The Immutable God: He will redeem all creation
Looking Up is now on YouTube!
Read More Looking Up
Read More Upward Glances
There once was a tree. It was beautiful and it was powerful. Those who ate its fruit would live in their bodies forever. It stood before any animal or human ever took a breath, and it made an eternal relationship with the Creator himself possible.
The Tree of Life makes its debut on the very first page of the Bible in Genesis 2. God, having made the perfect place on the perfect planet to place his perfect people, set it in the middle of the Garden of Eden right next to another tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I’m convinced there was nothing really special about this tree. It’s only power came from its prohibition. God told the first people not to eat from it, but they did.
In the middle of the perfect place on a perfect planet for perfect people, God set a choice for Adam and Eve: Walk with God forever or go your own way. We, as a species, went our own way. He had created us in his image, but we broke it. He had wanted to fill the earth with people in his image so that the earth would be filled with his glory, and we filled the earth with a twisted image. We rejected God and since that moment God has been trying to bring us back.
If you read straight through the Bible, you will find that God’s nature, character and goals are the same from the first page to the last. In both the Old and New Testaments, God is the same eternal, triune creator whose character is perfectly holy, righteous, just, merciful, gracious and above all loving. In both testaments, he acts to judge and bless. All of these attributes, character qualities and actions bend God toward one goal, redeeming all of creation.
God’s first task was to protect humans from that beautiful tree that embodied his offer to live with him forever. As sin entered, the humans’ bodies began to decay. Something fundamentally changed about them, and God loved them too much to watch them age and decay forever and never physically die. So God first kicked us out of the garden, then he killed the tree in a world-wide flood several generations later.
Then God chose one man. Abraham’s offspring would become a nation that would bless all the other nations of the world. There would be a descendant of Abraham who would make it possible to walk with God in a new way. Prophet after prophet in the Old Testament predicted this person would come. He would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David. He would have the right to rule as king. But he would die as a sacrifice instead. The Old Testament itself predicted that this coming man would be a God-made man. The Old Testament predicted he would be a new kind of priest for a new kind of covenant.
But until then, there was the Law. Hundreds of statutes and commands God’s special people Israel were expected to obey. They were rigid and strict. Impossible to keep. Yet, anyone who broke one broke the whole thing. So at some point, Israel gave up trying. The Law demonstrated just how incapable they were of being good. But instead of depending on God to make a way, they gave up. God offered life with himself, but humans chose to go their own way. Again.
Then, on the cusp of a worldwide population explosion, it happened. At just the right time, God sent the man he had promised for so many thousands of years. He was born of a woman and born under the law that he might redeem those who were under its condemnation so that they could have life with God. Ninety-eight percent of all people who have ever lived were born after God made a way for all people to live with him forever. This is the story of the New Testament.
Jesus now promises to give eternal life to all people who trust in him and in his work to pay the penalty for our rebellion and sin on the cross and to defeat death by rising again. He is working to restore his image in each person on the earth, and one day, he will fill the earth with people restored to his image who, by their existence, give him glory.
Scholars have argued for thousands of years about what happens next. What we know for sure is that Jesus will come back. He will finish the work he started. He will redeem creation and humankind because he is the one eternal, triune creator whose character is perfectly holy, righteous, just, merciful, gracious and above all loving; who acts to judge, bless and redeem all of creation.
When he has finished, on the very last page of the Bible, there will be perfect people in a perfect place on a perfect planet once again. And there will be a tree. It will be beautiful, and it will be powerful. Anyone who eats its fruit will live in their body forever. It makes an eternal relationship with the Creator himself possible.