Since our inception as human beings we have had a mandate from God to wisely order his good creation (Genesis 1:26). According to certain theologians this is a waste of time (see previous post) since we should really be investing our time in what lasts. Heaven is what lasts not earth, therefore, we must focus on spiritual growth and evangelism and not worry too much about mundane work. This emphasis may be good for our piety; however, it is most certainly not empowering for Christian cultural engagement much less cultural transformation.

Miroslav Volf’s quote from Work in the Spirit is worth restating.

“without a theologically grounded belief in the intrinsic value and goodness of creation, positive cultural involvement hangs theologically in the air. Hence Christians who await the destruction of the world (and conveniently refuse to live a schizophrenic life) shy away as a rule--out of theological, not logical, consistency-from social and cultural involvement.”[1]

In this post I want to make two points.

1.      To show that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is fundamental to the affirmation of the goodness of creation. Thus, because Creation is inherently good, the resurrection gives us hope for its transformation not its annihilation.

2.      Because we have hope for the transformation of creation, there is hope that our work, even the mundane things we do, will have lasting impact on the new creation and therefore we need to engage in cultural transformation now in anticipation of the new creation.

Firstly, Jesus resurrection is the foundation of our faith (1 Corinthians 15). Jesus was raised from the dead literally not metaphorically (see previous debate here). His resurrection was a transformation of his material reality from an old substance to a new substance that is “trans” physical. (For an article by N T Wright discussing this term visit this page.)

There is both continuity with our present creation and discontinuity from it. Jesus physicality is demonstrated by his ability to consume food (Luke 24:41-43). Continuity is affirmed by the fact that Jesus was recognizable by the disciples and invited Thomas to affirm his faith by showing him his wounds (John 20:27). Discontinuity is demonstrated by Jesus’ ability to enter locked rooms without going through the door (John 20:19), something he was not in the habit of doing before his resurrection.

The importance of the resurrection for the affirmation of the goodness of creation is well stated by Oliver O’Donovan in his book Resurrection and the Moral Order:

“The meaning of the resurrection, as Saint Paul presents it, is that it is God's final and decisive word on the life of his creature, Adam. It is in the first place, God's reversal of Adam's choice of sin and death: 'As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive' (1 Cor. 15:22). In the second place, and precisely because it is a reversal of Adam's decision to die, the resurrection of Christ is a new affirmation of God's first decision that Adam should live, an affirmation that goes beyond and transforms the initial gift of life: 'The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit' (15:45). The work of the Creator who made Adam, who brought into being an order of things in which humanity has a place, is affirmed once and for all by this conclusion. It might have been possible, we could say, before Christ rose from the dead, for someone to wonder whether creation was a lost cause. If the creature consistently acted to uncreate itself, and with itself to uncreate the rest of creation did this not mean that God's handiwork was flawed beyond hope of repair? It might have been possible before Christ rose from the dead to answer in good faith, Yes. Before God raised Jesus from the dead, the hope that we call 'Gnostic' the hope for redemption from creation rather than for the redemption of creation might have appeared to be the only possible hope. 'But in fact Christ has been- raised from the dead…’ (15:20). That fact rules out those other possibilities' for in the second Adam the first is rescued. The deviance of his will, its fateful leaning towards death has not been allowed to uncreate what God created.”[2]

O’Donovan goes on to say,

“The resurrection carries with it the promise that all shall be made alive' (1 Cor. 15:22). The raising of Christ is representative, not in the way that a symbol is representative, expressing a reality which has an independent and prior standing, but in the way that a national leader is representative when he brings about for the whole of his people whatever it is in war or peace, that he effects on their behalf. And so this central proclamation directs us back also to the message of the incarnation, by which we learn how, through a unique presence of God to his creation, the whole created order is taken up into the fate of this particular representative man at this particular moment of history, on whose one fate turns the redemption of all. And it directs forward to the end of history when that particular and representative fate is universalized in the resurrection of mankind from the dead. 'Each in his own order: Christ the first fruits' then at his coming those who belong to Christ' (15:23). The sign that God has stood by his created order implies that this order, with mankind in its proper place within it, is to be totally restored at the last.”[3]

Thus the fact that Jesus is risen for the dead rules out the possibility that creation is destined for annihilation.

This is good news for those of us engaged in cultural transformation through marketplace mission. It means that as Paul states in his concluding remark to his teaching on resurrection, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Building on this understanding of new creation, N T Wright in his commentary on Romans makes the case for Christian engagement in cultural transformation:

“Within this, the wider vista that Paul opens up is the invitation to the Christian to live within the horizon of God’s new creation. This great project, the global and cosmic dimension of salvation, has begun with the resurrection of Jesus, and will continue until the whole world is transformed under the just and healing rule of God’s children. Though the question of what this will look and feel like, and the question of levels of continuity and discontinuity between the present creation and the new one, are exceedingly difficult to answer, that does not mean that there will not be a reality to which, in retrospect, this language will be seen to have been a true…

Therefore the Christian is called to live … at the overlap of the old and new creations… to embody the tension involved in bringing the new to birth already within the old…It is under this rubric that all Christian work in the areas of ecology justice, and aesthetics is to be conceived. If the creation is to be renewed, not abandoned, and if that work has already begun in the resurrection of Jesus, it will not do simply to consign the present creation to acid rain and global warming and wait for Armageddon to destroy it altogether. Christians must be in the forefront of bringing, in the present time, signs and foretastes of God’s eventual full healing to bear upon the created order in all its parts and at every level… Christians must be in the forefront of bringing, in the present time, signs and foretastes of God’s healing justice to bear upon the world that is still full of corruption, injustice, oppression, division, suspicion, and war. And if the world is to attain its full beauty and dignity as God’s liberated new creation, a beauty and dignity for which the present evidences of God’s grandeur within creation are just a foretaste, it will not do to regard beauty and its creation and conservation, as a pleasant but irrelevant optional extra within a world manipulated by science, exploited by technology and bought and sold in the economic marketplace. Christians must be in the forefront of bringing, in the present time, signs and foretastes of God’s fresh beauty to birth within the world, signs of hope for what the Spirit will yet do: ‘And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And, though the last 1ights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs-- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. (G. M. Hopkins, God’s Grandeur)”[4]

Jesus is risen! He is risen indeed! This is the Christian hope. This is our hope. This is the traction that puts our faith into action to bring transformation to this world. This is what faith at work looks like. Bringing THIS message to the workplace is what I believe marketplace mission is all about.  

So, HAPPY Easter! May God grant you great joy as you live your life in the marketplace in faith, hope and love knowing that your labour is not in vain!