RAISED TO LIFE Part II

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. Desmond Tutu

The Bible Narrative is one of hope. It starts and ends with KINGDOM - humans ruling and reigning, in the presence of God.

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

Genesis 2:7-10

Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. The LORD God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river went out from Eden to water the garden.

Genesis 2:15-17 The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

Revelation 22:1-5

​Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.

The Bible starts well, and ends well, from garden to garden city. The similarity in imagery in Eden and in John's Revelation is striking. In between these bookends, we have the story of man's REBELLION, God's RESCUE mission, man's RESPONSE and a RESURRECTION for all creation.

REBELLION

Most of us know the story of the fall well. Genesis 3. The choice to go against the word of God and follow the word of the snake. The consequence? Death. Not immediate physical death. Rather a state of living death. There was relational "death" between the humans themselves, and between them and God. There was a spiritual "death" in the sense that there was a moral and spiritual separation from God. Paul calls this being dead in sin (Eph 2, Col 2), and a physical death - a split between the dust and the divine breath from Gen 2.

This is the reality of this present age - a state of living death. We are alive, but not in the way we were created to be.<