The Incarnational Arc of Creation
Therefore, even in the midst of judging the old creation and its mangled narrative, God begins anew. He speaks forth a new narrative of creation through his gospel promise (Gen. 3:15). God’s promise is effective speech; creation gains its identity from its story. Thus, in order to redeem creation, God had to speak forth a new story. The historical narrative of redemption culminated in Christ’s recapitulation of the old creation (Rom. 5, 1 Cor. 15) and its transcendence in the resurrection.
Every act of human rebellion within the biblical narrative meets with both an act of judgment and an act of grace. God’s possibilities are not exhausted by those of his established protological order and law. These are hardwired into creation as an expression of the eternal divine will, but they do not exhaust the divine will. God is not merely the necessary being of the philosophers, but as Eberhart Jüngel puts it, God is the “more than necessary being.”1
The new creation does not negate the old creation, but envelops it, and incorporate it into itself. The incorporation of the old creation into the new creation is analogous to the eternal Son’s incorporation (enhypostasis) of an impersonal human nature into his center of identity (anhypostasis). In this way, the tragic narrative of the Fall becomes a subplot in the comic story of redemption.
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