The Christian is a person-on-a-mission. Mission is not one thing among others we as Christians do. It is the one thing we do. It defines us. Identity arises from vocation, and we are called to participate in God’s mission, as Paul says.
What is God’s mission? It is to redeem creation – not only individual selves, but indeed the entire cosmos. God purposes and promises to bring all reality into its predestined fullness of being and meaning. Though inaugurated in the Resurrection, God’s work will not be completed until “the reconciliation of all things” (Acts 3.21). God will not rest until He is “all in all.” Everything and everyone, from angels to amoeba, God shall perfect.
The missio dei plays out in three acts: creation, redemption, judgment. A word about each.
Creation was a grace-act, a gift from the Creator to the creation itself. However, the creation as we know it is not the creation God gifted to us. This world is full of ugliness, death, decay. The wolf devours the lamb. The serpent poisons the child.
Some people claim to encounter God in nature. I see what they mean – to an extent. I remember sitting on a beach in Molaki watching the sun set and realizing (I believe that’s the correct word) goodness and truth and beauty are deeper than evil and death. But more often than not, nature – “red in tooth and claw” – screams that God is dead, or, worse, that He is a tyrant.
How then can I say that Creation is a gift? I say it in faith, informed by God’s self-revelation in the Cross. The God revealed in Jesus Christ does what is good for His creation, even at great cost to Himself.
Moltmann says the act of creating introduced suffering into the interior life of the Trinity. Polkinghorne proposes something similar. I’m not yet sure if I agree, but I do think it important to realize in creating, God opened Himself to suffering in some sense. The cross becomes possible only after creation. Perhaps it becomes inevitable. Scripture does speak of the Lamb being slain before the world’s foundation.
The second act of the missio dei is redemption. We must not let ourselves think of this in a way that divides the Trinity, and sets the Father over against the Son. Too often, we use coutroom imagery to explain the significance of the Cross. We put the Father in the role of Judge, and the Son in the role of Advocate, and ourselves in the role of accused. But this will not do. The Trinity is our Judge. The Trinity is our Advocate. And Jesus Christ, on behalf of the Trinity, takes on our role as the accused.
The third act of the mission is judgment. This is when God brings history to its telos. By bringing history to its climax and denoument, God brings all reality to its sublimation. History, emodiment, the earth, the cosmos – these shall not to be left behind, discarded.
Rev 21.1-4 tells us plainly of God’s future for God’s creation.
This judgement, as Volf says, is where God’s “vengence” finds room. But we must not think too humanly of God’s vengence. It means simply that God shall not allow our sins to remain.
Universalism is a heresy that makes the death of Jesus unnecessary, even blasphemous. But if the death and resurrection of Jesus mean anything, they mean God’s victory over evil was not inadequate and will not be incomplete. We don’t know who will be “in” and who “out”, but we can know all reality will see the goodness of God, and name Christ as the Lord. “Evey knee shall bow.” As Kierkegaard said, if, after the Final Judgment, there remains only one sinner in Hell and I happen to be that sinner, I will celebrate from the abyss the Justice of God.
Judgement is not something we should dread, but is to be anticipated. We should look forward to it. For in it we shall finally see the exceeding greatness of our God.
To be sure, we’ll probably be surprised. We’ll be like the employees of the crazy farmer, or like the elder son in Jesus’ parables.
This is God’s mission, and it is our mission. Let us get on with it.
