Church: The Manifold Wisdom of God

There is a negative attitude among some Christian as well as non-Christians about the Church these days. In this age of post-Christendom the Church has lost its privileged place. It is looked upon as a place where hypocrites dwells or simply as a place of no relevance. Some of the criticisms I must admit is well deserved. However, as I preached through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians I stumbled upon another definition for the Church, a definition every Church must strive to live up to. In Ephesians 3:10 Paul calls the Church the manifold wisdom of God. He writes there: So that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

            The word in manifold refers to the many-sidedness or multi-coloredness of the wisdom of God. The Greek word translated manifold in this verse referred to intricately embroidered pattern of many colored cloaks or the manifold hues of a garland of flowers. It is used here to speak of the richly diverse nature or many-sidedness of God’s wisdom. When we think about what God did through the Cross of Jesus Christ we tend to have a narrow one sided focus. We tend to think of only that Christ died for my sin and that I am forgiven. Yet what Paul is revealing to us through this phrase “manifold wisdom of God” is that the wisdom of God that lies behind the Cross of Jesus Christ goes beyond just our forgiveness, that it is many-sided. Just as in Genesis 3 our sin led to the breaking down of relationships in all directions (Adam and Eve’s relationship with God, Adam’s relationship with Eve, Adam and Eve’s relationship with themselves, and Adam and Eve’s relationship with the rest of the created order), the atonement for our sin on the Cross means reconciliation in all directions, and ultimately the restoration of the whole world in which people will live in harmony with God, with one another and with the rest of the created world. That is what the manifold or the many-sided wisdom of God refers to, that the outworking of God’s wisdom has many sides to it other than just our forgiveness. In the immediate context of Ephesians 3 it refers to God through the Cross not only reconciles the Gentiles to Himself by forgiving their sins, but also reconciles the Jews and the Gentiles (2:16).

            Therefore, when Paul says through the Church this manifold wisdom of God is made known he is saying that the very existence of the Church as a multiracial community where two previously warring people, the Jews and the Gentiles now reside in harmony is a tangible manifestation of the manifold wisdom of God. In our time when you see an Indian and a Pakistani or an American and an Iranian or a Palestinian and an Israelite or a Croats and a Serbian loving each other in a Church because now they have been reconciled to God and to each other through Jesus Christ, you not only know that their sins have been forgiven but that the sin of hatred that kept them as enemies is also taken away by Jesus. And you begin to understand the truly amazing manifold wisdom of God, that He not only forgives and reconciles to people to Himself through the Cross of Jesus, but that He also reconciles them to each other as a first step towards the new haven and the new earth that one day He will create. And the Church on this earth made up of forgiven people reconciled to God and reconciled to each other across socio-economic-political-racial lines becomes the first sight of that new heaven and new earth.

            Next Paul says that this manifold wisdom of God through the Church is made known to all the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Rulers and authorities in the heavenly places are a reference to the fallen angels, the demonic force that oppose God and tries to frustrate his plan for world peace by making people hate and destroy each other.  Therefore, what is made known to them is that even though the power of darkness crucified Jesus on the Cross, God through that Cross has started the process of bringing world peace, and the Church where all walls of divisions are broken down is the tangible expression of that manifold wisdom of God. This is the identity we as a Church need to live up to.

Atonement

The one word that sums up all that Jesus did is atonement. Therefore Paul could write in Romans 3:25 speaking about Jesus, “Whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement (NRSV).”  Richard John Neuhaus writes: “Atonement.” It is a fine, solid, twelfth century Middle English word, the kind of word one is inclined to trust. Think of at-one-ment: what is separated is now at one.[1] In essence Atonement simply means reconciliation. It stands for the act of God in Jesus Christ by which humankind is reconciled to God (2Corinthians 5:18).^[2]But why need reconciliation or at-one-ment?

We all know what happened in Genesis 1- 3. Godallowed humanity represented by Adam and Eve to eat off of every tree in the garden except for one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17). God, as opposed to being a selfish giant, acted as a loving father giving everything withholding only that which was necessary for the betterment of His children. What the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented was moral autonomy, i.e. the autonomy to decidewhat is right or wrong or what is good and evil. God in His infinite wisdom wanted humankind to leave that job to God who understood the true nature of evil. But as Genesis 3:5 points out, the human desire to be like God, to decide for oneself what is right or wrong led humanity to sin by breaking God’s commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It was then because of that sin, the sin not only of breaking God’s commandment but also of not submitting to God’s moral authority that humanity ceased to be in relationship with God. They were, as the end of Genesis 3 tells us, driven away from the life giving goodness of God’s presence. This breakup of relationship with God also had a far reaching impact on all of creation. When Adam and Eve refused to live in harmony with God, when they became self-centered instead of being God centered, all hell broke loose on earth. The harmony with their individual selves was destroyed. The Bible tells us that they became self-aware and ashamed (compare Gen.2:25 with Gen.3:7). Today, shame, guilt and low self-esteem dominate and determine the lives of many people. The harmony between one human being and another was also destroyed. Adam who once sang a love song to Eve (2:23) blamed Eve for the fall (3:12). Today, racism, genocide, wars and conflict give a modern face to that ancient blame game. Lastly, the harmony with therest of the created world was also destroyed through the curse from God. In Genesis 3:17-18 God says to the man, “Cursed is the ground because of you,..…thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you...” Today the human abuse of natural resources, the wiping out of natural habitats, and in return being threatened and destroyed by mega natural disasters live out on a global scale that ancient curse. The solution to the brokenness of this world is once again being reconciled to God.

It is only by being God centered again that we can be properly self-centered by having a healthy self-image, be other-centered by caring for the good of others, and be world centered by truly caring for the world that God created. This is what atonement does for us. It reconciles us to God through Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins, and by reconciling us to God it reconciles us to each other and to the world at large. That is why Paul writes in Romans 8:19, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God,” i.e. people who have been reconciled to God through Jesus.

Therefore what does this atonement look like in our everyday life? It takes the form of reconciliation with our-selves, our looks and our past. It means forgiving ourselves as God in Christ has forgiven us, and not being ashamed anymore. It takes the form of interpersonal, racial and ethnic reconciliation. It echoes the love song that beyond our superficial differences we are bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. It takes the form of taking care of our world, its plants, its animals and its resources. After all, according to Genesis 1, God created them all and called it all very good. It goes beyond party alliances or whether one agrees with Al Gore or not to what God gave humanity to do when He created humanity. In Genesis 2:15 we read that the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till and keep it. The Hebrew word samartranslated keep basically means to exercise great care over.[3]

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[1]Quoted in Scot McKnight’s A Community Called Atonement, pp. 15.

[2] Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology.Downers Grove: IVP 1999, pg. 322.

[3]Hamilton, Victor P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17 (NICOT), pp. 171

Fall

Fall comes to All

Death’s breath Crisp

Crumbling

A choice

As days fade

Hickory Yellow or Maple Red

9/11

In our Judeo-Christian tradition remembering is of utmost importance. Our identity as an individual or as a nation is influenced by what we remember about our past and about ourselves. In Exodus 13:3 we hear Moses urging the people of Israel to remember their great deliverance from Egypt. This act of remembering is established forever in the Jewish celebration of Passover, and this act of remembering was meant to be more than just a mental exercise of recalling a past event, but it was meant to shape the Jewish identity and how they lived. As they remembered generation after generation what God did when He brought them out of slavery in Egypt they were to remember their identity of being God’s free people and live accordingly no matter what socio-political situation they found themselves in.
As we approach another anniversary of that tremendous 9/11 tragedy that shook our country’s soul to the core we are called to ‘never forget.’ In essence we are called to remember and allow that remembrance to shape us as individuals, as a country, and influence how we live. As Miroslav Volf, director of the Yale University center of faith and Culture in a 2007 interview with Christianity Today editor Collin Hansen, points out, “Part of our identity as nation depends on what has happened to us in the past.”  But as Dr. Volf also points out in this interview, much of the conflict between people is “fueled by memory of what happened in the past.” One such example of hatred and conflict fueled by memory of what happened in the past is that of the often volatile relationship that exits between Hindus and Muslims in India. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that as we remember what happened on 9/11 we do not allow hatred to beget hatred. As we remember the hatred of terrorists, the bravery of those aboard United Airlines Flight 93, and of the firefighters, medics, police, civilians and countless others at the Pentagon and around the rubble that once was the gleaming twin towers, as righteous anger throbs once again in our brain and pain in our hearts let us be careful not to let that remembrance influence our identity in such a way that we become hateful towards those who are Muslims in this country. 
 Especially, as Christians we have a responsibility, as Dr. Volf would say, to let our memory of Jesus influence how we remember things in our past. In the Lord’s Supper tradition as narrated by Paul in 1Corinthians 11:23-26 Jesus in verses 24 and 25 is heard saying as He breaks the bread and takes the cup, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In essence what Jesus is saying also is, ‘Never forget.’ What Jesus is asking us to remember is His self-sacrifice for our sin, and allow that remembrance to inform our identity and how we live in this world.  And when we remember Christ’s death in such a way we remember not only what Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:10 that while we were God’s enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, but that Jesus died for our enemies also. This remembering of death of God’s Son for us who once were God’s enemies not only should influence how we live but also how we remember our past, how we remember even those past events in which someone has hurt us, and learn not to become bitter but better as a result, learn to forgive and love as God in Jesus Christ forgave and loved us. May the memory of 9/11 like the memory of the Holocaust always be with us reminding us of the evil that does not hesitate to do violence to human dignity and life, but may that memory be dwarfed by the shadow of the Cross that affirms and perpetuates human dignity and life before the eternal throne of God.