mcintyre re: worship

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

God is the Creator of all things, who made everything “ex nihilo” (out of nothing). Everything that He made, He called “good”, which we also understand to mean “sacred”. All things created out of nothing reflect His creative goodness.

The crowning achievement of this goodness are human beings, the “imago Dei” (image of God), who were necessary to complete the Creator’s relationship to His creation. Because humans reflect God’s nature to create, reign, relate, and to save, they are of extreme value as the agents of this nature in the world. Humans reflect who God is to the creation, and the work and praise of creation are offered back to God through the image bearers (humans). (N.T. Wright, “Creation Integration” video teaching). Similarly, the kingly nature of God is reflected in the charge for man and woman to have dominion on the earth (Genesis 1:26-29) … to steward and rule in the way that the Creator King does.

In this image bearing and act of offering, we (humans) are uniquely made to articulate the redemption story, in ways that the rest of creation cannot. We were given the glory of God, but chose to exchange it for a different position by doubting the Creator, following a competing voice and attempting to establish a glory of self-importance. As a result, we lost the ability to rightly create, reign, relate, and to perform acts of rescue. God is self-revealing through creation and His word, and ultimately revealed himself in the person of Jesus, who through a sacrificial act, has and is restoring the glory of humankind to its original intent.

The Kingdom of God, though often described in contemporary thinking as a future, post-earthly reality, is present now in those who surrender themselves and pledge allegiance to the King, who is the Creator. As a result, the image bearers represent this kingship in all parts of the earth. We understand this collection of image bearers to be the Church, because the New Testament describes the Church as the redeemed body in Jesus. Without Jesus’ atonement and redemption, the Church could not exist in the full glory that the Creator has restored. The Church was established not for itself, but to tell the story of redemption to creation, working to restore all humans to full image-bearing.

The “eschaton” (final age) is the full restoration of God’s original intention. It is a return to the Garden of Eden, when human beings were in full communion with their Creator God. We do not understand its complete reality, but it will be a reality….not too much like our romanticized depictions of heaven, and not completely unlike creation as we know it.

Finally, since God has revealed Himself as Creator, King, Trinity (existing in Community) and as Savior, we the image of God are therefore designed to reflect Him by being sub-creators, bearers of his kingship, community builders, and tellers (through words and acts) of the salvation story. The crowning achievement of God’s creation is humankind, and the crowning achievement of humankind’s story is the full reflection of its Creator.