"We are headed back to Eden, with all of heaven urging us on! To use a New Testament metaphor, the table is prepared and our Father awaits our return."
Sandra Richter, The Epic of Eden (pg 134)
I'm on a songwriting retreat for a few days and I'm looking at this book, Epic of Eden. I cannot recommend it enough!
Two things struck me today as I've been reading. One is the cumulative nature of God's plan.
Phase 1: God steps back into the world for the first time since Eden's Fall and initiates a fresh start. He begins small and moves forward with one guy and his family. Through Noah he makes a deal with all of Creation. He uncreates everything with a flood, then promises that from that point forward all his work will be toward the incremental recreational redemption of all things.
Phase 2: is Abraham's Covenant to make a people and a give them a place to be restored to God.
Phase 3: Through Moses God nationalizes those people and sets them up in a place giving them, for the first time since Eden, his own dwelling Presence among them via the Tabernacle.
Phase 4: puts a new human steward on the throne, David (a new but temporary 'Adam'). David is the Shepherd-King of God's people in God's place with God's Presence. And David is the placeholder for the True Shepherd-King, the Messiah.
Finally, Phase 5 is the New Covenant with Jesus himself, God incarnate. Jesus is the new Adam, leading God's own people, giving us his Presence, and reigning as our true King. Step by step God's work has the cumulative effect of getting a fallen humanity back to God's original intent, Eden. In Eden, the people of God live in God's place with full access to God's Presence. This has begun already, and we wait for Jesus' return and the full expression of God's redemptive plan.
That brings me to the second thing that struck me today, which is the quote from above. That, yes, we are waiting for Jesus to return. But I can't do anything about that, He will return on his own time. What is within my power is whether or not I will return to him!
The New Testament is full of this kind of language. God has made his move, it's our turn. He watches down the road for his prodigal sons to come home, he has a banquet readied and the invitations have been sent out! He is waiting for us to respond to his invitation. The King waits for the return of his children.
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