We are continuing our series here of looking at some common, but I think faulty, Christian cliches that are frequently heard in Christian circles but not frequently analyzed in terms of their biblical validity. My hope in this series is to guide us into thinking more richly and fully about the Bible and its world. In our last post, we examined the charge to find "God's will for your life." In this post we will examine the common notion that we were not made for this world. This is a frequent assertion among Christians, and finds some rooting in the writings of C. S. Lewis, who famously stated, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Mere Christianity, 136-137). This statement is common, but is it accurate?
Now the simple fact is that humans were indeed (if we take Genesis to be indicating that God uniquely made us and placed us on planet earth) made for this world. God formed humanity as the pinnacle of His creation, making them as His "images" and that, as such, they might care for His world. Humans are thus fundamentally embodied creatures and fundamentally connected to the world God has created. So we were quite literally made for this world! Most of the references to the word "world" (kosmos) in the New Testament simply have a reference to "the earth and its inhabitants" in mind. This is thus a quite benign usage of the term. We do find, however, another nuance of the term in the New Testament which somewhat supports the notion of this cliche. A number of occurrences in the Johannine writings (John 12:25, 31; 14:17, 27, 30; 15:18-19; 16:8, 11, 20; 17:9, 13-16, 21, 23, 25; 18:36; 1 John 2:15-17; 3:1, 13, 17; 4:1-5; 5:4-5, 19), as well as in Paul's letters (Rom 3:6; 1 Cor 1:20-21, 27-28; 2:12; 3:19; 5:10; 6:2; 11:32; 2 Cor 7:10; Gal 4:3; 6:14; Eph 2:2; Phil 2:15; Col 2:8, 20; 1 Tim 6:7; Heb 11:7, 38; Jas 1:27; 3:6; 4:4; 2 Pet 1:4; 2:5, 20; 3:6), and in Revelation (Rev 11:15), use the term kosmos to refer to "this age" or, more specifically, "the world under the authority of the evil powers." It is not necessarily "the earth" or even "its inhabitants" that are opposed to God by this use of the term, but rather the dark system of authority which currently rules over the earth along with all who give it allegiance. As I suggested in my earlier post, Paul (and I think the Johannine author(s) as well) views the "world" as it is now as being under the forces of evil cosmic powers, including the evil one, "Sin," "Death," and the "authorities, principalities, etc." In other words, the tension between the kosmos and God and His kingdom exists because the system of the world and its evil rulers are currently battling (though futilely) against the program of God. Why is this significant? It is likely that it is not the earth itself which will be destroyed at the final judgment as is often asserted, but rather "the system" known as the kosmos which is under the authority of the evil powers. Thus, in 1 Corinthians 7:31, Paul states that "the present form of this world is passing away." Thiselton comments on this verse that "Paul's point is not the transiency of creation... but the fact that its outward pattern... has no permanence" (Thiselton, 1 Corinthians, 585). Likewise in Galatians 1:4, Paul states God has "rescued us from the present evil age", in Galatians 4:3, that, prior to Christ, "we were enslaved under the elemental spirits of the world" and in Colossians 1:13 that we were "rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His Beloved Son." We find a similar train of thought in 2 Peter 3. In drawing a parallel between the Noahic flood and the coming judgment, it says in 3:6, "the world that existed at that time was destroyed." It was not the whole earth that was destroyed (or else there would be no earth to live on today), but rather the "worldly system" of that period. Likewise, in 3:7, it is not the world which will be destroyed, but "ungodly people." Of this, Davids writes: "The focus of our author is not world history, but the final judgment of ungodly human beings. The heavens and the earth are “kept” (the same verb as that used for the fallen angels in 2 Pet 2:4) for this Day of Judgment. Yet the judgment is not of the creation but of human beings, just as the flood was not about the creation but about human evil. This point needs to be kept in mind as we move through the rest of the passage. Our author is not against the creation since that is something that God made. He does believe that it needs to be purified, but this purification is principally a purification of the human evil that has polluted it. Presumably, as with the deluge, the extent of the destruction by fire will be limited by that needed to wipe out human evil" (Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, 274). The consistent biblical picture is that God plans to restore the world by transforming His people and purging evil from it. Thus Paul in Romans 8:18-13 writes that the whole creation groans along with God's people as it waits for its restoration. What about Revelation 21? Doesn't that passage teach that the earth itself will be destroyed? Here we are told that the first earth "had passed away," but the text also says the sea did not exist any longer, implying that there is still some mass "left over" from the original earth. Thus "new" here can imply a qualitative distinction, indicating the earth has been "renewed" (cf. Romans 8), and thus is of a different order than it was previously. Beale puts it this way: "This is probably not a portrayal of a literal new creation but a figurative depiction... it is likely that the meaning of the figurative portrayal is to connote a radically changed cosmos... just as the body will be raised without losing its former identity" (Beale, The Book of Revelation, 1040). Why is the sea singled out in this text as destroyed (21:1)? In the latter half of the book, the beast arises from the sea (13:1), the sea is turned to blood (16:3), and the sea holds the dead (20:13). Apparently a part of the purging of death and evil from God's world is the purging of the sea itself. In the Old Testament, the sea often represents the chaotic forces, illustrated well by Psalm 74:12-17. Thus in the Jewish worldview, the sea was at times associated with the evil, chaotic forces which, according to Paul, God had conquered through the resurrection of Jesus and will one day permanently extinguish. To return to our question, there is good evidence that we were both made for this world and that we will live on a renewed earth in glorified resurrection bodies, free from death, evil, and chaos. Yet we also saw that the "world" represents that system of order which God will do away with. So if by the statement that "we were not made for this world," we mean that system of power structures which currently exercises authority on earth and which is opposed to God, we can say a hearty "amen." If, however, we mean that the earth will not survive the judgment of God, we might exercise caution in asserting that position in light of the weight of the evidence we find in the New Testament itself.
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