A Few Select Quotes

November 28, 2007

Hey Lar,

Way to keep things going brother. You are back to your old, blogging self again! I am thankful. For you have posted some very good stuff the past few days. I particularly enjoyed Abraham Piper’s words and do need to listen to that message by Keller. He is great to learn from.

That being said, I wanted to give you a few quotes from a book he recommended, the book I mentioned to you via email, namely, Creation Regained, by Albert Wolters. I am benefiting greatly from it to say the least. It is not an easy read, but as we have heard Piper say (and are fond of repeating), “Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves. Digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.” Here are a few select quotes from my reading thus far.

“It is probably safe to say that our view of the extent of the kingdom constitutes as telling an index of our worldview as does our conception of ‘the world.’ An almost ineradicable tendency exists among Christians to restrict the scope of the kingdom –a tendency that parallels the persistent inclination to divide the world into sacred and profane realms.”

“It is all of creation that is included in the scope of Christ’s redemption: that scope is truly cosmic. Through Christ, God determined ‘to reconcile to himself all things,” writes Paul (Col. 1:20), and the words he uses (ta panta) preclude any narrow or personalistic understanding of the reconciliation he has in mind. It may seem strange to us that the apostle uses the word reconcile in this connection, when he has more than human beings in mind, but this usage simply confirms what we have learned about the scope of the fall: ‘all things’ are drawn into the mutiny of the human race and its enmity toward God, and their strained relations with the Creator must be ‘patched up,’ brought once more into harmony with him. The scope of redemption is as great as that of the fall; it embraces creation as a whole. The root cause of all evil on earth –namely, the sin of the human race–is atoned for and overcome in Christ’s death and resurrection, and therefore in principle his redemption also removes all of sin’s effects. Wherever there is disruption of the good creation–and that disruption, as we saw, is unrestricted in its scope–there Christ provides the possibility of restoration. If the whole creation is affected by the fall, then the whole creation is also reclaimed in Christ.”

I am just getting started with the quotes. I will try to post some more tomorrow as well. Again, I am really enjoying the book.