More metanarrative

When John wrote his Gospel he simply picked up in Genesis and tags his Gospel onto it. By using those first three words, “In the beginning God,” John says, this is the continuation of the story that begins in Genesis 1.1. It isn’t a new story or a different story as Marcionists would have you believe, it is the same story and the same God.

We shouldn’t be surprised then when we get to John 3.16 that God loved the world. He created it all and it was (and is) dear to him, it is His desire to save that creation from destruction, as it always has been. Noah and his family were saved from destruction rather than God wiping it all away and starting again with new people being created.

Noah had a rough experience of what it all looked like before creation. Water, water everywhere, a chaotic environment which not only didn’t support life but destroyed it, and then, the waters returned to their boundaries set by God in creation and life began again but things weren’t as they were, life spans were shortened and the atmosphere was different, there had never been a rainbow before this time. Corruption was even more significant.

The Judeo-Christian metanarrative explains change and degradation by pointing to sin. It explains the power of God and the judgment of God but more than that it explains God’s love for us and this creation. The story is the story of love, redemption and mercy for a world gone wrong. Tomorrow we will look at Romans 8 and see a bit more into the heart of God for this creation.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 21:46 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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