we being saved from? “But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25), for God has saved us from this desperate condition and justified us before Himself through the shedding of Christ’s blood. Through the sacrifice of he "without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), God’s just wrath has been satisfied on the cross. Those who believe in this and repent of their sins have “passed over from death to life” (John 5:24), thanks to Christ who is "the life” (John 14:6). In the place of hostility, we have been granted peace and reconciliation with God through Christ who is “our peace” (Ephesians 2:14). We who were alienated have been brought into His fold and have reached atonement (etymologically, at + onement) with God. We who were slaves of the devil have been redeemed (from the Latin, re + emo, roughly meaning ‘buy back’) to dwell with Him, our God and Maker. Satan, the accuser, quite rightly has a lot to accuse us for before God. Yet thanks to Jesus Christ, we have been justified and have been forgiven for all our sins. This is a cause for joy, and this is what is meant by salvation. The Bible tells us that ever since Adam and Eve sinned and ate of the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden and disobeyed God, humanity has been hostile to God. From that moment onward, we became “alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (Colossians 1:21) and became “of [our] father the devil” (John 8:44)
“All have sinned” (Romans 3:23), Paul writes, and if we are being honest with ourselves, we all commit acts that fill us with guilt and selfloathing and that our contrary to God’s desires for His creatures. The eating of the fruit meant that we entered into a spiritual death and a “domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13) and lost the unbridled access and fellowship we had with God in the pre-fall world.
“But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25), for God has saved us from this desperate condition and justified us before Himself through the shedding of Christ’s blood. Through the sacrifice of he "without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), God’s just wrath has been satisfied on the cross. Those who believe in this and repent of their sins have “passed over from death to life” (John 5:24), thanks to Christ who is "the life” (John 14:6). In the place of hostility, we have been granted peace and reconciliation with God through Christ who is “our peace” (Ephesians 2:14). We who were alienated have been brought into His fold and have reached atonement (etymologically, at + onement) with God. We who were slaves of the devil have been redeemed (from the Latin, re + emo, roughly meaning ‘buy back’) to dwell with Him, our God and Maker. Satan, the accuser, quite rightly has a lot to accuse us for before God. Yet thanks to Jesus Christ, we have been justified and have been forgiven for all our sins. This is a cause for joy, and this is what is meant by salvation.
Pain
But are Christians meant to be in a state of constant bubbly ecstasy because of the joy derived from salvation? Probably not. The reality is that we feel pain in this world. We feel pain when we see brokenness in people we love, the relationships we cherish, the world at large and even in ourselves. Paul writes that “in this tent, we groan” (2 Corinthians 5:4) and indeed we groan often and shed tears, knowing that this world of suffering and injustice is not how God intended it to be. Genesis offers an explanation for the origins of pain. When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, pain and suffering were introduced into the world. God says to Eve, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing [emphasis mine]” and to Adam, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life [emphasis mine]” (Genesis 3:16- 17). Apart from the spiritual death and corruption of the pre-fall order that took place, a physical death would also eventually take place. The reality is that we live in a fallen world where pain exists, and this does not change after we are saved. Christ himself says, “in the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33) and for evidence we need only look at the lives and fates of apostles such as Paul and Peter and indeed our own lives. The question then becomes: how are we to live in and think about this ‘messy middle’, as we navigate this fallen world as saved people?
‘Messy Middle’
Though there is much to say about how a Christian ought to live in this world, a fundamental idea that I have dwelt upon this year is that of hope. Let me explain. An idea that I have neglected or hadn’t appreciated fully until recently is that when Christ rose from the dead, he conquered death. Christ, in the Book of Revelation says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17-18). The death of death means that we have hope after our mortal coil expires and can hope for eternal life. When Christ returns to earth, a “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1) is promised. In it, God “will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). In these verses I have found hope and encouragement. In this ‘messy middle’ – between salvation and the Second Coming – where our flesh groans for the perfection to come, we have joy in reconciliation and hope in the New Creation.