Jason Coker on God Handing Over the Keys
A fascinating post by Jason Coker on God’s control over nature:
Here’s one other option: Strictly speaking God doesn’t govern the earth – we do. That was our charge at creation (Gen 1:28-30). When we broke from God, the created world under our authority also broke from God. Hence, chaos entered the natural world and this is where thorns, and storms, and death come from.
Of course, in the grandest possible sense God still governs creation. None of it, or us, would continue to exist without the sustaining grace of God (indeed, of Christ himself). But, as I proposed in my previous post, while God has chosen to actively sustain the world, he is intentionally abstaining from repossessing it so that hope and love might be preserved…
When Jesus calmed the storm, it wasn’t a demonstration of what was already true whether the disciples knew it or not, it was a demonstration of what had once been true a very long time ago but was now, in Christ, becoming true again (thank God!).
The gospel only makes sense in a milieu of chaos where God isn’t always getting his way – even with nature. And so we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We don’t pray for the things that are already true, we pray for the things that we hope will become true.
I’m chewing on this.
