THE GOD-CENTERED VIEW OF LIFE
The overall framework of the Bible story is what God has done, not what man has done or should do. The covenant of redemption is God’s overarching plan to redeem humanity and that covenant is the lens through which all bible books should be interpreted. Specifically, the covenant of redemption is that Trinitarian compact rooted in eternity whereby the three personages of the Godhead agreed to save the human race and the entire creation along with it. This covenant is the outgrowth of God’s gracious nature to save along with His unrelenting desire to have His name proclaimed throughout the earth. The nature of the covenant as far as it was revealed was that the Father would give His Son a people (John 17:2,6,9 etc) to save and the Son would consciously accept the commission and condescend to become one with His creation, would live a life that perfectly conformed to His Father’s will, and would suffer the penalty for humanity’s sins by offering Himself up as a sacrifice on a shameful instrument of torture. Through this work man’s fellowship with God, broken at the Fall, would be restored. In addition the power to apply all the aspects of Christ’s work would be accomplished by the third Trinitarian person, the Holy Spirit, who would act as the Divine Executive and perfectly apply all aspects of the Son’s work to the chosen people of God. This He would do by first uniting Himself to them in a mystical union, and second, by providing for them a plethora of spiritual resources that would be means unto the full completion of the divine purpose.
Seeing the Bible as God’s working unto Himself and for Himself is what I consider the central theme of the Bible. Of course some will say, ‘if God has already done all the work of saving and choosing and calling and sanctifying His people, then what’s left for us to do?’ That question betrays the problem. One of the sad results of the Fall is that man’s mind has turned tragically upon himself. He sees reality through the myopic lens of himself and not a God lens. Since the day Adam grabbed those fig leaves to solve his own problem mankind has been looking at life through the ‘what’s in it for me’ lens. In modern evangelicalism, which was ostensibly the movement that was supposed to carry forth this God-centered perspective, there has been an increasing drift toward a man centered view of Christian life, whether that be in vocation, worship, or in application of the Scriptures. Where once evangelicals during the Reformation viewed the bible as a book primarily about the exaltation of God and His work, the modern heirs to Luther and Calvin see the bible as a self-affirming revelation of man’s story. In this we have forgotten that the Bible begins with God creating all things ex nihilo and it ends as He drops the New Jerusalem down from heaven fully furnished for His people. And between these pages, the Lord continually reveals Himself as the Author of everything and asks the reader to do nothing but stand back and worship this precious Creator/Redeemer. Jeremiah puts all man-centered views of reality to shame when He tells arrogant Israel that she is but clay in the hands of a heavenly Potter (Jeremiah 18) and that He will do with Israel as He pleases. We come to the bible with the right perspective when we see its central player the God who began everything, sustains everything, and will bring all things to His desired end. The only explanation given as to why God does what He does is found in Paul’s words, ‘according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace’ (Eph 1:5-6). The answer may frustrate us but that is only because we want to see our story attached to the main plot. But alas, Paul’s words include no mention of man and no rationale for God’s ultimate purposes. God simply does all things for Himself and unto Himself. Period.
No doubt it takes a disciplined mind to see the bible in this way. As we said, our minds are naturally bent in on themselves. We approach any discipline asking how it can help me, shape me, stimulate men, or gratify me. Only when we yield to the Spirit’s nudge that we look outward to God will we begin to form a habit of seeing God’s work in every crevice of Holy Scripture. When that happens we will begin to embrace all the stories, poems, proverbs and histories as a conduit through which God and His work is being revealed. Thinking this way will cause the reader to see the law passages not as man’s obedience but as Christ’s obedience. What the reader once saw as passages concerning the need for spiritual fruit he will now see as the promise of fruit because He is attached to the fruitful One. What once the reader saw as biblical stories about human heroics he will now see as the history of that one true Hero who has conquered sin and death. What were once seen as poems about human misery and groaning are now seen now as prophetic pictures of the groaning and crying of the Son as He takes on the sin of the world and is separated from the Father. God as revealed in Christ is the common thread stitched through every page of Holy Writ. And all God expects of us is to acknowledge, praise, and live in light of His great rescue mission. And to know God in this way is to know life. That is, only when we have as our life’s goal to know God for who He can we even begin to know ourselves. And suddenly all those man-centered perspectives are wonderfully enfolded in that glorious mystery of our gracious God. Isn’t it strange that we often find the answers to life by looking for something other than answers?