A few days ago I saw this tweet by John Piper:
Now I certainly understand the biblical reality that God saves individuals. I get that. I also understand that the devil wants to destroy individuals. I get that, too.
What I don’t get is the context that Piper puts this in. Why contrast this with “political nations and cultural institutions” as if to say that these are unimportant to God? Why does Piper want us to think that God’s redemptive work is limited to individuals?
The Bigness of the Gospel in the Plot Structure of Scripture
God’s redemptive purposes in Jesus are bigger than individuals. God is renewing all things in Christ, including individuals, political nations, cultural institution, and even creation itself.
J. Richard Middleton writes in the Journal for Christian Theological Research an article called, “A New Heaven and a New Earth: The Case for a Holistic Reading of the Biblical Story of Redemption.” In that article he makes this statement:
The traditional picture of “heaven” (found in many classic hymns and contemporary praise songs) as perpetual fellowship with, and worship of, God cannot constitute full redemption in biblical terms. This is because the traditional picture typically omits (and thus implies the negation or abrogation of) large areas of human life that God created good. “Heaven,” therefore, as an eschatological state does not constitute genuine redemption of the multifaceted world God intended from the beginning. The logic of biblical redemption, when combined with a biblical understanding of creation, requires the restoration and renewal of the full complexity of human life in our earthly environment, yet without sin.
Middleton’s point is that the view of redemption that says that God saves individuals from their individual sin so they can go to heaven when they die is a truncated gospel. It is a biblically incomplete view of redemption.
He goes on to say,
Scripture portrays the human purpose in rather mundane terms of exercising power over our earthly environment as God’s representatives. In the context of the ancient Near East (which is the Bible’s original context), rule of the earth refers most basically to the development of agriculture and animal husbandry, which are the basis of human societal organization, and ultimately includes the development of all aspects of culture, technology and civilization. To put it another way, while various psalms (like 148 and 96) indeed call upon all creatures (humans included) to worship or serve God in the cosmic temple of creation (heaven and earth), the distinctive way humans worship or render service to the Creator is by the development of culture through interaction with our earthly environment (in a manner that glorifies God).
I point out this particular quote from Middleton to whet your appetite for the entire first part of his article which is meant to examine the plot structure of Scripture. According to Middleton, this plot structure very much centers on the restoration of humanity to its God-designed purposes, which include nations, culture, institutions and even the earth itself.
The Bigness of the Gospel in the Texts of Scripture
But while the plot structure of Scripture points to this end, we may also ask whether there are any particular texts which also point to this end. To this, Middleton replies with examinations of the following texts:
19 Therefore repent and turn back, that your sins may be wiped out so that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, 20 and He may send Jesus, who has been appointed Messiah for you. 21 Heaven must welcome Him until the times of the restoration of all things, which God spoke about by the mouth of His holy prophets from the beginning. (Acts 3:19-21)
Notice that Peter speaks of “the restoration of all things,” not simply the salvation of individuals.
9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He planned in Him 10 for the administration of the days of fulfillment —to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth in Him. (Ephesians 1:9-10)
When he says, “to bring everything together in the Messiah, both things in heaven and things on earth,” Paul seems concerned that we understand the holistic nature of redemption in the work of Jesus the Messiah.
19 For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself by making peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:19-20)
Here, Paul explicitly connects the blood-shed cross-work of Jesus to the reconciling of all things, in heaven and on earth, to himself.
10 But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed. 11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness 12 as you wait for and earnestly desire the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be on fire and be dissolved, and the elements will melt with the heat. 13 But based on His promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell. (2 Peter 3:10-13)
Middleton notes here: “That the ‘new’ heavens and ‘new’ earth refer to renewal rather [than] replacement (starting from scratch) is indicated both from the context, which has the earth being laid bare or uncovered, and from the text’s choice of kainos, rather than neos for ‘new.’”
The point, of course, being the renewal of all things, not the whisking away of believers while everything else goes to hell in a hand basket.
19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility —not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it —in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. 23 And not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits —we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:19-23)
Here redemption is applied not just to our souls, but to our bodies and even to all of creation itself.
Middleton sums it up like this:
The Smallness of Piper’s Gospel?
My point is simply to ask why John Piper feels the need to try to convince us that individuals–and only individuals–are part of the redemptive purposes of God.
This seems to be perpetuating the idea that salvation is merely about me going to heaven when I die rather than about the transforming of, yes, individuals, but nations and institutions and creation itself!
One last quote from Middleton that can’t be ignored:
But “heaven” simply does not describe the Christian eschatological hope. Not only is the term “heaven” never used in Scripture for the eternal destiny of the redeemed, but continued use of “heaven” to name the Christian hope may well divert our attention from the legitimate biblical expectation for the present transformation of our earthly life to conform to God’s purposes. Indeed, to focus our expectation on an otherworldly salvation has the potential to dissipate our resistance to societal evil and the dedication needed to work for the redemptive transformation of this world.
I know this has not been any kind of thorough treatment of this subject. But I hope it at least begins to alert us to the realization that the redemptive plan of God–and therefore the destructive plan of the devil–are much bigger than me and my sin and whether I “go to heaven when I die.”
Read Middleton’s entire article here.
For more great articles like Middleton’s, visit the Christian Worldview Articles section of biblicaltheology.ca.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I have to side with Piper on this one. Yes the gospel how God is restoring all things, but how does he do that? Death and resurrection/new birth.
Jesus had to die before he was resurrected to a glorified body. People must spiritually die before they are born again. Just as in the passage you quoted, 2 Peter 3:10-13, the heavens and earth will pass away. In Revelation 21, we also see that the plan is for the old heaven and old earth to pass away, yet they will be made new.
There is continuity, just as there is continuity in the old man and the new man after he is born again. I’m still “me” but I am actually different.
I think Piper’s point is that political nations and cultural institutions will die before they are renewed in the new heavens and new earth. Therefore, focus on individuals. Salvation is not a community event, but it results in community. Perhaps to phrase it better, salvation occurs in community via individual members.
From my familiarity with Desiring God and Bethlehem Baptist I am certain that Piper is not calling us to be uninvolved with being salt and light in institutions, but rather to see that the things of eternal significance are on an individual level.
As for Middleton’s summary, I think it is selective and narrow in its focus. Sure there is restoration of everything… but there is also destruction of everything. His summary seems to make the claim that everything will gradually improve until it is fully restored a. la. Jürgen Moltmann’s “Theology of Hope.” It’s not an evolution, but a new creation.
Also, it neglects the individualistic calls of the gospel, such as Paul saying, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” These are individuals as a subset of the group.
Another problem is that Middleton’s summary leaves room to strip the blame away. Clearly if we say that someone is a sinner, we can say they themselves are to blame. But if we say they are broken (and they are) it doesn’t necessarily make them guilty.
Finally, he is wrong that heaven is not an eschatological hope. Yes, it is overly simplistic to talk about the gospel as “how to go to heaven when you die,” but the truth is that those who are saved will inherit both the new heavens and the new earth, and those who are not saved will burn eternally in the lake of fire, when God empties death and hades into it (after sorting individuals based on if their names are in the Book of Life).
Ben, thanks for your thoughtful comments. Let me first point out some areas of definite agreement.
1. God is renewing all thing through the death and resurrection of Jesus as individual people come to faith in him. YES!
2. Yes, there is indeed both continuity and discontinuity. Neither Middleton nor I argue for a continual improvement until everything is perfected.
3. I agree, from my own familiarity with Piper, that he is not trying to advocate being uninvolved in the world. This particular statement he made, however, definitely has that ring to it.
That being said, I want to offer a few responses to some issues you raise.
1. You say, “I think Piper’s point is that political nations and cultural institutions will die before they are renewed in the new heavens and new earth. Therefore, focus on individuals.”
I’m afraid that may be a little too simplistic, as if we can simply separate individuals and communities from each other.
2. You said that salvation is not a community event, but then you clarified yourself a bit, which I’m thankful for. There is definitely a community nature to salvation. Scripture does not speak of redemption in merely individualistic terms.
3. You said, “things of eternal significance are on an individual level.” I would strongly disagree with that statement, and I would insist that it is not a biblical worldview.
4. You give four complaints about Middleton’s article: (1) it’s simplistic and narrow, (2) it neglects the individual, (3) it takes away blame, (4) it is wrong about heaven.
(1) To say that Middleton’s view is narrow is rather surprising. I think that it is the “Jesus and me” view of redemption that is narrow. Middleton, in this article, seeks to *expand* our understanding of the gospel, not narrow it.
(2) Middleton’s focus in this article is not on the individual nature of redemption. So perhaps in this article, yes, he neglects that point. But he does so because he is responding to an evangelical culture that for too long has neglected the broader scope of redemption.
(3) I’m not sure where you got this idea from Middleton. Maybe you were expecting him to say things he didn’t say simply because of the design of his article. I don’t know.
(4) In a footnote in Middleton’s article he says that he has been asking his students for years to show him one place in Scripture that says that heaven is the “final destiny” of believers. No one ever has, because it’s not. To say that we will inherit the new heavens and the new earth is not at all the same as to say that heaven is our eschatological hope. The former I agree with; the latter I do not.
If you haven’t read all of Middleton’s article, please do.
Also, just to reiterate, Ben, I love Piper and his ministry. I just happen to think his recent statement completely misses the mark of the scope of redemption. Just so you don’t think I’m completely off the wall here, some other men who are writing on this topic include:
Christopher Wright, The Mission of God.
N.T. Wright, Surprised By Hope
Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, When Helping Hurts
And many others. Maybe I can post a more thorough list later.
I think in most things here we are agreeing more than we disagree, we’re just emphasizing them differently. I think you believe the stuff I believe about individual salvation and I believe what you believe about engaging people as members of their communities, cultures, etc. My worry is that we elevate the community above the gospel, and (I think) your worry is that we keep to ourselves and divorce the church from any involvement in the world. In both cases, I think the opposite of wrong is still wrong. We can’t be so intensely individualistic that we neglect communities and we can’t be so intensely communal that we neglect individual salvation. One thing that I learn more and more is that there is no way that you can over-do something to be safe from error in Christianity.
As for the Middleton stuff, I was basing my thoughts off of your summary, but I am planning on printing out that article and marking it up, so hopefully I can have a new comment at that point. I hope that I was wrong about some of the things that I said, other than the fact that I’ll have to bite my tongue…
Of those books I have read When Helping Hurts, and I have agreed with it and recommended it to others. N. T. Wright, on the other hand, though I have not read whole book from him, from what I do know, he confuses me. I am still unsure what to think of him, but I know that I have some significant disagreements about some things. I acknowledge some of his excellent contributions (such as on the resurrection, the Jewishness of Jesus, etc.) but I find his views of justification counter-evangelical. Yet, he is not at all another liberal theologian or social gospel guy as I would have thought. Once I graduate and get some more time on my hands, I have the feeling I will be getting to know him a lot better.
Ben, I completely agree with you! We are very much in agreement. I am tending to emphasize the broad scope of the gospel because the Church has for so long neglected it. I don’t mean to neglect the individual component, but that is not the part we’re struggling with as the Church.
Regarding N.T. Wright, I understand the hesitancy in your comment. Wright has given the Church a lot of things to think about. I appreciate your graciousness in commenting about him. Unfortunately, the discussions about Wright tend to devolve into personal attacks and accusations of outright heresy. That being said, I’m less interested in his views on justification at this point as I am in his views on resurrection and the narrative of redemption. I think in those areas he brings a great contribution.
When you read Middleton, remember that he’s addressing a specific failure in the Church’s thinking. He is not seeking to be comprehensive (that is, he will not discuss the individual aspect of redemption much). That doesn’t mean he neglects the work of redemption in individuals, but that he is challenging us to see the broader picture of redemption.
Yes, Piper truncates the gospel somewhat. But so do most of us.
The gospel of the kingdom is greater and more beautiful than most of realize.
Stuart, you’re right. But I’m afraid realizing that is part of the Church’s problem. We tend to be pretty arrogant about our view of the gospel and think that there’s nothing left for us to learn or nothing more that can be contributed to our understanding of the gospel. This is especially dangerous in my own tradition where we look to the Reformers with great admiration–and rightly so–yet we can easily forget that they were merely the beginning of the reforming of the Church, not the end of it.
Why does John Piper feel the need to try to convince us that individuals–and only individuals–are part of the redemptive purposes of God?
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like something got mixed up along the way here. Your question is one I don’t think Piper was/is addressing at all. His tweet is dealing specifically with salvation – a reality that is certainly limited to individuals. It’s impossible to witness to a tree or dog in hopes that they will somehow come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The same could be said about political nations or cultural institutions. Apart from individuals being born again of the Holy Spirit, those entities won’t be saved – only individuals within those entities. As far as redemption is concerned, I don’t think you’ll find Piper arguing the realities that you address in your blog. Redemption most certainly does extend to the whole of creation as you discuss, but it’s a redemption that’s different than salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the end, I don’t think Piper is saying anything wrong, and I don’t think your discussion of redemption is incorrect, either. Unfortunately, the consideration of the redemption of the creation over against salvation seems similar to comparing apples and oranges. They’re both fruit, but they aren’t exactly the same thing.
Kevin, you said, “His tweet is dealing specifically with salvation – a reality that is certainly limited to individuals.”
This was certainly not true in OT Israel. There was very much a corporate nature (and national/ethnic nature) to salvation. In the life of the people of God in the NT, salvation is spoken of in corporate terms as well.
I understand what you’re saying, though. I wrestled for years to understand the corporate nature of salvation. Coming from a staunch Baptist background, my only worldview was an individualistic one. I’ve discussed the Baptist/individualist worldview here: http://www.anwoth.org/2007/08/19/anwoth/.
Kevin, my concern is not over whether the way individuals are redeemed is different from the way creation itself is redeemed. My concern is that we have limited our understanding of the gospel to individuals only, insisting that there are no implications or designs in the gospel beyond the individual. I think that neglects the whole story line of Scripture.
Hi Will!
Thank you for the response. I do understand what you’re saying. I guess I’m just thinking that there is no corporate entity apart from the individuals that make up that entity. Will all Israel be “saved?” Yes – because the indivduals who make up Israel (whoever you think that may be) will come to faith in Christ. Was OT Israel “saved?” Yes – because the individuals who made up the nation of Israel were physically delivered from Egypt. As a result, I don’t think it’s out of line, or truncating the gospel, or some sort of misrepresentation to say that spiritual salvation is limited to individuals. If that weren’t the case, we would have no way of understanding the corporate nature of the discussion. You can’t have one (corporate salvation) without the other (individual salvation). The corporate implications are a mute point without the underlying individual implications. That being said, I do understand your point that we’ve lost sight of the whole story line of scripture. It’s not just about individuals. There’s more to it than that. There’s much to be learned from the lives of Abraham, Joseph, David, etc…, but much is to be learned from the nation of Israel in the OT, as well. (I Cor. 10:1-11)
Whether we call it heaven or the new heavens and the new earth, the universe where we hope to live forever with Christ is, must be, radically different from the one we know.
Bondage to decay, expressed in scientific terms by the second law of thermodynamics, is incorporated into every aspect of the physical universe. And it can’t even be described as something wrong with this universe that God will fix, because even the processes we think of as creative and life-giving wouldn’t work without it.
A universe without this constraint is so different from the one we know that to speak of God transforming this universe into that one, vs. to speak of God abolishing this universe and creating a brand-new one, is to make a distinction without a difference.
Hence Peter writes about the heavens passing away with a loud noise and being on fire and being dissolved, the elements burning and being dissolved and melting in the heat, and all these things being destroyed. Middleton seems to ignore all these other phrases in the passage from 2 Peter 3 in favor of the final clause of verse 10, which Christians have long understood to refer to the Last Judgment (the old hymn Dies Irae sums this understanding up), not to some kind of physical scouring of the planet in preparation for a “restored” ecosystem.
Thanks for taking the time to interact with this. I’d like to offer some thoughts here:
There’s a sense in which I agree with that statement. Sin has so messed things up that when God liberates the whole creation from its bondage to sin, it probably will be different in many significant ways.
I think your understanding and application of the second law of thermodynamics is quite skewed. So-called “creation science” (e.g., Ken Ham, et. al.) does not present the 2nd law of thermodynamics well at all. They misuse the concept to support a presupposition, so your application of that principle here is moot.
I certainly understand the passage in Peter about the loud noise and the fire, however, I don’t think that Middleton ignores them. Rather he understands them to be metaphorical of the purifying process rather than a literalistic destruction. Either way, the whole tenor of Scripture and the narrative of Scripture seem to favor Middleton’s interpretation in my opinion.
I don’t get my understanding and application of the second law of thermodynamics from Ken Ham or his ilk. I get it from a purely secular educational background. Please don’t assume I’m spouting “creation science,” which is a red herring here.
In many ways the second law can be seen as a Bad Thing. It makes things fall apart and stop being useful. It means waste; a living creature burning a molecule of glucose gets back only two-thirds the energy a photosynthetic plant put into building that molecule. It means that eventually the universe is going to run out of usable energy gradients, and everything in it will be dead. So one can be tempted to regard the second law as but a result of sin, from which the universe will be liberated.
On the other hand, on the small scale in space and time, the second law is a Good Thing. The chemical processes by which our cells live are possible only because certain reactions go one way and not the other, and the reason they do is the second law. If they were equally likely to go both ways, metabolic cycles wouldn’t work. If the world were “purified” of the second law, life would stop.
The only resolution to the dilemma I can see is that the universe, with the second law, is well created, but meant to be finite in space and time, and not to be our eternal home.
Hieronymus, I’m so glad you stopped by! I think this is fascinating.
I’m glad to hear that your understanding the 2nd law of thermodynamics has nothing to do with Ken Ham.
Scientifically speaking, maybe. But that raises several other questions, such as whether our understanding of the sciences is an understanding of how things are post-fall or how things are regardless of the fall. Another important issue this raises is to what extent we let our observations of natural revelation influence our understanding of special revelation.
Thanks for raising the issues. I still think Middleton is right. Exegetically, I think the best understanding of Scripture is that God will redeem this creation and set it free from its corruption (Rom. 8:18-25, for example). But I may not be the best person to explain how this fits with your understanding of the sciences.