Spooh's 4 Thought

Implicit Call to Holistic Ministry

Romans 8:18-25
Last night in a Bible study small group we tackled the passage of Romans 8:18-30, and whilst going through this passage in which Paul comforts the suffering, struggling Christian with the predetermined, sure hope of the liberation from our groaning, I couldn't but help notice the implicit call to Holistic Ministry for all of creation.

Take a look for example at verse 19 - the creation waits for us, the sons of God, to be glorified, because in some way this liberates the creation from its groaning - it really adds to the magnitude of our glorification when Christ returns. Then notice that the creation is in this state of groaning because of the fall. The reference to 'the one who subjected it' (vs20) is a reference to Gen 3:17 and the curses pronounced by God after the fall - importantly though, it is not a reference to who is responsible for the fall.

The great thing here though is to hear God's heart on the matter, he subjects the creation to this state of frustration, 'in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.' (vs21). Now I don't presume to know how that's going to work out exactly in the future (you know the whole pre-mil, post-mil and a-mil debate), but I do know from this passage that God's heart is for a liberated creation. I think, also, that the term 'creation' here is a holistic term embracing all of creation and so this leads me to think that as people who are 'patiently' (vs25) awaiting our glorification, surely the implicit lesson for us here is that we get on with living out God's heart.

This passage places the responsibility on us, as those seeking to please the Lord, to live lives in such a way that we work towards the liberation of this groaning creation - irrespective of how you think things are going to turn out in the end (i.e. your eschatalogical view). We don't need to believe some sort of thing about the millenium to be proactive in social concern, we do it because its God's heart - its what he wants. This has got to put an end to the false dichotomy between Gospel proclamation and social concern - just do them both and stop worrying about it!

Yesterday morning I listened to an mp3 of Dick Lucas on Psalm 1 - his first comment was that the Bible is unbelievably black and white at times. Is that not perhaps the case here? Liberate creation - its what God wants!

posted by Stephen Murray @ 2:31 PM