‘i am making all things new’ michael goheen redeemer university college ancaster, canada

‘‘I Am Making All Things New’I Am Making All Things New’

Michael Goheen

Redeemer University College

Ancaster, Canada

ThemeTheme

‘I am making all things new’

If we are to understand this If we are to understand this word from God we must hear word from God we must hear

them in three contexts:them in three contexts:

The context of the whole biblical story

The context of the whole book of Revelation

The context of our mission today

Structure of TalkStructure of Talk

‘I Am Making All Things New’: The Climax of the Biblical Story

‘I Am Making All Things New’: The Climax of the book of Revelation

‘I Am Making All Things New’: The Climax of our Mission Today

‘‘I Am Making All Things New’:I Am Making All Things New’:The Climax of the Biblical StoryThe Climax of the Biblical Story

It is important to see the Bible as one unfolding story

'The way we understand human life depends on what conception we have of the human story. What is the real story of which my life story is a part?’ (Lesslie Newbigin).



It is important to see the Bible as the true story of universal history

I can't understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion—and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don't need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it. - Badrinath

If the church is to be faithful to its missionary calling, it must recover the Bible as one true story: ‘I do not believe that we can speak effectively of the Gospel as a word addressed to our culture unless we recover a sense of the Scriptures as a canonical whole, as the story which provides the true context for our understanding of the meaning of our lives—both personal and public.’ If the story of the Bible is fragmented into bits (historical-critical, devotional, systematic-theological, moral), it can easily be absorbed into the reigning story of culture.

- Bartholomew and Goheen, Story and Biblical Theology, p.152



It is important to see the Bible as the true story of universal history

It is important to see mission as central to the Biblical story

. . . the whole Bible itself is a ‘missional’ phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of, and witness to, the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in the mission of achieving that purpose universally, embracing past, present and future, Israel and the nations, ‘life, the universe and everything.’ Mission is not just one of a list of things that the Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgently than some. Mission is, in that much-abused phrase, ‘what it’s all about.’

- Chris Wright, Mission as a Matrix, p.103-104

Drama of ScriptureDrama of Scripture

ACT ONE: God Establishes His Kingdom: Creation

ACT TWO: Rebellion in the Kingdom: FallACT THREE: The King Chooses Israel:

Redemption Initiated– Gen. 12:1-3: Blessed to be a blessing

– Ex. 19:3-6: Showcase for the nations

– Israel fails in their mission

– Prophets

Drama of ScriptureDrama of ScriptureACT ONE: God Establishes His Kingdom:

CreationACT TWO: Rebellion in the Kingdom: FallACT THREE: The King Chooses Israel:

Redemption InitiatedACT FOUR: The Coming of the King:

Redemption Accomplished– Takes up mission of Israel– Accomplishes redemption– Gathers renewed Israel: Commissions them to

continue his mission




Redemption AccomplishedACT FIVE: Spreading the News of the King:

The Mission of the Church

Following the apostles, the church is sent– Sent with the gospel of the kingdomto make disciples of all nations,to feed the hungry,to proclaim the assurance that in the name of Christthere is forgiveness of sin and new lifefor all who repent an believe– To tell the news that our world belongs to God.In a world estranged from God,where millions face confusing choices,this mission is central to our being,for we announce the one name that saves.

The rule of Jesus Christ covers the whole world.To follow this Lord is to serve him everywhere,without fitting in,as lights in the darkness,as salt in a spoiling world. (CT, 44, 45)

Act Five: Spreading theAct Five: Spreading theNews of the KingNews of the King

Central to this period of redemptive historyTasting and making known the kingdomBeing a light to the world: Continuing Israel’s

missionBearing witness to the kingdom: Continuing

Jesus’ missionBearing witness to Jesus: Continuing the early

church’s missionTo the ends of the earth




Redemption AccomplishedACT FIVE: Spreading the News of the King:

The Mission of the ChurchACT SIX: The Return of the King: Redemption

Completed

Mission as Central to Biblical StoryMission as Central to Biblical Story

God’s Mission: To renew the whole creation (‘I am making all things new’)

Israel’s Mission: Attractive showcase of God’s renewal

Jesus’ Mission: Reveal and accomplish God’s renewing work

Church’s Mission: Make known God’s renewing work in life, word, and deed

God’s Mission and OursGod’s Mission and Ours

. . . I do want to argue for the theological priority of God’s mission. Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated) is our committed participation, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission in the world through history.

- Wright, Mission as Matrix, p.104

Climax of Biblical StoryClimax of Biblical Story

‘I am making all things new.’Church’s mission: Embody and announce

that coming renewal until God completes his work

‘If anyone is in Christ, he is part of a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!’ (2 Cor.5:17)

Differing circumstances, different models of mission

The Book of RevelationThe Book of Revelation

The final chapter of the Biblical dramaOne particular kind of missional

faithfulness

‘‘I Am Making All Things New’: I Am Making All Things New’: The Climax of RevelationThe Climax of Revelation

Setting: Conflict with the Roman empire– Written to church in Asia Minor– Threat of imperial cult: Edict of Domitian– Administered by Asian city councils– Pressure on Christians to accommodate– Some did (Nicolaitans, Balaamites, Jezebel)– Persecution for those who didn’t

Refusal to be a private cult Refusal to participate in idolatry


Setting: Conflict with the Roman empire Message: An Alternative Vision

‘These visions construct a counter-narrative disputing the imperial one, opening up a different way of seeing the world.’

- Richard Bauckham, Bible and Mission, p.104

Revelation provides ‘the vision of an “alternative world” in order to encourage the Christians and to enhance their staying power in the face of persecution and possible execution.’

- Johannes Nissen, New Testament and Mission, p.147


Setting: Conflict with the Roman empireMessage: An Alternative Vision

– Like 2 Kings 6:8-23– Apocalyptic literature– The story of Revelation– Kingdom of God centred in cosmic Christ– Kingdom of God involved in a cosmic battle– Kingdom of God assured of cosmic victory


Setting: Conflict with the Roman empire Message: An Alternative Vision Mission: Resist Accommodation

‘The demand laid on the Christians addressed in the book is an unconditional loyalty to the one side in the vast, unseen struggle between the cosmic powers that is occurring or is imminent. There is no room for compromise—no benign acceptance of meat in an unbeliever’s home, no undefiling commerce—or a “lukewarm” response. It is a time for “witnessing”, which can lead to death (as for Antipas, 2:13).’

- Johannes Nissen, New Testament and Mission, p.149

Resisting Accommodation to Resisting Accommodation to Roman IdolatryRoman Idolatry

‘The Christians are to proclaim the good news of universal salvation to the world, and their pulpit is a heroic refusal to compromise with a system they see as aligned with the forces of sin and death.’

- The Biblical Foundations for Mission, Senior and Stuhlmueller, p. 305

‘ . . . it behooves the Church to suffer with hope and patience whether the attempt be to destroy it or to domesticate it. Persecution was, and always is, pressure applied to make the Church serve subordinate ends (in the time of John--the unity of the Roman empire and its peoples) or adjust its witness to Christ to the beliefs of those who will not name Him Lord. . . .

‘The Church was engaged in a life-and- death struggle with the world, the flesh, and the Devil; and there could be no compromise with any of the three. The Church’s public witness to Christ would have no significance if its inner life were already occupied by other gods.’

- D.T. Niles, As Seeing the Invisible, p.16, 21

‘‘I Am Making All Things New’: I Am Making All Things New’: The Climax of Mission TodayThe Climax of Mission Today

Different settings: What are the idolatrous cultural forces that weneed to resist?

Differing Circumstances, Differing Circumstances, Different Models of MissionDifferent Models of Mission

Jesus has not left us with a rigid modelfor action; rather he inspired his disciples to prolong the logic of his own action in a creative way amid the new and different historical circumstances in which the community would have to proclaim the gospel.

- Bosch

‘‘I Am Making All Things New’: I Am Making All Things New’: The Climax of Mission TodayThe Climax of Mission Today

Different settings: What are the idolatrous cultural forces that weneed to resist?

Global, consumer capitalism– Economic globalization is the ‘greatest

challenge that the Christian mission faces’ (Rene Padilla).

– R. Bauckham, Bible and Mission, 83-112.

‘The reality of our world is not the end of grand narratives, but the increasing dominance of the narrative of economic globalization. . . . This is the new imperialism . . . [p.94]

‘What do we really need in order to recognize and to resist this new metanarrative of globalization? Surely a story that counters the global dominance of the profit-motive and the culture of consumption with a powerful affirmation of universal values? But the Christian metanarrative can adopt this role only if it resists becoming a tool of the forces of domination.’ [p.97]

‘It may well be that, only if Christianity in the west becomes a movement of resistance to such evils as consumerism, excessive individualism and the exploitation of the global periphery, can Christianity in many other parts of the world be credibly distinguished from the west’s economic and cultural oppression of other cultures and peoples.’ [p.97-98]

The Witness of ResistanceThe Witness of Resistance ‘Can the biblical narrative resist, in a way that is true

to the biblical God’s rule, the narratives of global power that dominate our world today?’ [p.102]– Only if we hold to the Bible as a metanarrative that is

not co-opted into another more ultimate story– If we see that some of the Bible itself was formed in

opposition to global powers in opposition to God’s kingdom: ‘One element in an answer to this is the fact that the biblical metanarrative itself took shape partly in opposition to the globalizing powers of its day.’ [p. 102]

– If opposition and resistance takes the form of non-coersive and suffering witness

How can such a witness be How can such a witness be sustained?sustained?

With a fresh understanding of the cosmic Christ

With a fresh understanding of history as the cosmic struggle between the kingdom of God and kingdom of darkness

With a fresh understanding of the cosmic victory of the gospel

With the whole creationwe wait for the purifying fire of judgment.For then we will see the Lord face to face.He will heal our hurts,end our wars,and make the crooked straight.Then we will join in the new songto the Lamb without blemishwho made us a kingdom and priests.God will be all in all,righteousness and peace will flourish,everything will be made new,and every eye will see at lastthat our world belongs to God!Hallelujah! Come, Lord Jesus. [CT, 58]

‘i am making all things new’ michael goheen redeemer university college ancaster, canada

Documents

biblical story slide

human story

life story

unfolding story

story of gods mission

real story

things new slide

reigning story of culture