Final Destination #5
The Good Earth — God’s Perfect Design (Part 2)
This week we will move on to the third distinct relationship within God’s divine design for mankind — our relationship with the material world. Unfortunately, the church did not have a very good start in terms of relating to the world. By the time of the Middle Ages, a form of Christianity known as Monasticism had developed. These were the monks and nuns, whose chief focus was their own spiritual growth through constant prayer, Bible study and spiritual contemplation. While such intense meditation on God’s word produced many impressive works of solid theology that still benefit the Church today, one side effect was that Christianity became an elite religion. Dedication to God meant isolation from the world, both physically as well as culturally (i.e. by taking on vows of poverty and celibacy).
The Reformation rebelled against this elitist mindset, and called for a return to ‘natural’ living. While they agreed with the monks that our primary calling was complete commitment to God, they understood that this calling was not expressed through isolation but reformation. We are to engage with and influence the world around us through our service to others, in every societal role that God has placed us in — father, son, friend, church member, employee, citizen etc.
This has implications for how we are to view our work. Our motivation for working in our jobs should be the same as all our other roles, i.e. to serve God through serving others. Otherwise our work will either be very tedious or a waste of time. Moreover, there are no second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God — whether we work in Christian ministry or in secular jobs, we are all full-time servants of God, as long as our job: (a) adds something necessary and wholesome in the service of others (b) accommodates our other equally-important roles (e.g. within the church, family etc.) (c) matches our skills and temperament
This perspective ties in with the Reformation idea of ‘interdependence’. They recognized that God made us interdependent not only with nature but also with each other. If we think about it, every single thing we enjoy has gone through countless hands, directly or indirectly— from the makers, to the distributors, to the sellers and so on. All of us play an important role, and only together can we uphold the very fabric of society and civilization. In this way, we become the hands of God in each other’s lives, the instruments of His common grace and providential blessing.
But there is an even deeper purpose to our work. Genesis 2:15 says that God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to ‘work it’ (i.e. to exercise his creativity in cultivating and developing it) and ‘watch over it’ (i.e. to protect and preserve it). So in our work, we must always strike a balance between these two purposes: protecting without fossilizing, and developing without destroying. More importantly, this command to work precedes the Fall. God had Adam do the work of naming the animals (v. 19-20) because He wants mankind to enjoy and participate in the ongoing work of developing His creation. After all, as beings made in God’s image, we work because God works. Work completes and fulfills us, as anyone who has sat idle for too long can truly appreciate.
Significantly, God did not just design us to work, but also to rest. The fact that God not only blessed the 7th day but also sanctified it (Gen 2:3) suggests that rest is not just a means to work some more; rather, rest is an end in itself, a time for us to enjoy the fruit of our labor. This is God’s divine design for our rhythm of life: a perfect balance of 6 days’ work, and 1 day’s rest. For the Israelites, this was reflected in the Sabbath day, a nationally instituted day of rest. But does this still apply to us Christians?
Based on Hebrews 4:1-11, the Israelites were unable to enter ‘God’s rest’ (in spite of the Sabbath) because they ‘hardened their hearts’. Meanwhile, ‘we who believe’ enter that rest by receiving the ‘good news’ of Jesus Christ. We can therefore conclude that Christ has fulfilled the Sabbath. To understand this, we must first look at what exactly ‘God’s rest’ means. True, God designed us to work, but because of the Fall, our work was cursed, in that:
(1) we were cursed to work for our salvation because we were chased out of Eden and from God’s presence, and (2) we were cursed to work in drudgery because God cursed the ground (Gen 3:17-19).
Hence, ‘God’s rest’ refers to Christ’s work on the cross to abolish these two curses, so that we might receive: (1) salvation rest, in that we no longer have to strive for our salvation, and (2) the promise of eternal rest in the coming Kingdom. This does not mean that we will no longer work (since we were designed for work), but that our work will no longer be painful and laborious but peaceful, restful, even joyful.
Ultimately, just like how Christ fulfilled the entire Law, so also did He fulfill the law of the Sabbath, and hence we are no longer bound by it (Colossians 2:16-17). However, although rest is no longer mandatory, if we truly recognize that God made us for 6 days of work and 1 day of rest, then we would willingly embrace this divinely-designed rhythm of life. Moreover, we now refer to the Sabbath day as the Lord’s Day, as a reminder of how Christ has fulfilled the Sabbath. On this day, not only do we rest physically and mentally from our daily toil, but we also experience spiritual rejuvenation when we come together to worship God and have fellowship with the body of Christ. In summary, Christ has completely transformed the Sabbath:
And to bring our study of God’s divine design for mankind’s 3 distinct relationships to a close, let us note how Christ has redeemed each of these relationships in turn. In terms of our relationship with God, He was given us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; in terms of our relationship with others, the body of Christ; and in terms of our relationship with the material world, the Lord’s Day. Each of these things herald the complete restoration of these 3 relationships in the Kingdom to come: an eternity in God’s presence, amidst a perfect society, experiencing eternal rest (even in our work).