The Larger Story

Is your life headed somewhere? Does it have meaning or is it simply a lot of activity, signifying nothing?

Christianity teaches there is a meta-narrative. Our lives are sub-plots within a larger story that is carrying all of life forward to its completion—the continuing story of creation.

Plot Summary

Here’s an encapsulized version of the story from Dr. Kerry Koller:

Reality as we know it is the result of a creator God bringing into being a world that is other than Himself, and yet which is full of His glory. It was always the intention of this God that creation should one day be flooded with His own life, in the way in which is was prepared from the very beginning. As part of the means to this end the creator brought into being a creature which by bearing the creator’s image would bring His wise and loving care to bear on creation. By a tragic irony the creature in question has rebelled against this intention. But the creator has solved this problem in principle... and as a result is now moving the creation once more towards its originally intended goal. The implementation of this solution now involves the indwelling of this God within His human creatures and ultimately within the whole of creation, transforming it into that for which it was made in the beginning. That is the story of Christianity.

Act 1: The Collapse of Paradise

God’s intention was that humanity would oversee all of creation on His behalf. However, through rebellion and disobedience (i..e, sin) humankind turned against God and ruptured our relationship with Him and our relationship with one another. Death came into the world.

In response God begins to form a new humanity to which He can hand over creation, through whom he can flood all of creation with His presence. His entire effort is acting through his new humanity to transform the world into the paradise of the original creation.

The prophets look forward to a new Garden of Eden: the land released from a curse, abundant and yielding fruit, with animals once again living in peaceful submission to mankind again, and men living in harmony.

Examples:

Ezekiel 47:12; "Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."

Isaiah 25:6-9;. "On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. In that day they will say 'Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.'"

More importantly, way beyond that, God directly announces that He intends to dwell in each human being, through the person of His Holy Spirit.

Jeremiah 31:31-33; "The time is coming declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt because they broke my covenant though I was a husband to them declares the LORD. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time declares the LORD. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people."

Ezekiel 36:26-27; "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

But through all of this sin continued to undercut God’s efforts. Israel was fickle and inconsistent...

Act II. A New Humanity is Born

Finally God acted to undercut and destroy the sin which had worked against his designs by sending His only Son Jesus whose death and resurrection sets us free. He sent His Spirit as His own presence within us. In Christ God creates the new humanity.

This new humanity undoes the effects of sin by living in the power of the Holy Spirit, living under the reign of God. It runs the world as God intended Adam to run the world. This new humanity, living in Christ, is the people through whom God works, transforming the earth. It’s not the only people he’s working with, but it’s the center of His action.

Note that this is not a story about humans fleeing the earth for some transcendent, spiritual, disembodied state; or punching your ticket so you can sit on a cloud. This is a story of working with God in our everyday events of our everyday lives to bring about the transformation of the whole universe. In Romans 8 Paul writes:

The created order is on tiptoe with expectation, longing for the children of God to be revealed because the created order itself is to be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Just as the created order was subjected to futility through man, through Adam and his descendants, just so the created order is being set free and transformed by man Jesus and those in whom he dwells through the power of His Spirit, in us and in all of those He calls to Himself.

Act III. The New Humanity Today

What is our role in the story? What should we do?

(A.) If You’re Not a Christian.

Each one of us has to repent and turn to Christ, and that means we must swear our allegiance to Jesus and give up our allegiance to the sin in our flesh and in the world. There is no King but Christ.
Join God’s family. Through Christ God makes you a member of this new creation. He forgives you your sins and becomes your Father. He gives you baptized brothers and sisters. So, let Jesus come to dwell in you. Be transformed in Christ.

(B.) If You Are a Christian.

We need to live this new life in the power of the Spirit and be that new humanity.

First, it is a distortion to think of Christianity in individualist terms. Christianity is not only about one’s personal interiority or personal piety. It is a matter of being a people, the new humanity, changing the way life is lived on the face of the earth.
The people of God should be living a radical and visible life in the power of God’s Spirit. The first-century Christians proclaimed that God had acted in a definitive way on His covenant promises and it showed. If today we announced that "in Christ the world has changed" it would be reasonable for someone to ask us "Where is the change?" It would be pretty lame to respond "Well, people’s hearts have changed. They have different ideas. They have better and different feelings than they used to. They are more interior." We need to be about the actual, recognizable transformation of the world.
We are to be Christ. We are to be an instance of the Kingdom of God, the place where God dwells and reigns. That means that we need to live together in a kind of counter-culture. Following Jesus is like joining a revolution. It’s more like membership in the Communist party than a spiritual club.

As our life in Christ grows, as we make advances, as we put more in common, as we become more self-controlled, as we serve one another more, as we are more merciful, just and loving, then Christ dwells more and more in the world. God’s plan is to unite all things in Christ. God became incarnate in Christ and He is still incarnate in the world today. From Revelation 21: "The dwelling of God is with men."

Let’s live our part in the great story: the marriage of heaven and earth, unfolding all around us in human history. It’s a huge and complicated story, which God is moving forward. As we live the life our Director is calling us to, the story will come to full fruition.

From Guardian Et Sps: Let us live with the hope that after we have spread on earth the fruits of our nature in our enterprise according to the command of the Lord and in His Spirit, we will in the resurrection find them once again, cleansed this time from the stain of sin, illuminated and transformed.