The Theological Links of God the Creator with God as Lord, Judge, and Savior, Part 4
The Theological Links of God the Creator with God as Lord, Judge, and Savior, Part 4
The New Testament
(avg. read time: 6–12 mins.)
The appeals to the thematic links that are the subject of this series are also present in the NT. However, the uses of these links and the variety of them are more complex in the NT than what we have seen previously. In part, this greater complexity is due to the more complex Trinitarian picture of God that is made more explicit in the NT. It is also due, in part, to the practical, ethical application of these links.
Our first text is a demonstration of the latter. Matthew 5:45 illustrates the extent of God’s love as the motivation for loving one’s enemies. The whole point of the teaching is that those who were created to be image-bearers of God ought to be like God, including in how they love (5:48). As Creator, God shows favor to the righteous and the wicked, the just and the unjust, by sending sun and rain for them all. After all, part of what God does as Creator is to sustain the world he has created. As Creator, he shows love for his enemies, and thus those who rightly regard him as Father and Lord ought to show a similar completeness in love even for their enemies.
In a related but different vein, we see a link between God’s provision as Creator with seeking God’s kingdom in how one approaches life in general in Matt 6:25–34 (cf. 6:9–11). Again, Jesus appeals to the fact that God faithfully provides for and sustains creation. One can see the truth of this in the lilies of the field and birds of the air, even though these things are of lower status in the scheme of creation than those creatures God made to be his image-bearers. If one reasons from the lesser to the greater, one will rightly infer that God will provide for his people who seek first his kingdom in acknowledgement that the one they call King is their Creator. Likewise, although the connection is less direct, this thematic connection also illuminates the Lord’s Prayer, as the one they pray to for his kingdom to come on earth as in heaven is the same one who is Creator who provides for the daily existence of his creation (6:9–11).
John’s prologue in 1:1–18 is, of course, a text we have examined already from the perspective of Wisdom theology/Christology. But along similar lines, one can also see the thematic links that have been the focus of this series. We are told that the Word was with God in the beginning, and indeed was God. What follows this declaration has a way of conveying the work of the Creator both in terms of the direction/governance of history according to his purpose, and in terms of the origination of creation. Indeed, as noted in that previous analysis, there is a connection of creation and eschatology here, as the Word who made all things come to be has now become incarnate in creation to accomplish the work of new creation (vv. 12–14). The same God who is Creator is also the Redeemer, for he is the one who continues his work of creation in bringing history to its culminative fulfillment through the grace and truth in him (vv. 15–18).
Acts 4:24–30 invokes God as Creator both in terms of his power and in terms of his governance of creation. Here, the Christians appeal to God as the one who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them, as we have seen at multiple points in previous texts (v. 24). They seek God’s empowerment and encouragement (in the most literal sense of giving courage or boldness) to proclaim the gospel of Jesus in the face of all the opposition they see from the powers that be (vv. 27–29). Even the imagery of the outstretched arm as the imagery of God’s power to save is invoked in this prayer (v. 30). Alongside this invocation of God’s power, there is also the invocation of his governance of creation in the description of Jesus as the one who was anointed to do whatever God’s hand and plan had predestined to do (vv. 27–28).
Another text in Acts connects God being the Creator with God being the Lord and the Judge. When Paul preaches at the Areopagus in Athens, he takes as a prompt the dedicatory altar inscription “to the unknown god” (17:23). It is this unknown God that Paul proclaims to them, for he is the God who is the Creator of the cosmos and everything in it, the Lord of heaven and earth (v. 24). Already in this opening move Paul links God as Creator with God as Lord. And as with several texts noted in the other parts, this sets God apart from the gods worshipped with idols, for he does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, nor is he provided for by people, because he is the one who provides for all, sustaining them at every moment of existence (vv. 24–29; cf. Rom 1:18–23). While the Creator has tolerated ignorance that leads to idolatry in the past, he is now calling on everyone to repent, because he is the Judge to whom all of creation is accountable (vv. 30–31). He has revealed the coming judgment through the resurrection of the one through whom he will judge the world (v. 31). God the Creator has thus also acted as the Savior in the resurrection of Jesus, the one through whom he opens the way of repentance to salvation for others. As we saw with 2 Macc 7 and others, God’s work of creation is linked with his work of resurrection, but now it is more specifically mediated through the Resurrected One.
Another case in which God’s work of creation is linked to his work of resurrection is in Rom 4:16–17. Here, Paul draws upon the promise that God would make Abraham the father of many nations, which is fulfilled in the new covenant by Abraham being a father in faith to those of many nations of Jews and gentiles. The God Abraham had faith in is the same God with whom the Christians are united by faith, being the God who calls into being what is not (i.e., creation) and makes alive the dead (i.e., resurrection). The God who is the Creator is the God who creates the new creation, including by resurrection. The appeal is both to the power of God demonstrated in each of these acts and, because of the covenantal context, to his inexorable, faithful love shown in provision of descendants and in resurrection of the dead.
A third text that relies on this thematic link to connect creation and resurrection is 1 Cor 15:36–41. I address this text in much greater detail in my chapter on 1 Cor 15 in my dissertation. I will try to briefly summarize the relevance of it to our subject here. To reiterate, in the worldview framework that Paul shares with the other texts we have seen to this point, the Creator remains sovereign over the continuing operation of creation. When one combines this assumption with the larger structure of covenantal theology, the expectation arises that if the God of creation is the God of covenant, then the promises of God will come to pass by the same power and fidelity that keeps the cosmos functional. In this worldview, the covenantal promises of divine presence and divine kingdom are interlocked with the promise of new creation. Paul demonstrates this logic in multiple ways, as resurrection is necessary to the fulfillment of covenantal promises of the kingdom and to the fulfillment of God’s creative purposes in new creation.
Interpreters have often taken the references to seeds and the different bodies of creation as presenting metaphors via analogies for the resurrection that Paul describes in the next unit in vv. 42–49. But it is more likely that vv. 36–41 establish the cosmological frame of reference relating the present creation to the new creation in which the resurrection will be as instrumental as the creation of humanity was to the present one (cf. vv. 20–28). Both the “sowing,” which properly refers to the creation of humans rather than to burial, and the raising operate by the same principles of God’s creation, namely teleology (“God gives it a body just as he has purposed”) and differentiation (“to each of the seeds a body of its own”). Thus we see the importance of God’s creative purpose in the thematic links made, in this case between creation and salvific action. God, of course, has the power to raise the dead, but he has also determined bodies for them according to his purpose for new creation. Indeed, vv. 42–49 convey, as I explain in my dissertation, that the resurrection bodies are precisely bodies that are fit for the new creation.
The next text that makes these connections in a more direct fashion is Heb 1:2–4, a text I have written about at some length in published work. As I argued in that article, we have a situation like the Johannine Prologue where God’s work as Creator is invoked not only in the origination of things, but also in the direction/governance of history. After all, it is said that the Son is the one through who God made the aionas, which is properly translated “ages,” not “worlds” or any other similar idea. He created the ages in terms of directing history towards his purpose, which comes to its culmination in the incarnate life of the Son. As such, this text shows that the continuity of God the Creator with God the Savior is established by the fact that the same God and the same Son—the one described as the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of his being/person—are involved in both. This is likewise confirmed by the fact that God appointed the Son as heir of all things, an eschatological hope tied to all things in creation, and that the Son upholds or sustains all things by his powerful word, which again reminds us of the importance of God’s faithful sustaining work as a ground of hope in OT and Second Temple texts. This same Son, in order to make possible salvation for the things he upholds and his Father directs towards his purpose for history, made purification for sins and sat down in his exalted position at the right hand of God, as befits his stature above even the angels as the executor of God’s will from creation to eschaton and every time in between.
These thematic links are more implicit in the one text of note from 1 Peter, namely 4:12–19. God is not referenced as Creator until the last sentence, but as the conclusion following the “therefore,” it is meant to illuminate what has come before it. First, the suffering in accordance with God’s will is indicated by the rest of the passage to be sharing in Christ’s suffering and thus being conformed to him with whom they are in union. As this is the fulfillment of God’s will, to maintain faithful obedience to the same even through suffering, it is ultimately tied to God’s creative purpose for humanity, the creatures he made to bear his image. And this faithfulness to God’s will defined by obedience is similarly linked to God being the Lord to whom such obedience is owed. Second, this is further supported by the fact that this faithfulness in suffering is reflective of the Creator who is described as faithful, and it is a reminder that the Creator himself is faithful to do what he has said and to sustain creation through his provision that maintains existence. Third, this whole statement follows the point about God’s judgment beginning with the house of God. Thus, we see again a link between the fact that God is Creator who shows faithful concern for his creation and setting it aright and the fact that God is Judge, the one who holds all of his creation accountable.
As I noted at the start of this series, the thematic links that have been examined here operate at levels in text beyond immediate connection. Revelation is a prime example of this, as, even though it is focused on the consummation of history and the build-up to it, it supplies a framework for looking at history as a whole. As such, these links have a more pervasive influence than is properly conveyed by singular texts. But as our focus is on the latter, that is all we will look at here. As in John 1 and Heb 1, the reference to Jesus as the ἀρχή of creation in 3:14, both in the larger context of Revelation and in the context of this specific letter to the Laodiceans (note in particular the reference to his throne in v. 21), conveys that Jesus himself links God’s creative action with his royal and salvific action. As I have noted before, the term itself likely has a double entendre that cannot be easily conveyed in English that refers to his work both in the origination of creation (as the “beginning” or “principle”) and in its governance/rule. One of the praises in ch. 4 also links God as Lord with the fact that God is the Creator who is the source of all that exists (4:11). The most direct link between God the Creator with God the Judge appears in 14:7, when the first of the three angels calls for fearing God and giving him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come, and he should be worshiped as the one who made all things. As such, the proper response to the prospect of judgment is to act accordingly with the fact that the Judge is the Creator.