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God’s goodness messed up—Genesis 2—3

Genesis lavishly depicts God’s goodness, but also warns of the consequences of choosing to reject that goodness. Genesis 1 emphasizes that God, the master artist, exquisitely designed what was good and beautiful, including diverse creatures that could reproduce and fill the world. In this narrative, it appears that God delights in such creativity. He also designs it practically and in complex, interwoven ways: he created some things for the benefiting of others within this larger system of nature (1:29-30).

Genesis highlights that what God did was “good.” With each phase of creation, God sees that what he has made is “good” (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), but after he makes humans, the climax of his creation, he sees that it is “very good” (1:31). (In some circles someone might accuse me here of “species-ist bias” but this special role for human beings is really in the biblical text—☺.)

Genesis appeals to a different recounting of creation in ch. 2 to provide a different but theologically complementary picture of origins. Here the man is formed before trees and apparently even plants (2:5-9), at least in the man’s sphere of the world. But God provides trees that are pleasing to look at and “good” for food (2:9)—welcoming us to delight in creation’s beauty and tasty fruit. Genesis even mentions the goodness of gold from a region in 2:12.

Moreover, when God sees that something is “not good,” he remedies it. Seeing that it’s “not good” for the man to be alone, God provides him a suitable companion (2:18).

In this opening section of the Bible, God makes a good world and blesses us beyond measure. He delights in the people he has made like a parent might delight in their infant child.

Yet he gives one—just one—prohibition: people are not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:17). The man and woman in this account already experience good from what God had created, but they have no way to distinguish it from anything else because they don’t yet know evil. (Thus nakedness, considered shameful in Israel’s culture, is not yet a problem, 2:25.) They will experience the difference between good and evil only once they know evil as well as good. God here warns them because he wants to protect them, just as we want to shield our infants from what is harmful to them. God of course knew the difference between good and evil himself, but in his case not by doing evil; by this point in the narrative even a previously uninformed reader can recognize from God’s works that he is purely good.

In Genesis 3 the serpent, however, challenges God’s motives (3:5), so that the woman recognizes that the tree is good for food and beautiful to look at (3:6). Keep in mind that in this respect the tree is no different from what we know about the garden’s other trees (2:9)—other trees from which they were allowed to eat. The key differences were that this tree’s fruit could also make one “wise” (3:6)—in knowing good and evil (3:5)—and that this one tree’s fruit was prohibited (2:17)! That the woman’s husband, who is with her, already knew that the penalty was death (2:17) and eats only after her (3:6) might suggest that he waited to see if the fruit would kill her before eating it! In any case, these mortals are now cut off from continual life. God would not let humanity live forever in that fallen state (3:22).

This narrative shows how the human propensity to mess up goes way back a long time; we still mess up today, and often for the same kinds of fundamental reasons, though now we already start with this huge deficit as our heritage. In striving to experience equality with God, however, the man and woman lost their role. (When people today ignore God, they seek to displace him with other things—things that will never truly fulfill us, because God created us for a greater, ultimately eternal, purpose in relationship with him.)

By mistrusting God’s goodness, we squander the precious gifts he has laid at our disposal. God had made humanity stewards of the earth, like a vizier subordinate only to him (1:26-28), higher than most gods appeared in ancient pagan pantheons. In 2:15, God put the man in the garden to “keep it” (NRSV and NASB; “take care of it,” NIV), a term that could also mean to “guard” it; but in 3:24 the same Hebrew term is applied to the cherubim stationed to guard the tree of life—to keep people away from it.

Consistent with the themes in Genesis, Paul traces humanity’s blindness to lack of gratitude (Rom 1:21). God has been good to us. We humans messed up his good world, but God still loves us (cf. Gen 3:21) and seeks to restore us. The text’s message spoke to ancient Israel and still speaks to us today. Ancient Israelite hearers of these accounts knew that God blessed them with a good land flowing with milk and honey; but if they disobeyed, God would expel them (Lev 18:28; 20:22) as he expelled transgressors from the garden in Genesis. However else we read Genesis 2—3, its theology invites us to recognize God’s goodness and eagerly turn to follow his way. Even in this world that we messed up, with all its troubles, signs of his goodness remain. Let’s recognize them and thank this one who loves us most.

(See also Creation as God’s lavish love.)

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Living simply to serve the poor–Luke 12:33

Christianity Today published Craig’s article, “When Jesus Wanted All my Money,” at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/may/when-jesus-wanted-all-my-money.html. It was supposed to be about a verse that impacted him, so he chose Luke 12:33 and developed it in light of a theme that runs throughout Luke’s Gospel, sharing also how it impacted him.

Later note: this article is now locked for nonsubscribers to CT, so that only the opening paragraphs are visible. For nonsubscribers, a full copy of a related article will be posted here, probably in August 2015.

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Creation as God’s lavish love—Genesis 1

In its ordered, schematic way, Genesis 1 sketches God’s power, his creativity, his brilliant design, and his loving and careful delight in what he has created. His power is easily evident. God simply speaks, and the variety of things spring into being, generally from less to more complex. Moreover, God then gives his creation a degree of independence to act and propagate on its own rather than waiting for him to create each new creature.

Most people in the ancient Middle East and Mediterranean worlds believed in a sort of primeval chaos. Here, however, God establishes the world’s orderly design, commanding each form of life to reproduce according to its kind. God organized creation so that birds bring forth birds and cattle bring forth cattle; he provided genetically for continuity in forms of life. (Genesis was not written to address modern scientific interests; the point here is God’s order from one generation to the next, not resistance to change over aeons of time. Both continuity and change may belong to the potencies God invested in life forms, although God certainly has the power to direct the processes.)

The passage emphasizes God’s great benevolence. God supplied waters for fish to live in, and air and land for other creatures to dwell in. Genesis further shows that the very celestial lights worshiped by pagans are simply part of God’s gift to regulate life on earth (Gen 1:14-18). All these things were good, God recognized, but he wasn’t finished. The pinnacle of his good creation was people. As sun and moon governed night, God formed humanity to govern earth for him. In many of the previous cases God simply commanded earth or water to bring forth life forms; in this instance, by contrast, he himself lovingly fashioned us directly.

God not only formed us in a special way, but he fashioned us in his own image, to be like him. Scholars sometimes point out that kings established images of themselves widely as symbols of their rule. While this analogy may play a role here, Genesis itself reveals an even deeper message. What does it mean to be in someone’s likeness and image? In this section a Genesis, a father has a son in his likeness and image (Gen 5:3). When God made us in his image, he was saying that he desired us to be, and loved us as, his own sons and daughters. Even after the fall, God valued humans as those made in his image (Gen 9:6). Nothing that humans could make, imitating anything in creation, could fill this role (Deut 4:16), but God granted us to be in his image. God’s act of creating us was an act of love, an invitation to intimate fellowship with himself.

As benevolently as he had made everything before people, God now finished his creative work with lavish generosity. He wanted the creatures most like their creator to govern the rest of his world for him, stewards with access to everything. God gave them and other animals access to all the plants for their food. With each of his previous creations, God had concluded that it was good; with the creation of people, however, he declared that he had made the world very good. When we read Genesis 1, we can celebrate with the great artist and his beautiful, interdependent design. Every week when we rest from our work we are invited to remember God’s gift in creation and how he rested afterward (Exod 31:17).

Genesis 1 reveals how lavishly God blessed us. Like the different but theologically complementary perspective in Genesis 2, this account (Gen 1:1—2:4, from “the beginning to the “completion” in 2:1) helps set the stage for the tragic vision of Gen 3: our failure as humans to be recognize his benevolence and be grateful. We squandered our gracious God’s gifts and ruined them, ruining ourselves in the process. Even so, this kind God showed his care for humanity (3:21) and continued to deal with us (4:4, 15). Thus begins the saga of redemption, the story that carries throughout the Bible. We people keep messing up, yet God keeps pursuing us, relentlessly seeking those who will embrace his way.

The days of creation are a schematic device to remind us that God took his time to lovingly craft a world teeming with life that could run largely on its own, with just some human supervision to tend it for its good. This passage explains the abundant provision God has given us in this world, his masterpiece. Some pagan stories of creation at the time explained creation as the result of unintentional, violent interactions among deities, but Genesis is clear that one God lovingly designed the world in an exquisite, orderly way. Genesis 1 introduces this God of love, who furnished such an orderly world and crowned us the pinnacle of his creation. Humans, who ruined paradise, are still invited as heirs in the Lord’s new creation.

That’s the theological climax of this post. I turn briefly anticlimactically to a different point: those who turn Genesis 1 into a science debate about the age of creation miss the real theological issue here. (My younger brother Chris, a scientist and committed Christian, often rightly laments how many good scientists get turned off to the Bible by some Christians’ prosaic articulation of it.) The passage itself uses yom, the Hebrew word usually translated “day,” three different ways (e.g., Gen 1:5, 8, 18; 2:4), yet some want to force the term to bear the weight of literal twenty-four hour days.

Unlike my brother, I lack the qualifications that should make anyone care what I think about the scientific questions. I can, however, speak plainly to the biblical questions, and there I find that much of today’s approach to Genesis 1 misunderstands the genre that would’ve seemed obvious to the most ancient hearers. It substitutes for it instead questions that would not have concerned or even been intelligible to the first audience. (For my thoughts on Genesis 1—3 and what it is not meant to tell us about modern scientific questions, see the latter part of http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-s-keener/is-young-earth-creationism-biblical_b_1578004.html—if you aren’t afraid to engage a perspective probably very different from what you’ve heard before on a popular level!)

Genesis is not interested in our curiosity about the age of the earth; if we want to discover that, God has provided other means for that. Its interest is more immediately practical for faith: its interest is in inspiring us to awe of the awesome, ingenious, artistic creator who designed creation and history. Humanity was once ungrateful and squandered his gifts. Now that we have experienced both good and evil, we do not start in innocence but are invited to make an informed choice to honor him. Let us praise God for his lavish love and magnificent creativity, and fill the role as his agents that he has graciously granted us.

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When you have to stand alone

“Wrap up your garment for action. Get up and tell them everything that I myself command you. Don’t be scared of them … Today I myself have established you like a fortified city, an iron pillar or a bronze wall against the entire land—against the kings of Judah, its leaders, its priests and the land’s people. They’ll fight you but won’t overpower you, for I myself am with you to keep you safe” (Jer 1:17-19)

Have you ever felt like you had only a few allies in sharing Christ with others, or in standing for something that is true? We hear a lot about “community” these days, and community is a wonderful blessing. But what happens when you are in a setting where most people disagree with your faith or ignore a clear message from God?

Jeremiah’s situation was worse than that. He was nearly alone in proclaiming God’s message. The other prophets of his day were encouraging the people that because God was their God he wouldn’t judge them. Jeremiah thus had to stand alone with the unpopular message of impending judgment, while all the other prophets told everyone what they wanted to hear. Jeremiah had to let God’s people know that they were breaking God’s covenant, and that God would judge them—though someday God promised a new covenant that they wouldn’t break. Jeremiah did have a few allies—Baruch the scribe, who wrote his prophecies, and a foreigner, Ebed-melech from Africa.

But he was mostly alone, and most people didn’t like him. He also couldn’t feel comfortable simply taking life easy like many around him. “Because your hand was on me, I had to keep to myself, for you filled me with your fury of judgment,” Jeremiah complained (Jer 15:17).

God had been patient with his people for a long time, but finally he was getting ready to discipline them. In fact, once they were exiled and had to learn to live in a pagan environment, they would learn to value the true God who was their only hope for the future. But why did Israel deserve punishment so much?

Scripture told them that they were supposed to love God wholly—and thus abstain from other gods (Deut 6:4-5). Because of this whole-hearted devotion to God, they were to meditate on his Word always. They were supposed to talk about his commands at home and when outside (a nice Hebrew way of saying, wherever they were), and when they lay down and when they got up (a nice Hebrew way of saying, all the time; 6:6-9). God warned them not to forget, when he blessed them in the land, that he had liberated them from slavery (6:10-12). But now his people had done just that—abandoning him, the source of flowing water, and digging broken water tanks for themselves that couldn’t even hold any water (Jer 2:13).

For the most part, only the priests and especially scribes were literate. Only they could teach God’s law to the people. Yet the literate people themselves neglected the law (Jer 5:4-5; cf. Isa 29:11-12), and the people followed their traditional customs without even realizing that they had forsaken the teaching of God’s Word. The entire nation had become corrupt (Jer 5:1-5), and someone needed to call the people back to the truths of Scripture.

This meant that history was at a very serious juncture. Israel was called to be a light to the nations (Isa 42:6); if they were blind (42:18-20), God’s light could be extinguished in the world. Jeremiah thus stood as a lone voice in a pivotal moment of history, like Noah or Abraham before him. Later, Jesus similarly called people prophetically to truth; in his day, the religious leaders knew the Bible but interpreted it through traditions that missed God’s heart (Mark 7:6-8, 13). In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’s own disciples continually fail to understand his mission, appearing spiritually half-blind (8:17-18), even falling asleep just before his arrest. Jesus had to stand alone for the truth of his mission, while planting and nurturing the seeds of the future.

Paul was not quite so alone—he usually had a circle of colleagues who helped him—but sometimes Paul also had to go against others’ convictions to stand for the truth. That’s why Gentile Christians don’t have to be circumcised today! Near the time of his death, Paul laments that the Roman province of Asia, where he had expended his labors most successfully, had turned away from him (2 Tim 1:15), though even there some were not embarrassed by his arrest (1:16). Paul entrusts the future there especially to Timothy, who must pass the message on to others (2:1-2). In antiquity men often married in hopes of having a male heir. Timothy was the son that Paul had never had (1:2; 2:1); Paul said he had no one like him, totally devoted to Christ’s concerns (Phil 2:20-22).

Like Jeremiah, Paul never lived to see all the fruit of his labors. Yet his letters survived him as a source of renewal to the church ever since. Likewise, although even the remnant of Judah disobeyed God’s message and dragged Jeremiah with them to Egypt, the next generation recognized Jeremiah as a true prophet of the Lord. Generations after him recognized that God fulfilled his promises given through Jeremiah (2 Chron 36:22; Ezra 1:1; Dan 9:2). From Jeremiah’s day onward, Israel never again turned to physical idols.

When Jeremiah was young, Judah experienced revival. In the ancient world, peoples often preserved foundation documents in the masonry of temples, and that’s where workers found the neglected book of the law (2 Kgs 22:8). When King Josiah, now twenty-six years old, heard the law read by the court scribe, he didn’t make excuses for the people or try to explain away the message in light of how God’s people had long been living. He didn’t turn it into a daily devotional reading as if merely reading it fulfilled its purpose. No, he ripped his royal cloak in mourning, recognizing that God’s people were headed for certain judgment. Then he sent to the prophetess Huldah to hear God’s message for his generation (22:11-13). God blessed his moral reform and delayed judgment, but by this point Israel was too enmeshed in sin for judgment to be turned back permanently (22:15-20).

Josiah died young, and his successors were not committed enough to God to continue his devotion to God’s book. It fell to Jeremiah to summon his generation back from the brink of destruction. Though by the end of his life it looked like Jeremiah had failed, his message was vindicated and ultimately it prevailed; God’s word did not return empty. Eventually Jeremiah’s book even made it into the Bible; he was the only prophet of his time and place who told the truth.

Today we have Bibles but we often interpret them by how the rest of the church is living, instead of interpreting how people are living in light of the Bible. Will you stand firm to make a difference for God in your generation? Even if you have to stand virtually alone? You can succeed if you walk with God and know, as God told Jeremiah, “I’m with you to help you” (Jer 1:19).