It would be a sin to abuse creation and distort it and rape it and exploit it, but it would also be a sin to do nothing with it. Because doing nothing with it would essentially be saying to God, “You have made nothing of interest to me.”7
So the issue of eating the fruit then is far bigger than Adam and Eve simply disobeying God. They are throwing off the whole deal. God made this magnificent world with endless possibilities of creativity and beauty and meaning, and they miss it. They decide to steer the thing in a different direction. A direction of their choosing.
God has given us power and potential and ability. God has given this power to us so we will use it well. We have choices about how we are going to use our power. The choices of the first people were so toxic because they were placed in the middle of a complex web of interaction and relationships with the world God had made. When they sinned, their actions threw off the balance of everything.
Weather.
Trees.
Oceans.
It is all one, and when one part starts to splinter and fracture, the whole thing starts to crumble. These people cannot be separated from their environment. One part falls out of harmony, and everything is affected. As one text says, “The whole creation has been groaning.”8 It is all thrown off.
This is how the Bible starts.
Unlimited potential.
Unbelievable promise and possibility.
And then fracturing, splintering, chaos.
Moving Forward
Will creation always be like this? Fractured? Chaotic? This has been the question for thousands of years. And central to the Jewish world of Jesus was the belief that God not only hadn’t given up on creation but was also actively at work within it, bringing it back to how he originally intended it to be. The prophets had a way of talking about this restoration movement of God’s. They spoke of God reclaiming the earth and restoring the world. They did not talk about people going somewhere else at the end of time. They talked about God coming here at the end of time.9
Notice what Jesus says about the end of the world in Matthew: “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne . . .”10
Jesus uses an important word here: renewal.
Jesus describes his return as a rebirth, a regeneration, a renewal.
Remember, when God made the world, he called it good. Why would God destroy something he thinks is good?
Notice what Peter says in the book of Acts about the same event: “Heaven must receive [Jesus] until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”11 Big word Peter uses here: restore. To restore is to make things how they once were. To renovate, to rebuild, to put back together the parts that are broken.
As Paul put it in Colossians, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”12 Paul uses another significant word here: reconcile. To make peace where it has been lacking. To bring back together. To mend what is torn and to fix what is broken. And Paul wants us to make sure we grasp that this is a much larger issue than just human souls. He uses the phrase “all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven” because he wants us to see that this is all of creation. “All things” really means “everything”—every bird and tree and mountain and star and every single square inch of the physical creation.
In Jesus, God is putting it all back together.
To make the cross of Jesus just about human salvation is to miss that God is interested in the saving of everything. Every star and rock and bird. All things.
And God isn’t just interested in reclaiming his original dream for creation; he wants to take it further. Imagine if you took all the sin and death out of the Bible. You would be left with a short book. It would have four chapters to be exact: Genesis 1 and 2; Revelation 21 and 22. In Genesis 1 and 2, we are told of a garden, but in Revelation 21 and 22, we are told of a city. A city is more advanced, more complicated than a garden. If a garden is developed and managed and cared for, it is eventually going to turn into a city. If there was no sin or death, creation would still move forward because God doesn’t just want to reclaim things; God wants to see them move forward.
A New Culture
Let’s return to the garden, to Jesus rising from the dead, having conquered death. The early community of Jesus’s followers saw in his resurrection the moment their people had been waiting for: God continuing, but in a new and significant way, the restoration of the world. Paul goes so far as to say that Jesus’s resurrection was the firstfruits— a very Jewish way of saying, “Hang on, there’s more to come.”13
In the first century, this claim of restoration had numerous social, political, and economic dimensions to it. The world was ruled by the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was ruled by a succession of emperors called the caesars. The caesars claimed they were sent by the gods to renew creation. Caesar Augustus believed that as the son of god, he was god incarnate on earth, the prince of peace who had come to restore all of creation. He inaugurated a twelve-day celebration called Advent to celebrate his birth. Sound familiar? His priests offered sacrifices and incense to rid people of their guilt. One of his popular slogans was “There is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved than that of Caesar.” Another phrase they used often was “Caesar is Lord.” Throughout the Roman Empire, the caesars called on people to worship them as the divine saviors of humankind, and a city that acknowledged Caesar as Lord was called an ekklesia.14
Being a citizen of the Roman Empire was significant. It was membership in the most powerful kingdom ever. All of society, for that matter, was ranked and ordered. Roman citizens were higher status than non-Roman citizens. Men were ranked higher than women. Slave owners and those who were free were ranked above slaves, who were seen as property to be owned. And then there were the masses—the majority of the population who weren’t the elite, ruling class. Everybody had their place in society.
It was at this time, in this world, that the Jesus movement exploded among an ethnic minority in a remote corner of the empire. These people claimed their leader was a rabbi who had announced the arrival of the kingdom of God, had been crucified, and had risen from the dead and appeared to his followers. One of their favorite slogans was “Jesus is Lord.”15
Take a minute to reflect on the political dimensions of that claim. If Jesus is Lord, then what does that say about Caesar? These first Christians were subverting the entire order of the empire, claiming that there was a Lord, and he wasn’t Caesar. And what did they call their gatherings? Ekklesias.16 A word that translates in English as “church.” Another of their favorite slogans was “There is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved than that of Jesus.”
