More Than We Imagine

October 9, 2017

Too often we Christians have a truncated view of what God wants to do through us. We think of salvation as merely personal, overlooking the Scriptures that tell us of his overall plan to completely redeem the entirety of Creation (see Romans 8:19-23). We see the present evil more clearly than we do God’s vision of a new heavens and a new earth. Sometimes our theology sabotages us. We believe in Augustine’s Original Sin while failing to see that sin isn’t original at all; it is an interloper that invaded all that God created and called good. Years ago, I heard someone say, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.” There was great truth in that statement, but also great danger. If we see ourselves primarily as sinners, the grace part of it becomes almost an afterthought or a footnote to the narrative of our lives. 

When Jesus told the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), he said something interesting that we often miss, especially if we use one or more of the modern translations. The old King James Version has the translation spot-on. In Luke 15:17, Jesus tells us that there was a moment in time when this young man “came to himself.” He didn’t say (as some of the modern translations have it) that he came to his senses. In telling us literally that “he came to himself,” Jesus is paying us a great compliment. He is saying that we are our truest selves when we realize that our wandering doesn’t define us; our longing for home does. When we allow our sin to define us, we are believing what the devil says about us more than what God says about us.

In Isaiah 51: 16, God says, 

“I have put my words in your mouth;

I have covered you with the shadow of my hand,’

That I may plant the heavens, 

Lay the foundations of the earth,

And say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’”

God puts his words in our mouths, shelters us with his hand, not merely for our own benefit, but to accomplish great things through us. The Revelation of St. John shows us the vision God has for a new heavens and earth. What Isaiah tells us us that he wants to use us to accomplish this. “All things new” is the promise of salvation. God’s people are the means of it. That is Good News; something for which to be thankful tonight.