Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- Firbush Retreat Summer 2017 June 15, 2017 Robert T. Walker, "Creation and New Creation in T.F. Torrance" https://tftorrance.org/firbushS2017 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:17 So, creation and new creation in the thought of T.F. Torrance. There is a handout, but 00:17-00:26 you're not getting it until later, because the word is better heard first and then read, 00:26-00:32 and the word, that's the order of it, and then through the spoken word, hopefully the 00:32-00:39 living word can make a bigger impact, and then at your leisure you can read the written 00:39-00:40 word. 00:40-00:41 Did you not want me to introduce you then? 00:41-00:42 Oh, sorry. I forgot about leisure, sorry. 00:42-00:43 No, it's all right. 00:43-00:44 Sorry. 00:44-00:45 Don't be afraid. 00:45-00:46 I'm sorry. I thought you could introduce me later. 00:46-01:04 I was only going to say that the one person who needs no introduction whatsoever is you, 01:04-01:08 so I need the introduction. 01:08-01:10 Okay, thank you. 01:10-01:11 That's all. 01:11-01:15 Okay, thank you very much. It's just because we started with something else. 01:15-01:23 So, there'll be six key points. The first is that creation is the bringing into being 01:23-01:31 of something, a new reality alongside God. Second is that the incarnation is the entry 01:31-01:42 of God himself to become a creature. The third is that the resurrection is the real beginning 01:42-01:51 of the new creation or establishment of it. The fourth is that the resurrection creates 01:51-01:58 an overlap between the new creation and what we can call the old creation. The fifth one 01:58-02:05 is that it's the actual risen humanity of Jesus that is the absolute foundation, bedrock, 02:05-02:10 of the new creation. And then the final point is that the place of the Eucharist in this 02:10-02:18 overlap between the old and the new creation. The first thing we have to say is that the 02:18-02:25 doctrine of creation is very much part of the gospel. It's in the creeds. We believe 02:25-02:30 in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Not that it was only the Father, 02:30-02:37 it's always the whole Trinity, Father and Son and Spirit. And so the doctrine of creation 02:37-02:45 is that this is God's world, that He loves it, He cares for it, He will never let it 02:45-02:56 go, whatever mess we put into it. And He will save us from destroying it completely. And 02:56-03:00 the creation means that there was a beginning, there was a totally new beginning, the creation 03:00-03:09 is not eternal, as it was for example in Greek thought, where things just got on and on eternally. 03:09-03:17 The world actually had a beginning and it was utterly real and it was utterly good and 03:17-03:30 both those points are very important. And even though it's been defigured by sin, because 03:30-03:37 of the fatal cancer at its heart, i.e. in us, it's still unbelievably wonderful, beautiful, 03:37-03:47 complex, rich, breathtaking in all its beauty. But when we look at the doctrine of creation, 03:47-03:54 that makes the world as we have it even more wonderful. So the first thing is creation 03:54-04:03 out of nothing. And when we say creation out of nothing, we mean nothing. Nothing is not 04:03-04:11 a something out of which the universe was made. There was nothing. And so God brought 04:11-04:18 the creation into being out of nothing. That's massively important. It means that we did 04:18-04:30 not come into being out of God, we're not an emanation from God. We're completely 04:30-04:39 new and so there are a host of implications from this. The first one is that the creation 04:39-04:46 is totally dependent on God. It does not bring itself into being. It cannot keep itself in 04:46-04:53 being. We are completely dependent on God's, this almighty act of somehow bringing into 04:53-05:00 being something alongside Him that wasn't there before. So it's continually dependent 05:00-05:07 on Him for its being and its beginning, but it's also continually dependent on God for 05:07-05:13 its existence from moment to moment. If God withdrew His breath for one microsecond, there'd 05:13-05:25 be no universe. The next vital point is that creation is given its own reality alongside 05:25-05:35 God but different from Him. And that's fundamental. God is God. God has His own nature, His own 05:35-05:44 being. The world is not God, it hasn't come out of God, it's a new reality with its own 05:44-05:55 being. And that means it's not divine in any way. There's no divine element in creation. 05:55-05:59 It's entirely new and not God. And that of course is the birth of science, a part of 05:59-06:05 it. We cannot do science as long as we think of God as mixed in with nature and we worship 06:05-06:11 nature as divine or the spirits in the woods and the trees. It's only when God is seen 06:11-06:18 as not being in nature that we can investigate nature. So there's no divine element, there's 06:18-06:26 no divine soul. We're a creature, we're entirely made of creaturely stuff. That's a technical 06:26-06:33 word. But it's a technical word that's used to reinforce the fact that we are not divine 06:33-06:42 in any shape or form. Body, soul, mind, spirit are all creaturely stuff. And as we were discussing 06:42-06:51 yesterday, the human is an integrated unity. The next point, that means that there are 06:51-07:04 now two very different co-existent realities. And because they are very different in their 07:04-07:11 own nature, we have to look at each to see what it's like. We can't look at one to see 07:11-07:18 what the other is like because it's a different reality. So we have to look at the world to 07:18-07:26 see what it's like. And of course that's the whole basis of science. We only look at the 07:26-07:33 world and not at God. In Greek thought, for example, matter is eternal and matter is formless 07:33-07:44 stuff and it resists form. Whereas the forms are eternal, they're in the heavens. And the 07:44-07:49 magic of creation, such as it is, it's not real creation, is to impose form on matter. 07:49-07:55 But matter resists form. And so this world is always imperfect. There are elements of 07:55-08:01 chaos. And insofar as we can understand it, what we're actually understanding is the forms. 08:01-08:10 But the forms are imposed from heaven. And we use reason and we have a spark of divine 08:10-08:21 reason in us. So we can understand the divine and see why nature is what it is. But if creation 08:21-08:27 is totally new, we can't do that way. We have to look at creation itself to see what it's 08:27-08:36 like. And that's absolutely fundamental. But the second point which follows on from that 08:36-08:45 is that creation is at a very, very different level. God is at a level infinitely higher 08:45-08:51 than we are. So not just because there are two different realities, but because there 08:51-09:01 are different levels. We can't know God by looking at creation. I'll come back to that 09:01-09:09 a little bit more later. But there's no logical bridge of any kind. There's no bridge in being, 09:09-09:14 any kind of ontological bridge. There's no bridge in knowing, any kind of epistemic bridge, 09:14-09:21 such that we can get from one to the other. Because we are creaturely, we can only think 09:21-09:29 in creaturely terms. And that again is fundamentally important and one of the implications of Einstein. 09:29-09:36 Whereas the whole of Western philosophy in many ways has regarded us as having a kind 09:36-09:41 of capacity of reason, where we can think the infinite. God is beyond space and time, 09:41-09:48 but somewhere we can think of Him. That means mentally and logically we're jumping up above, 09:48-09:53 beyond creation and thinking the idea of God. But if we are really creaturely, we can have 09:53-10:03 no idea of God. We can only think from within the creation. And of course that means that 10:03-10:11 the only way to know God is by revelation, if God Himself makes Himself known to us. 10:11-10:16 But because we are creaturely, He can only do that by coming down into the creation to 10:16-10:23 make Himself known to us at our level in creaturely terms. Calvin made a lot of that point, that 10:23-10:33 God uses baby language to speak to us. He accommodates Himself to us. But the miracle 10:33-10:40 is that God does give us some real grasp of what He is, even though we're human and remain 10:40-10:48 human, yet we are given to know something of the divine majesty. And we can't say, but 10:48-10:54 in a sense we are lifted up beyond creation, while still being in creation, but we know 10:54-11:04 God. Now the twofold nature of creation. And this 11:04-11:10 is again very important. It's at once totally dependent on God, and yet it's been given 11:10-11:18 a relative independence. But in that relative independence, it's continually dependent 11:18-11:29 on God for its being. So this double relation of dependence and yet independence, of movement 11:29-11:37 away from God, because we can't look at God to understand it, but movement to God also, 11:37-11:44 because creation depends on God for its being. And again we'll come back to the science itself. 11:44-11:53 Modern science raises questions. Science now works with an open framework, where we can't 11:53-11:59 have a closed system, and the systems we use have to be open to the possibility of what 11:59-12:06 is beyond, why are we here? And modern science raises those questions, so that the modern 12:06-12:13 science itself raises questions which ask questions which go beyond what science can 12:13-12:27 answer. But without any inherent existence of our own, we've been brought into being 12:27-12:36 by God with us as its crown, so that we can stand before Him in our own creaturely reality, 12:36-12:42 as His covenant partners. And we as human beings have a key role to play. 12:42-12:49 So I've spoken about the twofold nature of creation, completely dependent and yet independent. 12:49-12:58 Now we go on to look at what it means that creation is contingent. And by contingent, 12:58-13:04 the root meaning from the Latin is kind of accidental. But when we say the universe is 13:04-13:10 contingent we're basically saying it's not necessary. God did not have to bring it into 13:10-13:17 being the way it is. So He did not have to bring it into being at all. It was a free 13:17-13:28 creation. So it's not necessary, but also it does not have to be the way it is. God 13:28-13:35 could have made it very differently. So on both accounts, that He didn't have to make 13:35-13:41 it and He could have made it very differently, we have no idea what the universe might have 13:41-13:49 been or could have been, except by looking at it. And again that's a key element in science, 13:49-13:56 one of the main presuppositions behind science. We have to just look at creation. And because 13:56-14:03 it might have been very different and we can't know by reason, we have to do experiment to 14:03-14:13 discover what it's like. And then finally on this point, the twofold nature of creation 14:13-14:23 also means there's a twofold nature to enjoying the world. Because it has a reality of its 14:23-14:29 own apart from God, we have to enjoy it for itself, as something real and utterly good 14:29-14:38 in itself. At the same time we also have to enjoy it as the gift of God. And when we see 14:38-14:46 it as the gift of God, then we can enjoy it all the more. But we have to keep each in 14:46-14:57 their own integrity. We can't mix up the two. And it's when we maintain the utter separation 14:57-15:05 between God and creation that we can enjoy each to the full. The sermon on Sunday in 15:05-15:13 the church that I go to, the minister used the unfortunate phrase "the probationary minister" 15:13-15:21 that God infused himself into creation. And you can't say that. God does not mix himself 15:21-15:32 with creation. They are completely separate. We'll come back to a bit more on the nature 15:32-15:40 of creation. But that's a book I highly recommend, "Divine and Contingent Order", where Torrance 15:40-15:49 makes a lot of this point. Some of it is quite difficult in a way. But as with anything that's 15:49-15:56 difficult, you just have to keep reading it and not to worry if you don't understand it. 15:56-16:03 And the understanding will come. Wei Jing, who some of you will know, is a Chinese girl 16:03-16:11 who studied at New College. She absolutely loved this book. And if she can love it, then 16:11-16:20 there's no reason why we can't too. I read it again carefully recently, and I thought 16:20-16:26 this is just amazing stuff and actually very relevant to today. 16:26-16:34 So, in our next point, if the first creation is "charatio ex nihilo", Latin, creation out 16:34-16:46 of nothing, the second creation has been termed as "charatio ex virgeni", out of the virgin. 16:46-16:50 It's hard to say which is the greater miracle, the first creation or the second. Because 16:50-16:55 if the creation out of nothing, if that's not miraculous enough, then how about the 16:55-17:04 fact that God the Creator actually became a creature in His creation? Without ceasing 17:04-17:10 to be God, He became a creature. To me it's every bit as astonishing, and I would say 17:10-17:22 more so. The first creation took billions of years. The second creation took 33 years. 17:22-17:31 It began in the year A.D. 1, and was decisively completed in the year A.D. 33. Welcome, Peter 17:31-17:42 Donald. Of course, it was completed in Christ, in the person of Christ. It's not yet completed 17:42-17:48 in one sense in us. In another sense it has also been completed for us in Christ. But 17:48-17:57 basically the life of Christ on earth was the new creation. Just as we can no more explain 17:57-18:06 how God brought creation into being out of nothing, we cannot possibly explain how He 18:06-18:15 became man, the way He did in the birth of Mary. The virgin birth is not an attempt to 18:15-18:22 explain how that happened. It simply says what happened, that this was the act of God. 18:22-18:28 There's a whole wrong theology of the virgin birth, but a wonderful proper understanding 18:28-18:39 of it, which is very illuminating. The next point is what I've called the somatic, 18:39-18:50 the Greek for body. The whole of creation is physical. It's real. Scientists will say 18:50-19:01 that actually I'm not real, not really real, because 99.9% of me is space. At the micro 19:01-19:12 level, you look at atoms, there's mostly space, but it's all energy buzzing around. A table 19:12-19:23 is not really solid because it's empty space. The point is that the way that space is structured 19:23-19:32 and its energy, we cannot penetrate the table. It's hard and we are solid. In that sense, 19:32-19:39 the creation is real and solid and utterly real. Everything about the creation is physical. 19:39-19:46 Now physical doesn't just mean stones and rocks and stuff. It's unbelievably complex. 19:46-19:57 It's energy, life, but it's creaturely stuff, it's not God. Human life, as we were thinking 19:57-20:10 yesterday, is an indissoluble unity of body, mind, soul, spirit, etc. There's no human 20:10-20:18 life without there being body and soul together. Therefore, when we think of the Incarnation, 20:18-20:25 we have to think of Christ as being that kind of solid, bodily reality, not just in His 20:25-20:35 incarnation on earth, but still. Of course, Christ now has a glorified body. He took on 20:35-20:43 a decaying, sinful body, which, because it's sinful, goes down into death. When He rose, 20:43-20:51 then He had a glorified new body, which was no longer subject to death. It's a spiritual 20:51-20:59 body. But spiritual body, as T.F. emphasizes, does not mean it's less body. It actually 20:59-21:10 means it's more body. It's more body because it's full of life. Our kind of body is inherently 21:10-21:18 decaying on the way down into death, but Christ is so full of real life, of spirit in that 21:18-21:26 sense, that His body will never die. Therefore, He is called the life-giving spirit. But it 21:26-21:33 does not mean that He is not still bodily. There is a real continuity between our bodies 21:33-21:46 and our new bodies, and between this creation as we have it now and the restored creation. 21:46-21:52 We have to think of the whole life of Jesus and the continuing life as being somatic and 21:52-21:58 bodily, but bodily in not just the kind of rocks and stones sense, but this wonderful 21:58-22:08 integrated thing that we are. The next point is the priestly nature of incarnation, that 22:08-22:16 everything that Christ does, He does as a priest. He is the eternal Word of God through 22:16-22:24 whom the whole universe is made and in whom the whole universe holds its being. But He 22:24-22:31 became man to act in our place and for us so that He might gather up the whole of creation 22:31-22:44 in Himself, Ephesians 1-10, and present it to God. He does this as man. Now it's only 22:44-22:53 because He is the eternal Word in whom the whole universe was held together that He alone 22:53-23:07 could act as one man in our place. So it's God as one man, as this man who is our priestly 23:07-23:13 substitute and representative. And just as the high priest in Israel wore the names of 23:13-23:19 the 12 tribes on his shoulder and breastplate, so we have to think of Christ as wearing all 23:19-23:26 our names, the names that have ever been in the world, so that what He does represents 23:26-23:36 us and is true for us. And that is absolutely fundamental. In the New Testament, this is 23:36-23:45 part of the kingly priestly ministry of Jesus, to stand before God in our place and for us, 23:45-23:54 representing us, God to us and us to God. So as we heard last night in Thomas Marvellous' 23:54-24:00 summary of the mediation of Christ, Christ does both. He represents, brings the Word 24:00-24:09 of God to us and He makes our response to God. And through the Spirit leads us to share 24:09-24:16 in His response and make it our own. So it's vitally important to see that everything He 24:16-24:25 does as man, in birth, growth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, receiving the Spirit 24:25-24:36 is for us and is ours. We'll come back to that later. The New Creation. The New Creation 24:36-24:46 had its beginning within the old creation and its decisive completion in the resurrection. 24:46-24:53 In His death, Jesus left the old creation behind and rose as the first fruits of the 24:53-25:01 New Creation, the first man in the New Creation. If the incarnation is the real beginning of 25:01-25:08 the New Creation, the resurrection was its triumphant establishment. And so as Paul says, 25:08-25:16 if anyone is in Christ, that person is a New Creation, because Christ is a New Creation. 25:16-25:24 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a New Creation. We have to think here of the 25:24-25:31 universal nature of the resurrection. It's not just the raising of somebody from the 25:31-25:39 dead, the resurrection of a corpse. The death of Christ was much, much more than that. It 25:39-25:48 wasn't just the kind of death which was the inevitable end of all human life. When Christ 25:48-25:58 died, that signified the death of all humanity. We all died in Him. But also the death of 25:58-26:08 all creation. One has died for all, therefore all have died. And His mighty resurrection 26:08-26:15 is the beginning of the New Creation. It's the beginning of a new space and time on the 26:15-26:23 other side of death, in the New Creation established in His risen person. So we have to say that 26:23-26:31 in Jesus the New Creation has already begun. Because His death was the death of old space 26:31-26:39 and time, His resurrection is the beginning of new space and time. Now that hasn't happened 26:39-26:45 to us yet, because we're still here in our old bodies. But it happened to Christ, and 26:45-26:52 Christ was doing it for us. So if His death was a death of old space and time, and His 26:52-26:59 resurrection is on the other side of death, that means He has created the future. His 26:59-27:05 resurrection is the future. It hasn't happened to us, but it's happened to Him. Now that's 27:05-27:12 an event in our past, two thousand years ago. But the whole nature of the event is that 27:12-27:20 that was the end of the old creation. So His resurrection is the beginning of a new creation. 27:20-27:27 It's actually future. Future to us. It's new space and time. So we can't ask, "Where is 27:27-27:34 Christ now?" Because any answer to that, we can only point to somewhere in the old creation 27:34-27:40 where He is. And He's not in the old creation. It's a new creation. So He's still bodily, 27:40-27:47 He's still real, but He is beyond. Again, I'll come back to that later. But anyhow, 27:47-27:56 the future has already happened. Our future has already happened in a real sense. Now, 27:56-28:00 how can we possibly say that when we're here and now? How can we say that our future has 28:00-28:07 happened already? Well, we can only say it because of the whole meaning of the Gospel 28:07-28:18 and the faith. The absolute meaning of faith is that Jesus is our representative and our 28:18-28:27 God. What He has done is for us, and what He has done is the truth about us. So if He 28:27-28:34 has died, we have died. Paul says that. If He has risen, we are risen. We are ascended 28:34-28:42 with Him, as Paul says. We are sitted with Christ in the heavenly places already. Now, 28:42-28:54 faith believes that. So we believe that somehow what Jesus did, that is us. But as I've tried 28:54-28:59 to explain, that's the future. It hasn't yet happened to us. So we have to think that this 28:59-29:06 event, though it's in our past, it represents our future, but it's also our present, because 29:06-29:17 Christ is eternally alive now. So that the new creation is past in one sense, but very 29:17-29:27 much a present reality and our future reality. But because Christ is a new creation, there 29:27-29:33 are now not just two realities, but three realities. There's God, obviously, and then 29:33-29:39 there are two creations, an old creation and a new creation. In the forty days that Christ 29:39-29:50 was on earth, the two creations were visibly overlapping. And when Christ appeared on earth, 29:50-29:56 then you could see the overlap. This was a new creation, walking about on earth and teaching 29:56-30:05 His disciples. But then we get the ascension, and the ascension means that Christ withdraws 30:05-30:14 Himself visibly from this old creation, and He makes a definite departure. If He had simply 30:14-30:21 just vanished, the disciples would have thought, "Well, He's vanished, He'll appear again." 30:21-30:30 But by going up physically, it's a way of saying, "I'm going away for a long time." 30:30-30:38 And His parables say that, going away until the nobleman who goes away to a far country 30:38-30:45 for considerable time to receive kingly power. But it's not a journey through space, because 30:45-30:50 the cloud takes them, and the cloud is a sign of the glory of God. So at that point we have 30:50-31:00 to think that Christ has gone into the presence of God beyond our space and time. We won't 31:00-31:08 go into all the different points about the meaning of ascension, it's all in the handout. 31:08-31:15 But basically He's ascended because if He had remained on earth, He is the new creation. 31:15-31:22 The final judgment, theologically, is the judgment of the cross. And the final judgment, 31:22-31:26 as we come to think of it, will simply be the judgment of the cross being made manifest 31:26-31:32 to everybody. If Christ had not gone away, people would have been confronted with the 31:32-31:42 final judgment here and now on earth. So He's departed, in a sense, visibly at least, in 31:42-31:48 order to give the church time and room for the preaching of the gospel. So the church 31:48-31:56 now lives between the times, between the time of Christ living on earth and the time when 31:56-32:06 He will finally come back again. And it's the resurrection, that's the absolute bedrock 32:06-32:14 of the new creation. Because the physical body resurrection of Jesus means that man 32:14-32:22 has now been established forever as real. When Jesus rose, He rose never again to die. 32:22-32:30 He's still man, He's made our response of faith, He's undid our sin, He knows God fully 32:30-32:38 and perfectly, He lives in communion with God. In Him, the kingdom has come and He is 32:38-32:48 the first man in the kingdom. But all of that is only real if He has done that as man, two 32:48-33:00 parts of the covenant. It's the risen humanity, that there are two parts to the kingdom. One 33:00-33:07 is the revelation of God, but the other is the establishment of man in the kingdom, and 33:07-33:15 that's the resurrection. And both are fully realized in the resurrection. But by contrast, 33:15-33:23 the church in the West, certainly, but almost universally in the West, but certainly in 33:23-33:30 the West, obviously. But the church focuses mostly on the cross, paying lip service to 33:30-33:34 the resurrection. When it does speak about the resurrection, it fails to see its massive 33:34-33:40 cosmic significance, and then it thinks that we have to establish the kingdom here on earth, 33:40-33:45 that Christ has left us to get on with it. And it fails to see that the kingdom has been 33:45-33:55 established already. By the questions I'll speak about the story of the shuttered room. 33:55-34:02 So now it's the incarnate life of Christ, which is the laying of the foundation of the 34:02-34:16 bedrock. His whole life on earth is His beginning to put the new creation into effect. He takes 34:16-34:23 everything that we are, our human nature in all that's fallenness, and also in all that's 34:23-34:32 time development. We are born as babies, we grow, we change, we get older, we die. And 34:32-34:40 that is what human life is. And so He takes on all of that. At each stage in His life, 34:40-34:47 He's at once taking on our sinful human nature, and in taking it on, He is sanctifying it 34:47-34:54 and bending it back into Himself, in Himself, into obedience to God. At each stage He is 34:54-35:00 growing in wisdom and favour with God and man. At each stage He is entering more and 35:00-35:07 more into the human experience, and entering more and more, to use the very last phrase 35:07-35:15 of T.F. Torrance, He is entering more and more into solidarity with sinners. And when 35:15-35:21 He heals people, as Matthew makes comments, that when He heals them, He is taking their 35:21-35:30 sins, their diseases on Himself. So He is entering more and more into our human condition, 35:30-35:36 and that comes to a culmination in Gethsemane and on the cross, where He dies our death. 35:36-35:44 And He hasn't gone down into death, He has not really experienced and become to the full 35:44-35:53 everything that we are. And therefore He dies in death. And in death, He who knew no sin 35:53-35:59 was made sin. He took the judgment of God, which is His own judgment as God, onto Himself 35:59-36:08 as man. He took our cry of God forsaken us on His own lips. But holding fast to God in 36:08-36:19 prayer He said, "Not will but Yours be done, Father, forgive them, they know not what they 36:19-36:28 do. Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit." In the very darkness of final judgment and 36:28-36:38 death He maintains faith in God and in His righteousness. And in answering faith and 36:38-36:45 answering human righteousness, He offers Himself up to God. In so doing, He completes atonement 36:45-36:53 and is sanctifying our human nature and dies in perfect trust, waiting for God to raise 36:53-37:03 Him. And then it rises 40 days of final instruction and commissioning and then He ascends to heaven, 37:03-37:13 where Acts 2.33, having completed the sanctification of human nature, Peter says, he says that 37:13-37:22 Christ received the promise of the Spirit in heaven. He'd already had it at baptism, 37:22-37:28 He's been born by the Spirit, but Peter says He now receives the Spirit in heaven. It can 37:28-37:33 only mean that because He's finished purifying our humanity, He's receiving the Spirit for 37:33-37:42 us. And if Peter goes on to say that, he has poured this out. So all that is now in pouring 37:42-37:52 out the Spirit, Christ Himself is present to us. But it's His whole life on earth, completed 37:52-37:57 and established in the resurrection and the ascension, taking our humanity into God, which 37:57-38:05 is the establishment of the new creation. So the bodily, the risen humanity is absolutely 38:05-38:13 vital. That establishes the new creation and as I've said, we now have the overlap. And 38:13-38:20 the final point is the place of the Eucharist in the overlap between old and new creation. 38:20-38:27 The church lives between the times. And in the midst of the pain and suffering of the 38:27-38:35 world, we are sent out to preach, to witness and to live the gospel. And we're called to 38:35-38:42 weep with those who weep and suffer with those who suffer. But we are sustained by the heavenly 38:42-38:48 intercession of Christ and by His presence with us through the Spirit, and especially 38:48-38:54 with two particular gifts, the gift of word and of the sacrament of the Eucharist, if 38:54-39:04 you mean the Lord's Supper. And through these, in their inseparability, T.F. says, this is 39:04-39:11 how the church most becomes the church. It's when you can't separate the proper celebration 39:11-39:16 of the Eucharist from the preaching of the Word, but the preaching of the Word attains 39:16-39:23 its biggest impact when it's combined with the sacrament. And when the Word is preached 39:23-39:35 and given, then that's much more powerful. Now behind all this lies what T.F. speaks 39:35-39:41 about, the intense eschatological joy of the New Testament. Eschatological is the Greek 39:41-39:47 word eschata, the last things, and it refers to things that pertain to the end of time. 39:47-39:52 Not just the end of time, but the fact that God is breaking into history, and this is 39:52-40:02 the beginning of the end. But because Christ has conquered death, is risen already, we 40:02-40:08 are already new people in Him, the New Testament is full of intense eschatological joy. And 40:08-40:18 that comes out very strongly in the great chapters of T.F.'s book Atonement, the great 40:18-40:24 chapters on justification, reconciliation and redemption. Very, very strongly. This 40:24-40:33 note of eschatological joy comes out very strongly in all that. Sin and death are defeated, 40:33-40:39 we're risen, we're reconciled, we taste already the powers of the age to come, Hebrews, 40:39-40:47 and we experience the joys. And therefore, again and again we're told to rejoice. There's 40:47-40:56 no word in the New Testament for problem. Whatever happens, we rejoice. So now the place 40:56-41:06 of the Eucharist, it's between the times. So in the Eucharist, we remember and celebrate 41:06-41:14 the death of Christ in the past, but the nature of that past is that it's not just in the 41:14-41:21 past, because it's ever-present. So we celebrate the past as an ever-present event in its undying 41:21-41:29 reality. But also, this is key, we celebrate its future manifestation. And that's a key 41:29-41:35 part of the Eucharist. As Paul says, "As often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you 41:35-41:41 proclaim the Lord's death until he come." So we proclaim the Lord's death, calling to 41:41-41:50 mind all that he did in the cross and resurrection. We celebrate it as a present reality, and 41:50-41:57 we celebrate the supper as a foretaste of the great banquet in the kingdom. And that 41:57-42:09 is key. We all know that if we've got a wearisant tusk, then it can drag on and on. But as soon 42:09-42:15 as the end's in sight, we get new energy. We think, "Oh, not long to go now," and we 42:15-42:26 knuckle down. And that eschatological element, if we keep our eyes focused on that, that 42:26-42:32 would give our whole life in church a new energy. We are already in the last times, 42:32-42:39 Christ has already risen. So the Eucharist should help us to keep together the past, 42:39-42:47 the present, and it's Christ who is the real efficient at the supper and the future. So 42:47-42:54 to my mind, the Eucharist has an extra special place to play, not just because it's a visible 42:54-43:01 way of Christ confirming himself to us. That's when we eat, take the bread and the wine, 43:01-43:06 Christ is giving himself to us. And that isn't stressed either. We're not just eating the 43:06-43:18 bread and the wine. It's Christ himself giving us his risen life. Now, one final point. We 43:18-43:25 are called to coordinate our knowledge of God and our knowledge of creation. Because 43:25-43:35 creation has been brought into being out of nothing, it's impossible for us to get through 43:35-43:44 creation back to God. Through science we can get right back to the very beginning. We can 43:44-43:52 only look at nature once it's creation, once it's come into being. We can understand it 43:52-43:57 enough to get back to within, very close to what they call the Big Bang. In the nature 43:57-44:04 of the case, we cannot go beyond there. We can only look at something that's real. We 44:04-44:10 can't see how it came into being out of nothing. If we did get to the Big Bang itself, we couldn't 44:10-44:17 go past it because we can't go through nothing to get to God. There's no umbilical cord of 44:17-44:23 any kind between the world and God. We haven't come into being out of God. There's no causal 44:23-44:31 link between reason and logic. There's simply nothing. And so the human trail runs dry at 44:31-44:40 that point. Science can only raise questions. But the nature of modern science, because 44:40-44:50 it now works with an open framework in terms of multi-levels, then we can extend the levels 44:50-45:00 and get deeper. But we can never get beyond a certain point. And at that point we only 45:00-45:10 know God because He comes in and makes Himself known to us. So as Christians, we have to 45:10-45:17 co-ordinate our knowledge of creation and our knowledge of the new creation. And that's 45:17-45:28 a wonderful task. We have no spark of divine reason in us. There's no hotline to God. So 45:28-45:32 there's a lot there for us to think about. Thank you. 45:32-45:34 [applause]