Note: From Creation and Christian Ethics (Baker 2023). Reprinted by permission of the publisher. Citations have been omitted.
What has creation to do with ethics? That’s the puzzled question I’m frequently asked by people who hear about this project. The prophets and ethics? Yes. Jesus and ethics? Certainly. Paul and ethics? Without a doubt. The kingdom and ethics? Absolutely. But creation?…
Creation, Ethics and the Doctrine of the Trinity
A third main reason that creation should be a salient foundation for Christian ethics is that the doctrine of the Trinity is at stake. Though the word does not appear in scripture, Trinity is the best designation for understanding the mysterious oneness of God as three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Trinitarian theology has historically been at the core of all branches of the Christian church. But as H. Richard Niebuhr many years ago noted, Christian bodies and particularly Christian ethics have exhibited a functional tendency toward unitarianism. Though “Christianity has often been accused of being a polytheism with three Gods…, it seems nearer the truth to say that Christianity as a whole is more likely to be an association….of three Unitarian religions.” [H. Richard Niebuhr, “The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Unity of the Church,” Theology Today 3, p. 372] Despite the creedal affirmations, various movements and thinkers have tended to accentuate one person of the Trinity over the others, and this has been particularly evident in ethics. Some, in their ethical framework, have focused primarily on the Father, while neglecting the Son and the Spirit. Others have had an ethic of the Son, while neglecting the Father and the Spirit, and still others have had an ethic of the Spirit, while neglecting the Father and the Son.
As we noted earlier, there has been a significant emphasis in some quarters on Jesus and the kingdom, while neglecting creation. In so doing not only do we pull apart the overarching biblical narrative (creation, fall, redemption, re-creation), but we pull asunder the unity of the divine Trinity. As Karl Barth states, “God is one and indivisible in His working. That He is Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer does not imply the existence of separate divine departments and branches of authority.” This is most significant when we reflect on the command of God, for “if we consider it in its different spheres, and therefore if we here ask particularly about the command of God the Creator, this cannot and must not mean that beside the first there is a second and separate command, that of God the Reconciler, and then a third, that of God the Redeemer.” [Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 3, The Doctrine of Creation, pp. 32-33] That is, in the command of God, we cannot separate God the Creator from God the Reconciler-Redeemer without distorting the unity of the Holy Trinity.
We should recognize that the entire Trinity is involved in creation, redemption and the final restoration. Creation is not just the work of the Father and the Son but is also the work of the Holy Spirit. In Genesis 1:2, “The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters,” and in the great creation psalm, Psalm 104, we read, “When you [Lord] send your Spirit, [all creatures] are created, and you renew the face of the ground” (v. 30). In John 6:63 Jesus refers to the Spirit as the giver of life, no doubt meaning both spiritual life and physical life. It is possible to affirm the trinitarian work of creation but simply to neglect it in ethics. But if we intentionally set the words and work of Jesus in ethics over against creation, we really are pulling apart the divine Trinity and their wholistic work of creation, redemption, sanctification and final restoration. If the Godhead is one, then the commands (or paradigms, as I’m terming them) of God the Creator and God the Redeemer must be one. Otherwise, we fall prey to a unitarian ethic.
In formulating a Christian ethic, Barth was right to insist that “the God who meets man as Creator in His commandment is the God who is gracious to him in Jesus Christ. He is not then a new and strange God who could require from man as his Commander something new and strange and even perhaps in conflict with what is asked of him by the God who is gracious to him in Jesus Christ.” [Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, p. 35]. This means that an ethic that focuses on creation but does not include Christ and the Spirit is negligent, just as an ethic that focuses on Christ or the Spirit but does not include creation is negligent. Both the unity and diversity of the Holy Trinity are at stake, for just as we hold creation, redemption and final restoration together and in continuity, so we must hold together the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in all their works in this world.
The Final Restoration Is a Renewing of What God Created in the Beginning
There has long been a tendency to see creation and eschatology in discontinuity. It can take one of two forms. For some progressive Christians, the eschaton is a utopian dream on this earth enabled by human pursuits of justice, love and human flourishing. In this construal we will reach a glorious future without reference to the past, including creation. Indeed, the past is often perceived to be shrouded in ignorance and injustices, from which we have now been liberated by a new narrative that will lead us to the promised land. In a different vein, for some fundamentalist Christians (particularly those in the strict dispensationalist camp), our hope for the future resides entirely with the return of Christ, which is an escape from the perils of this world. The portrayed scenario is one in which this physical world is ultimately destroyed and replaced by “a new heaven and a new earth,” without reference to either the original creation or God’s providential work over creation now. Both accounts bring with them an ethic, but in both accounts creation as a theological foundation is missing.
Increasingly, theologians and biblical scholars, including those from my own evangelical tradition, are seeing continuity between the first creation and God’s final restoration. The late Colin Gunton describes it this way: “The realization of the end is anticipated in the present as the rule of Christ, inaugurated in his ministry, continues in the present, moving forward the project of creation.” This does not mean a totally new work of God, for “the general point is that it is when we look at the nature of what God achieves through the Son and the Spirit that we are better able to develop an eschatology which is concerned with the completing of that which was once established in the beginning.” [Colin Gunton, The Triune Creator: A Historical and Systemic Study, pp. 220-21, 222] In this understanding, creation, redemption through Christ’s death and resurrection and the kingdom or final eschaton are in continuity with each other, thus calling for a commensurate ethical framework. What is the biblical support for such a claim?
We have already noted Isaiah 65:17 and its vision of “new heavens and a new earth,” with various texts throughout the prophecy linking the prophetic vision back to creation. The Old Testament prophecies envisioning something radically new “inspire us to expect a new world order in which the redeemed will live in peace and righteousness on the earth.” [J. Richard Middleton, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology, p. 109] Chapter 66 of Isaiah at first glance appears to teach a dissolution of this created world with its language of fire and sword (vv. 15-16), but such a depiction portrays judgment, which is necessary in God’s accomplishment of redemption. It is best, in light of other Isaiah texts, to read this chapter as a restoration of what God has made: “‘As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,’ declares the Lord, ‘so will your name and descendants endure’” (v. 22). The “new” is best understood as renewed in accordance with God’s creational purposes, rather than something totally new without continuity.
In the New Testament eschaton texts, one can make a strong case for a restoration of God’s creational designs in the coming kingdom. Jesus speaks of “the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne” (Matthew 19:28). Peter, giving one of his early sermons to fellow Israelites in Acts 3, reminds them of the messianic foretelling and calls them to “repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you – even Jesus. Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets” (Acts 3:19-21). Here restoration language is utilized, emphasizing a reestablishment of what once was. In Ephesians 1:10 Paul speaks of the fulfillment through Christ “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” In Colossians 1:19-20 he writes, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” And in Romans 8:21, in the midst of discussing present sufferings, Paul asserts that “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” Though all of creation has been “groaning” in this present world, we have a future hope, the future redemption of our bodies (vv. 22-23). Here creation is not destroyed, but the fullness of redemption in Christ brings even created, bodily restoration….
If the fullness of the kingdom is linked to creation, this affirms that all of God’s creational designs are paradigmatic now, as we live in “the already but not yet.” An ethic of the kingdom of God can never be set over against an ethic of creation, for the kingdom is bringing God’s creation designs to their fullness and affirming that what God established in creation is normative throughout human history. When King Jesus fully establishes his kingdom, all of the good ethical designs of creation will become reality on earth, a truth captured powerfully in a hymn by C. Sylvester Horner, “Sing We the King Who Is Coming to Reign”:
Sing we the king who is coming to reign, Glory to Jesus, the Lamb that was slain, Life and salvation his empire shall bring
Joy to the nations when Jesus is King.
Refrain:
Come let us sing: Praise to our King,
Jesus our King, Jesus our King;
This is our song, who to Jesus belong: Glory to Jesus, to Jesus our King.
All men shall dwell in his marvelous light, Races long severed his love shall unite, Justice and truth from his sceptre shall spring, Wrong shall be ended when Jesus is King.
All shall be well in his Kingdom of peace, Freedom shall flourish and wisdom increase, Foe shall be friend when his triumph we sing, Sword shall be sickle when Jesus is King.
Dennis Hollinger, president emeritus and distinguished senior professor of Christian ethics, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
