"In the Bible all authority belongs to God & is then delegated to Jesus. And the Bible is the God-given means thru which we know who Jesus is. We live under scripture b/c that is the way we live under the authority of God that has been vested in Jesus the Messiah, the Lord.
But what is God's authority there for? The point about God's authority is that the whole Bible is about God establishing his kingdom "on earth as in heaven," completing the project begun but aborted in Genesis 1-3. THIS is the big story that we must learn how to tell.
This is an organic story about God and the world. God's authority, vested in Jesus the Messiah, is about God reclaiming his proper lordship over all creation. AND THE WAY GOD PLANNED TO RULE OVER HIS CREATION FROM THE START WAS THRU OBEDIENT HUMANITY! The Bible's witness to Jesus declares that He, the obedient Man, has done this. But the Bible is then the God-given equipment thru which WE (the followers of Jesus) are equipped to be obedient STEWARDS, THE ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, BRINGING THE SAVING RULE OF GOD IN CHRIST TO THE WORLD.
Therefore, the Bible does what God wants it to do when, thru the power of the Spirit, it enables people to believe in Jesus, to follow Him, AND to share the work of the kingdom - not building the kingdom by our own efforts but building FOR the kingdom. We become sharers in God's kingdom work by loving Him w/heart, mind, soul & strength, and the Bible is the primary means the Spirit uses to bring about that heart-and-life renewal. The authority of scripture is therefore the DYNAMIC, not static, means by which God transforms humans into Jesus-followers and therefore kingdom-workers.
The Bible is not about the rescue of humans FROM the world but about the rescue of humans FOR the world, and indeed God's rescue of the world BY MEANS OF those rescued humans.
...Yes, Jesus was and is fully divine and fully human. But the POINT of his divinity in the Gospels is that in him and AS him the living God is becoming king. And the point of his humanity in the Gospels is that, in him and AS him, human beings are at last taking up again their God-given vocation of being the royal priesthood thru which God brings his wise, redemptive ordering to the garden. And yes, the good news is good news of salvation. But in the Bible we are saved not simply so we can go to heaven and enjoy fellowship w/God but so that we can be his truly human royal priesthood in his world. "You were slaughtered," sings the great crowd in Revelation 5 in praise of the Lamb, "and with your own blood you purchased a people for God,...AND MADE THEM A KINGDOM AND PRIESTS TO SERVE OUR GOD, AND THEY WILL REIGN ON EARTH."
God sets people right in order, thru them, to set the world right.
God put his wonderful world into human hands; human hands messed up the project; the human hands of Jesus the Messiah have now picked it up, sorted it out, and got it back on track (Ge 1-3)
"The calling of Adam" wrapped up in the intention of being created in God's image, isn't a secret property that humans possess somewhere in their genetic makeup, but, instead, is a vocation. As an image-bearing human being renewed in Jesus, we are called to be "an angled mirror," reflecting God's wise order into the world and the praises of all creation back to the creator. That is what it means to be the royal priesthood: looking after God's world is the royal bit; summing up creation's praise is the priestly bit.
The Bible sees the goal of humans being rescued so that we could sum up the praises of all creation and look after that creation as God's wise stewards. Genesis, the Gospels, Romans, and Revelation all insist that the problem goes like this: human sin has blocked God's purpose for creation, but God hasn't gone back on his creational purpose, which was and is to work in his creation thru human beings, his image bearers. He hasn't gone back on the plan; thru his true image bearer, Jesus the Messiah, He has rescued humans from sin & death in order to re-inscribe his original purposes, which include the extension of sacred space into all creation, until the earth is indeed filled w/God's knowledge & glory as the waters cover the sea.
We are rescued by the blood of the Lamb to be a royal priesthood, and the way that works, according to the NT, is the same way it worked for Jesus: taking up the cross as a suffering but joyful witness as we go & tell people the same message Jesus came to share: 'repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near,' in other words, this is the time when God is becoming king. "
[an excerpt from "Surprised by Scripture" by NT Wright]
We've been uniquely gifted and intentionally placed right where we are to bring His message into the rest of the world! Wherever God has you today is exactly where He wants you to bring His Good News! :)
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