Theology of Work Part 1

Theology of Work

I just started a class called the Theology of Work. As I was wrapping my head around the concept of Work and how God views work and how we view God according to work, I came up with a

Before and after the Garden (Michelangelo Sistine)

"flow of consciousness" note. I wrote this after a discussion with a good friend, and I thought these ideas were worth sharing. Adam and Eve in the Garden received the first command and it is the command of work to name the animals and to rule and have dominion of Creation. This is often called the "Creation Mandate." It was a freeing, life giving, partnership with God in the ruling, ordering, and reign of creation. However, after the fall our work was cursed “man will toil by the sweat of his brow” and the woman will "bring forth children in pain in childbirth."

God then sent them out of the garden, and from then on God cursed the ground with thistles and

thorns. Work was no longer a blessing but a curse, and men had to struggle and strive to earn which

"Expulsion from Eden" (Doré)

was the exact opposite of what they had from God previously in the garden. God gave them of every fruit of the trees in the Garden. We see this in the scripture “the wages of sin is death” we earn death through the work of our hand after the fall. So, after the fall, work was no longer a wonderful life giving command from God but rather a curse that brought toil, sweat, striving and difficulty. We see this in such scripture as “if a man does not work he cannot eat.” In this we see that laziness is tied to the curse. It is also tied to our need for sustenance. Our sustenance through food is tied to the curse. What are we now sustained by? Our  own toil and effort. We cannot ever really rest. We must keep working to live. We have rests in between, but the commonality between all humans is that we have to work for our sustenance.

Work certainly has hints of the blessing, but also, we sense and see the reality of the curse. We have to work for everything. In this, God sets up our readiness to receive the gospel. God in the gospel has made up for what we lack. He has made up for what we could not, and never will attain in all our striving. We always fall short in our striving which we find in our work. Certainly we achieve things in our work-a-day world. We finish projects, build beautiful structures, help patients, produce beautiful art, and design amazing technology, but our work always falls short. Our work is limited, flawed, never enough. Especially as it pertains to righteousness. We will never be able to do enough to even tip the scales in our direction. The standard for salvation, or to be able to stand before a holy God, would be sinless perfection. Moreover, we would have to be actively completely righteous as Christ was in His active obedience to the Father. But alas, we fall woefully short in our striving. The work of Christ, on the other hand, is plenty. Not just enough, but more than enough.

That is how the writer of Hebrews talks about entering the rest of God. In creation, even God, the creator, worked for six days and on the seventh day he rested. That is why he commanded the seventh day for rest. The writer of Hebrews describes “entering his rest” and that Jesus is our rest. Jesus also describes that he is the “Lord of the Sabbath.” This is fitting. He is not just Lord of the day, but he is also Lord of the rest found on that day. The Sabbath was created so that we could find rest from our constant doing. That complete and final rest was never to be fully found on that day. That day was created for rest so we will one day look to where our true rest comes from. We never find true rest in the 7th day of rest, because the next day we are all back at it again. And the cycle continues. The Sabbath was created for us to build a longing for the true Sabbath. And that true Sabbath is not a day, but rather a person, the creator of days, Jesus Christ himself is the true Sabbath. In Christ we see that he has accomplished our final rest, and "It is Finished” was his cry.

The gospel is the final rest for man. The good news is Christ's cross. When we look at Christ and his work on the cross, upon which he worked on our behalf, to please a God which we could not have pleased, we find rest from our toil. He has pleased a God we could not have pleased, and accomplished a work which we could not have accomplished even if we had had an eternity to do so. God said how pleased he was with his Son, when he said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” We find our true and final rest in him, because God was finally pleased and propitiated with the work of Christ on the Cross. D.A. Carson wrote in his book Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, "In pagan propitiation, a human being offers a propitiatory sacrifice to make a god propitious. In Christian propitiation, God the Father sets forth Jesus as the propitiation to make himself propitious; God is both the subject and the object of propitiation. God is the one who provides the sacrifice precisely as a way of turning aside his own wrath. God the Father is thus the propitiator and the propitiated, and God the Son is the propitiation." (see source at end of post).

He has provided an answer to the work that cursed us in the Fall, and by his grace we have and will enter our rest in him. On that day, we must work and toil no more. He will at long last be our final rest!

From D. A. Carson, 

Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus

Quoted By R.C. Sproul in The Work of Christ

R.C. Sproul 

Kindle Position 1611

Theology Established in Genesis 1-11 Gives Us Confidence in its Authenticity

Biblical themes established in Genesis 1-11

Have you ever felt like you could not trust the accuracy of the Bible? Have people said to you that the Bible is a book of "fables", or not historically accurate? Have even some of your Christian friends made you doubt more specifically the authenticity of Genesis 1-11? I want to help you in your ability to trust the Theological roots of the Genesis 1-11 account. There are far smarter people than I who can debate the scientific stuff, but what I want you to know is that you do not have to check your theological brain at the door either if you hold to a historically accurate Genesis 1-11.

What I will aim to do in this post is give you plenty of good theological foundations in which we can beleive the historical authenticity of Genesis 1-11 because of their linkage to almost every theological and biblical theme that I can think of, and of course many of those that I cannot think of. First I would like to point out one of those maybe more obvious ones. Marriage is a Biblical theme that is established in Genesis 1-11. Jesus also reiterates that theme, "Have you not heard, He made them male and female." Sabbath is another theme that is established in the Creation account and repeated by Jesus. Jesus is also called our sabbath rest. Other themes that are established are, Original sin, Christ's sustaining creative power (Repeated in Colossians 3 and Hebrews 1), Coming redemption (as seen in the curse after Adam's sin). Also seen in the curse with pain through childbirth, Family order (paternal spiritual leadership), and that the woman sinned first, Which is repeated in Timothy. Jesus in Hebrews is established as our sabbath rest, and if Gen 1-11 is poetic, and not with a literal seventh day of rest from Creation, then there is no O.T. or N.T. basis for a literal sabbath either. However there must be a literal sabbath in which we were meant to rest, so that Jesus could fulfill that rest in which we need not work anymore to please a Holy God.

There is a new and rising field of study called Theology of Work. This Theology of Work is also established when Adam is given the task pre-fall of naming animals, and post-fall we will work "by the sweat of our brow." On a sadder note, sin digs its roots deep into the heart of the first brothers as seen in Cain and Abel directly followed by the first murder. Other more scientific things are established in which God establishes seasons as first seen in the aftermath of the Noahic flood. on those same lines The Noahic Covenant is established in which God promises to never again send another worldwide flood. Right after the flood we have the Noahic genealogies, which are the basis of all other genealogies. If we don't have those genealogies as authentic living people, then we do not have a flesh and blood Messiah in Jesus either.

In other areas of Genesis 1-11 we have languages and cultures emerging (Anthropology). We see clearly the establishing of language and culture at the Tower of Babel and the confusion and origin of languages. These things cannot be just overlooked as unimportant insignificant "fables". They are the establishing of Anthropological grounds and why we have confused languages to this day. Either they happened or we cannot trust the historical accuracy of the whole of Scripture. I chose to trust the Authenticity of these "fables" or "Mythologies" as some have labeled them.

Here is a short list of some of the many theologies that are established in Genesis 1-11...

• The Trinity: ("let us make man in our own image")
• Theology (proper): in the character of God (as creative, loving, and just God)
• Christology: Pre-existent Christ creator of all things (Colossians 3, Hebrews 1) as seen in the prophecy concerning the serpent and how Christ would die
• Pneumatology: (study of the Holy Spirit) as seen in the Spirit of God hovering over the waters, and his part within the Godhead. 
• Soteriology: (study of salvation) as seen in God enacting and beginning the salvific history in which the serpent would "strike his heel and he will crush your head", or more easily put, Why did Jesus need to die on a cross?
• Harmartiology: (study of sin) as seen in what is called "original sin". If there is no Adam or original sin there is no Harmartiology. Why is there sin in the world?
• Prolegomena: has God revealed himself in creation and the signs in the universe or not? If he did not create, then how does he have the power to reveal himself in nature?
• Anthropology: does man have a fallen sinful nature as described in Gen 1-11 or not? And was man created in the image of a holy eternal perfect uncreated God?
• Missiology: let us make man in our own image, this is God's way of making himself known and it is the beginnings of the Misseo Dei!
• Ecclesiology: *
• Eschatology: *
• Angelology: *

*except for these three fields of theology, every other systematic is either established, began or addressed in a foundational way in Gen 1-11. I am not aware of if these other three might be hinted at in places, established, or otherwise in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. All these areas of theology are addressed, or at least begin to be addressed through foreshadowing. So be confident you stand on steady, unshakable, and historical Theological ground. You also stand on practical ground in believing in the historical accuracy of the beginning of Genesis.

Here are a few practical questions that can be answered from the first 11 chapters of Genesis too...

• Why do we have a seven day week?
• Why is there death?
• Why do we need a new heaven and a new earth if this old earth is not fallen?
• Why do we wear clothes?
• What is the foundational history of the whole rest of the Bible and theology?

Here is a good way to look at the historicity of the whole bible in seven different movements.

1. Creation (Genesis 1-11)
2. Corruption (Genesis 1-11)
3. Catastrophe (Genesis 1-11)
4. Confusion (Genesis 1-11)
5. Christ (N.T.)
6. Cross (N.T.)
7. Consumption (N.T.)

Can the gospel be true if the historical foundations of it in Genesis are not or cannot be trusted as historically accurate? Or for that matter, can we trust any other miraculous thing in the entire Bible also as historically accurate? If we cannot trust the miraculous, then we cannot and don't believe the core elements of the gospel (i.e. The resurrection of Christ from the dead, and our resurrection from the dead). My question is why do we want to explain away Genesis as not authentic, but not the rest of the supernatural elements of the Bible? Because we cannot explain the "cataclysmic supernatural" events in their pages? It is true that you do have to believe in the miraculous to believe that the Bible is accurate? There are supernatural events in almost every chapter of the Bible. Most are smaller than the "cataclysmic supernatural" events in Genesis, But supernatural nonetheless. We can and must trust them, because the gospel, and everything Jesus taught is in their pages. With these few thoughts I hope and pray you can trust at least in the theological and historical authenticity of Genesis 1-11.