Individual
to cosmic dimension of salvation
The
dimensions of Christ’s finished work are both individual and cosmic. They range
from personal pardon for sin and individual forgiveness to the final
resurrection of our bodies and the restoration of the whole world. There is a
great paradigm shift from individual dimension of salvation to a cosmic
aspects. The Fall had universal implications. All of creation groans under the
curse. History is marked by horrendous evil. Systems, powers and authorities
(“religious” and secular) often stand in direct opposition to God. Beings in
the spiritual realm continue to rebel against God and do harm to his creation.
God is remedying this as well. Through the life, death, and resurrection of
Jesus he dealt a fatal blow to the powers of evil. While still wielding great
ability to do harm, their end is assured, and will be complete when God makes
all things new. When that happens all of creation will stand in its proper
relation to Christ. The mission of God and salvific activities of Jesus Christ
is not just pointed to individual mankind but for the whole world, the cosmos
and everything created.
David
Bentley Hart argues that ‘…salvation
is cosmic in scope and includes all creation; that the promised Kingdom of God
will be nothing but this world restored and transfigured by the glory of God,
in its every dimension, vegetal, animal, rational, and social; and that a
deified humanity will serve therein as a cosmic priesthood, receiving that
glory from Christ and mediating it to the natural world. He would also
undoubtedly have encountered the now quite standard eschatological motif of the
redeemed cosmos as the burning bush: pervaded by the divine glory, but
unconsumed—an infinitely realized theophany.’
NT
Scholar and popular theologian, N.T. Wright, has written a lot about a
cosmic salvation a shift from individual dimension as “remained intensely
personal in its radical application, but only because it was first cosmic and
global in scope: the world had a new lord, the Jewish Messiah, raised from the
dead.”
God’s
mission or plan of salvation is not to create a great universal church but to
create a great world.
Before Willingen, the primary focus
of missions of the church was more or less on saving human souls from eternal
damnation. But when God’s mission is understood as God’s love towards the whole
world, it widened the understanding of salvation towards the whole creation and
not just on the salvation of human beings. As David J Bosh comments, “Since
God’s concern is for the entire creation, this also should be scope of Missio
Dei. Mission is God’s turning to the world in respect of creation, care,
redemption and consummation” God has reconciled not only the individuals, but
also the world to Himself, even the cosmic forces (2 Cor 5:19; Col 1:20). The
development in the theme ‘Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation’ gave a space
to re-imagine the scope of salvation beyond the anthropocentric view of salvation.
As K.C. Abraham rightly points out, “The church is cosmically oriented and
participates in God’s cosmic mission. It is not for human alone, but for the
whole of God’s cosmos. Its aim is...transformation of whole cosmos” The entire
universe is capable of and longing for liberation and sanctification. As St.
Paul says (Romans Chapter 8:19-23), the whole creation is groaning for the
redemption of entire creation.
The
whole cosmic order is created not out of compulsion, but out of God’s free
will, goodness, wisdom, love and omnipotence. Since creation is the work of
God, created order has its own integrity. It is the good work of the good God.
Everything that God had made was very good. Before their fall, Adam and Eve
experienced the creation as one harmonious whole. The human fall introduced
forces of disintegration into the body of creation. So salvation means
salvation from sin or alienation. It includes the cosmos. It involves calling
persons to commitment to the kingdom of God, justice, peace and ecological
health of the land.
.jpg)
.jpg)