Week 6—Sunday Romans 8:19-21
Romans 8:19-21
THE MATERIAL WORLD
HAS A MEANING AND DESTINY
We turn now to another phase of “The Word became flesh.” We have been emphasizing “the Word,” but what about the “flesh”? The flesh stands for the organized material—the material organized for the use of the person. It, therefore, stands for the whole material universe. This means that the Divine assumes a material body, not as a temporary garment put on and off at will. The word “dwelt among us” could be translated “tabernacled among us,” a permanent dwelling.
This means that the material is not only going to be used for the purpose of the redemption of the spiritual being called human, but the whole person, body included, and the whole material universe are going to be redeemed. The material is just as much the subject of redemption as the spiritual.
This plants the faith of Jesus squarely in the midst of human relationships—nothing is alien to it except sin and evil. Anything that concerns life concerns the faith of Jesus, for he is Life and, therefore, includes everything comprehended under the term Life. The fact is that the Christian faith is the most materialistic of religions, the only one that really takes the material seriously. It starts out by saying that when God created the material universe, God “saw that it was good”—the material was God-made and God-approved.
When Jesus announced the new order, the kingdom of God, he said that we were to pray that the Kingdom may come on earth, and come on earth as it is in heaven. The earth was not be deserted and destroyed, but to be delivered and dedicated, the scene of the kingdom of God. The earth, therefore, has a goal and a destiny, and its goal is to added back to heaven from which it fell. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1)—heaven and earth were to be wedded and both were to be new. That puts faith and hope and optimism at the heart of our dealing with this material world. It has a future.
O my Father, I’m glad that you do not despise anything that you have made. You have made it for a purpose and that purpose is redemption. Then everything I touch has destiny in it. So I must touch it with reverence and hope and faith. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall walk in this material universe as one who walks on holy ground.