IS GOD DEAD?
APRIL 19 2015
Let me assure you right away that God is not dead. Can I say that he has retired? Yes, that makes more sense: he has removed himself from the scene in an ultimate act of humility to make place for Jesus. How else could Jesus inherit the Kingdom and we become co-heirs with him? Only at the death of the testator or with an assumption of power of attorney by another person can a transfer from one generation to the next be accomplished. Colossians 1: 15-20 is the key to understanding this drastic change. It bears repeating.
“He, Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by him all things were created……..He is before all things and in him and by him all things hold together…… For God has pleased to have all fullness dwell in him and reconcile to him all things on earth or in heaven by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross”.
There you have it: everything imaginable is now in the hands of Jesus.
Why did Jesus come and God disappear?
Paul in this key-passage of the Bible tells us that Christ, by making the ultimate sacrifice, death on the cross, has now taken God’s place. For all practical purposes an orderly succession has taken place, from father to son. The coming of Jesus Christ into the world had as its sole intention the restoration of the Kingdom, the new heaven and earth. We need a new world because the present one is so damaged by us that it needs a complete overhaul. Christ’s suffering and death, indeed the entire order of redemption, had no other pur¬pose than the realization of that Kingdom. The central point of the gospel is not us poor humans and our pain and suffering: its entire focus is aimed at the unique, powerful reality that God wants to reinstate his Kingdom that was lost in the Garden of Eden.
Here is another truth: there is no such thing as individual salvation. All sal-vation is of necessity universal. We are saved as members of the Kingdom, as future occupants of the New Creation. “Seek first the Kingdom”, Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. Our goal in life can never be that we personally may enjoy God and be saved in him. The goal of our life can only be that we again become part of the wider context of the King¬dom of God, where all things are again unified under the one and only all wise will of him who lives and rules for ever. Just as Adam’s sin shattered the world, so it will again become an orga¬nic unity in Christ. Christ is not only the priest who for us has restored the way back to communion with God, but he is also the King who estab¬lishes his saving rule over this fallen world. When he appears, says John the Baptizer, “the Kingdom of heaven is near” (Matt. 3:2), and when Jesus himself starts to preach the gospel in Judea and Galilee, his initial message is none other than the single proclamation that “the Kingdom of heaven is near” (Matt. 4:17). Through his suffering and death Christ rein¬states the Kingdom and unites in him all things under God’s rule. When he heals the sick, raises the dead and rebukes the demons, he demonstrates that all the strands of world his¬tory converge in him.
That kingdom comprises everything: it is always universal and cosmic in scope, benefiting the entire creation. Fact is that Christ, in his author¬ity over storm and sea, demonstrates that in him God’s Kingship embraces the entire world, which would be meaningless without him.
You’re not convinced?
Forget about heaven: believing of going there is the ultimate heresy. Here on earth we must find our calling, promoting the welfare of creation in preparation of the coming of the perfect earth. Jesus always used down-to-earth stories to illustrate his teaching. He was so popular because the Pharisees spoke in legal terms: the law, the law, the law is the goal. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The entire ministry of Jesus was to prepare the people of his day and the people of all eras, including, especially including the people today, for the Kingdom to come.
There is a parable that illustrates this entire concept.
It is the well-known parable of the Prodigal Son. The word ‘prodigal’ might turn you off, because it is not a word you or I use in daily life. Actually the word comes from the Latin – as so many of the English words- ‘prodigium’ meaning among others ‘an unnatural thing’. Thus the word ‘prodigal’ could be a person who goes against nature. Hmm, does that make us all ‘prodigal”?
You find the passage in Luke 15. In short this is what it says. A very well-to-do father had two sons, both of quite different characters. The younger son is quite rude, actually. He says to the father – Jesus here suggests that the Father represents God, the father – “It’s about time you kick the bucket and divide the estate. Life is more than mere work, and I want to enjoy myself.” So, believe it or not, the father complies, leaves the real estate – the entire farm enterprise – to the one son and his investment portfolio to the other. The young rascal cashes it all in and goes to the city where he lives as if his funds will last forever, as if his resources are infinite, exactly the way we live. Then depression hits, the stock market collapses, he loses all his ready cash, his friends leave him, and he is forced to take a dirty laborer job, tending pigs, the lowest of all chores. He comes to his senses, returns to the estate – broke and repentant at the mercy of the other son – where the father welcomes him, throws a big home-coming party. The other son gets wind of this, is upset and leaves.
What’s the real meaning of all this?
When Jesus tells a story his words have meaning for all eras, and for each of these eras the meaning is different as we progress in understanding.
So let me transpose this story to today. The youngest son sets the ball rolling. He approaches the father, states his intention that he wants to have the father step back completely – basically play dead – so that he can claim his part of the estate. To his surprise the father agrees, thinking perhaps that this is the best way to make a man of him (Deuteronomy 32: 29 comes to mind ‘to see what sort of person he really is’). Without delay the entire estate is divided up: the older son gets the real estate, the buildings, the land, the tools and farmhands that go with it, while the younger one gets all the other assets, the gold, silver, cash, stocks, bonds. It is well to remember that the older son retains the source of all the riches and remains responsible for the development.
We know the story: the younger son squanders his assets and returns.
So what is at stake here?
I see the father of the two so different boys as God who surrenders title to the two parties: the older in charge of the kingdom and its vision, the younger free to do with the earth’ treasures as he sees fit. In other words: church and world.
First the younger one: after a life of debauchery he returns to the father, who had granted him leave to experiment. There’s where our generation too finds itself. The younger son pours out his heart: “Father forgive me. I have sinned. I have acted against nature, wasted so much. I am not worthy to be called your son.”
The father replies: “you were dead, but now you are alive. Let’s celebrate.” This reply reminds me of Jesus’ words in the Last Supper (Matthew 26: 29) where he says that the next time “I will drink wine with you in my Father’s Kingdom, the New Creation.” Take note: real wine that gladdens the heart.
The Father and the younger son, now totally repentant, represent the new state of the Kingdom, an eternal party, complete with wine and the delicacies of the earth. The younger son once represented the consumer society which has now pretty well used up whatever the earth contains and now is at its wit’s end. He has seen the error of his ways, seen the futility of the throwaway society, has been reborn to the New Creation way.
And the older brother?
This is a more complicated matter. He is not the curious type. Rather than investigate the source of merriment – so unusual since he had total control – he asks a servant to find out what’s going on. This in itself portrays the person. Rather than going himself he asks somebody else to call out the father for explanation.
The curious part of this tableau is that of the three persons in this drama, he is the only one who did not die. The Father did when he divided the estate, the younger son did when he was at his wit’s end and was reborn to a new state. So how do I picture the older son? I see him as the stern Calvinist, the self-righteous Right-winger who has God in his pocket. I see him, nostrils flared, deep furrows on his face, shouting “Music! Dancing! Wine! And that in the middle of the work-week! Who’s minding the store?”
In my mind the older son represents the church, the institution in charge of proclaiming the Kingdom, and the instrument of preparing the people for the Coming of the New Creation, and failing to do so. Although Jesus had the then church in mind, the Pharisees so set in their ways, it is no different today. The contemporary church has not died to the old, has not embraced the vision of the Kingdom, but is still clinging to the outdated – Greek philosophy inspired – heaven heresy.
Back to Today
Both the church and the world are in an impasse. The old remedies no longer work. From basically the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the 1970s or maybe a little later we have seen material progress at work. During all that time, there was a steady increase in the availability of energy per capita. By White’s Law, which is one of the basic principles of human ecology, economic development is function of energy per capita. That is now coming to an end. We are at a cross road. We are running into the limits to resource extraction, as the cost of resource extraction start rising. Even though everybody is emotionally committed to the myth of progress, matters have stalled. The church too is confused and dying.
What to do now?
We have to plod on. God is still out there, the Father always on the lookout. He never interfered in the parable, and he will not intervene now either. We are on our own. There are no more easy answers. This is crunch time.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer saw this coming. He says that before we can meet Jesus in the New Creation we must reach a degree of maturity. Bonhoeffer calls this “coming of age.” Here’s what he wrote: “So our coming of age leads to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have to know that we must live as people who manage our lives without him.” (Letters from Prison.)
In other words, as we live in an age where God is hidden, it’s more and more a time where we have to assume greater responsibility whether we are ready or not. Bonhoeffer uses the phrase “coming of age.” Coming of age, in the context of our present situation, where the entire world is at the edge of total collapse, not only environmentally but also financially and morally, means that we have to be ready to meet our Maker. Jesus calls himself The Son of Man, meaning he personifies the human race. Coming of age means that we are ready to present ourselves as worthy representatives of humanity, fully aware of our place and task in the present situation and ready to take our place in the New Creation.
Is God dead? No, he is there in Jesus Christ, the firstborn of creation, the first really true human, but also the Primus inter pares, the First among us, his equals.