I read an interesting little book last month and I was reminded of a couple of things worth mentioning. This is a summary of an article entitled "A World Under Water."In the days of Noah, the world (κοσμος) came under judgment through its wickedness. From morning to night, every thought was only to do evil. Destruction was the righteous decree from heaven.
As the story goes, Noah spent some 100 years or more crafting his now-famous Ark. The rains eventually came, the floods rose and yet the Eight and their cargo remained safe in the buoyant vessel. The wicked world outside of the boat perished.
As the water rose to cover even the highest of mountains, the waterline demonstrated a certain reality: The world below the water was destroyed, annihilated; the world above was saved – “brought safely through the water.”
And this is the Apostle’s view of “salvation.” Salvation to him is not just “rescue from sins” or “escaping hell to receive heaven” but it is a very real movement from one world to another, from the kingdom of darkness to the
Notice Peter’s language in Acts 2. “Be saved from this perverse generation!” Everything about this generation, this world, this culture, this earth will be consumed. It is all condemned. It is all under judgment. It is all under divine wrath. “Be saved!” he cried out “from this world.” His meaning is that salvation consists in the transfer into the other “world.”
In 1 Peter 3, as Peter recounts the story of Noah’s salvation, we see Noah brought safely “through the water” – lifted from the κοσμος of condemnation to float in the world of God’s renewal and grace. And now baptism corresponds to this. “Baptism now saves you,” Peter says. * In the water, the old world is washed away, destroyed and annihilated. Sins are washed away and consciences are cleaned. The believer is brought safely through the water to life in the
Jesus said it. John said it. “Love not the κοσμος – the world. Everything about the world will be washed away in fire and judgment. This world with its power, technology, beauty, culture, intelligence, sensuality and art will all be consumed. The physical earth in its beauty will be consumed (and made new.**) Nothing of this world will remain or stand before God.
As a result, we must never let our affection rest on that which is doomed to melt. We must put our love and desire into that which will remain: The Triune God and His chosen people. God has effected our salvation, so we should never desire the things drifting below the waterline.-----------------------------------------
* There is much to be said about baptism's relationship to salvation, justification and regeneration that I won't say here. I did say it here.
** I have read a bit about the "New Heavens and the New Earth" but I ain't settled on it.
2 comments:
Thank you again, J. Sean K. called me a few days ago with (what amounted to me, and whether he intended it that way or not) a similar friendly punch in the kidney. i tend to be a conciliatory soul (to be read "closet syncretist"), but the world and the kingdom can't be reconciled, as you say. The trouble--the stumbling block-- for me comes (and it comes often) when i see the inhabitants of the world living more like i believe Christ lived than do the inhabitants of the kingdom. Sometimes i peer into the water (so to speak) and think i'd rather drown with some of those people than have to live in eternity with the whack jobs in the church. That's a strong thing to say maybe, and i'd never choose damnation so i could stoke my pride, but it has the effect of watering down or softening my dogmatic relentlessness. Thanks for the picture and the encouragement and the rebuke.
Yeah, the one-two punch combination of Jason & Sean floors yet another would-be syncretist.
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