The Heavenly Good of Earth Work (2)

Posted by Paul | Filed under work

After the initial section looking at the problem of our current perspective on work, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work switches to looking at the Bible. Cosden comes from two angles — first resurrection and new creation, then Genesis and the creation narrative.

Looking at New Creation, Cosden’s basic thesis is this: that the work we do — of any type — can have eternal consequences. So, when God re-creates creation, our work is not wiped out, but is redeemed and transformed along with everything else. Not that it remains as-is, but somehow it forms a part of the resurrected world. [For some reason, I imagine this (very very roughly) in terms of architecture -- aspects of designs that fit with God's justice, love, enhance creation, etc. find a place; things that are oppressive and disruptive don't.]

Cosden bases this on Jesus’ resurrection, plus 1 Cor 15, Col 1, Rom 8 and Rev 21-22. This section is going to take me a while to think through properly, but let’s go for a first shot. For me the interesting starting points are Jesus’ resurrection and the Revelation passages. Jesus’ resurrection is typically taken as a preview of our resurrection & new creation. So, an interesting observation is that the wounds from the cross are still evident. As Cosden points out, it seems that “… the results of this particular ‘human work’ are guaranteed to carry over into God’s as well as our own future and eternal reality.” Of course, there is the possibility that he is looking at a special case, but it is thought provoking.

At the other end of the discussion is the Revelation image of the new heavens and the new earth. The key here is that the new creation includes ‘the glory and splendor of the nations’. “It will be forever open to include the best of human culture (achievements past and possibly ongoing). And although this is not in any way limited to our work, it will thus include what we have accomplished through work.” For me this is the facinating observation. It seems to be the clearest expression of the idea that new creation includes, in some way, what has gone on in the old creation. This opens up all sorts of thoughts and possibilities (and discussions…)

These are the top and tail of Cosden’s discussion, In between he looks at the discussions of new creation and resurrection in Paul. Although these are very helpful, they don’t quite get all the way for me, on first reading at least. The basic approach is ‘New Creation is transformed creation; work and its products are an integral part of creation, so they get included and transformed.’ The discussion is great on the first step, but then relies on assertions such as “That this salvation of the natural world incudes our work follows logically. Work, which has further shaped nature, is now just as much a part of nature as what God made originally.” I can see this is a reasonable move to make, but I think it would have helped to have discussed and argued the point in more detail. It is, after all, a key step in the argument. (I may come back to this in a later post.)

The other half of this section is looking at Genesis. In this Cosden looks at the idea that mankind’s orginal purpose was to be an apprentice of God. That we were to work with Him in stewarding and developing creation. In this way we image God. This seems to me to be far less contraversial, but is equally important to join the dots between our original purpose and the long term effects that we have.

From these two aspects, Cosden lays the ground work for a theology of work, which leads onto his discussion of a spirituality of work and a rethinking of mission in the final part…

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Permalink | August 5th, 2007

One Response to “The Heavenly Good of Earth Work (2)”

  1. jonnyjpg Says:
    jonnyjpg August 6th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    Interesting stuff.
    Eva(who is going through a classic 3 year old thing of talking about dying – at least I’m told it’s normal) said yesturday – “It would be good to go to heaven” – to which I said something like “but did you know God wants to bring heaven to earth?”. She said “What day will heaven come?”, I said, “people have been wondering that for hundreds of years”. She said “But what will happen to the houses?” … so I liked you architecture example there.

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