"All joy...emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakes desire. Our best havings are wantings.” - C.S. Lewis

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work


There’s a lovely and very meaningful spot in Estes Park, Colorado – a little mountain in the middle of a valley called, “Bible Point” where lots of people go to take in the view of the “Grandfathers” – the mighty snow-capped mountains of the Front Range which surround it. When reading Cosden’s work, I felt – much of the time – like I was on top of Bible Point – my senses filled with grandeur of God’s plan/purposes for creation. Cosden paints a beautiful and true picture of the nature of the cosmos as it fits in God's grand story which ought to inspire Christians to think more deeply and meaningfully about their callings in life and be excited about them!

But along the northern and western edge of Bible point is a pretty severe drop that the climber must be aware of, and I felt – at times – that Cosden was dangerously close to leading us off that ledge, especially as he unpacked Romans 8, saying that in Christ…

“we cannot be thought of as sub-workers with God. We are now, and forever will be, genuinely God’s co-workers (and co-heirs) with more freedom and more status than even the first Adam had. This passage suggests that, in Christ, the apprentices have now become full members of the guild, qualified masters in our own right”. (pp 121-122)

Yes, ok. I'm all about seeing and appreciating mankind as creatures created in the glorious image of God and Christians as those who are fully redeemed - given the righteousness of Christ. I have tried to grasp that glorious truth daily in my life and communicate that hope to our congregation. And admittedly I realize that my own struggle with the sin of cynicism often gets in the way of me seeing and tasting this glorious side of the Gospel! That said, there were times that I felt Cosden was neglecting other aspects of the Gospel (namely that we are sinners in desperate daily need of God's grace) and so giving us a bit of a lop-sided view.

To be fair, he does recognize that we will all still flub up our callings to image God in the world sometimes and that we still need Jesus. And he cautions the reader well (p. 108ff) that an elevated view of our work can easily undermine the Gospel. And I completely resonated with his emphasis that it’s the Gospel of Grace that enables us to have the freedom to see work not so much as part of our identity, but as part of our God-given purpose. But still I felt he was pushing to places that could be dangerously misunderstood and misappropriated. See, one of the greatest glories of Bible Point is not Bible Point in itself, though it is a pretty little mountain and beautiful in its own right. The main glory, in my opinion, of Bible Point is the view it gives you of the “Grandfathers”, and that is something I think Cosden downplays too much. I found myself wanting him to interact with Psalm 8, where David marvels at the glory God has given to mankind but then confesses that "you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings."

That critique aside, I loved Cosden’s wonderful question on p. 78: “Is there not, in God’s purposes, a reason for our existence in pertaining to us?” I think this is a question many (all?) are asking, and one we long to answer – or better, have God answer – with an unequivocal “YES!” Often I am asked if God loves us not just because of what Christ did for us but who we are in and of ourselves. And Cosden does an incredible job of helping us see not only our dignity but our God-given glory as image bearers.

Along those lines, I think this book would be an incredible encouragement to anyone who is in a vocation which seems petty or unimportant. He does a great job of exploding the sacred/secular delusion that says that if you really want to matter - become a preacher. No, changing diapers matters to God AND to the Kingdom so change them well!

I also very much appreciated his expansion of salvation to the whole of creation (p. 114), our need for community as image-bearers (p. 88), his encouragement and diagnostic questions for self-evaluation of our callings (pp. 116-119) and his exhortation to teaching a broader, more dignified view of all work (p. 130). His “New Kind of Missionary” application of the theology was sobering and wise (p. 135).

Overall it is a bold and much needed work and I am thankful to have read it.



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