A few notes jotted down on the plan of redemption from NT Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope.
Redemption isn’t scrapping what’s there and starting from a clean slate. When I read passages talking about a “new heaven and new earth” that was the mentality I had. The old earth (where we live currently) would be burned up and something new would replace it. That isn’t redemption.
Redemption is liberating what has been enslaved. The slavery we are in is due to idolatry. We worship something other than God. It could be nature. It could be the goodness of humanity. It could be some utopian state. But we’ve replaced God with something else in our affections and allegiances.
Redemption involves a newly embodied life.
We were meant to be God’s stewards over creation. To relegate this planet to the trash heap because our theology has the error of the phrase, “It’s all going to burn” is mismanagement and idolatry.
Christ came to redeem. Redemption is to set free. We are to be set free from the mindset of salvation being about “me and Jesus” and “I die and get to go to heaven.” We are freed to return to the mandate given to us by our Creator. It is a mandate of stewardship and ruling. It is a mandate of bringing kingdom goodness and blessing into the realm of creation.
Christ’s death and resurrection isn’t limited to its effects on human beings. It reverberates in ways we don’t understand throughout the universe.
Apprentice 2 Jesus 