Systematic Theology Lecture Notes

September 17, 2009

Colossians 1:15-20
1 Corinthians 15:20-28, 8:6
John 1:1-9
What do these verses tell us about creation?

Genesis 1-Let Us make- us is the divine council-the writer of Genesis doesn’t know about the Trinity, but back then they were aware of a “divine council”

We are not just in God’s image-we are in the image of all the creatures created before us.

Creation story is not to tell us how sin came to be, sin is already there or else there wouldn’t be a tempting serpent, but what this story tells us is the creation of the human and how sin enters the human experience.

What does it mean to be human- gen 1,2,3.

LET US MAKE-God is going to mediate his creation through these higher beings (angels-in their image as well).

What is the significance of a mediated creation- It keeps a distinction between the creator and the creation.

Proverbs 3:19-20 God creates with wisdom. Sends wisdom out to the mediators who create using his wisdom.

Psalm 8:3-5 - a hierarchy. We have been made a little bit lower than the gods. Word is elohim which means lord.

Creator human distinction that cannot be overcome

Wisdom literature (Wisdom of Solomon, Proverbs etc..)-the point is to gain wisdom, creation is the outcome of wisdom mediating God’s will. When we get wisdom, we can know God and know what he wants us to do with his creation.

the Torah become the way in which God is mediating
Shekinah-where God is, it is but it is not God
Tabernacle/Temple-Psalmists want to be in the Temple, because that’s where God’s presence is
Angel of the Lord-not God, but when the angel of the Lord speaks, God speaks.
Gen 18-God appears to him in the mediation of three men, don’t think the trinity, they didn’t have that.-The text is intentionally being coy. You don’t know what Abraham knows or how he knows it. Even though this is three men, it is still God speaking. How can no one see God, yet see God? Because God’s presence is accessible mediatorally.

Ezek 1.4-
Above, middle, middle, over- theologically- you can’t quite get to GOD. But this God wants to make himself known to us, so these mediated beings are the way he can relate to us. God is inaccessible to us but is imminent through mediated beings.

All of this sets us up with the picture of Christ. It doesn’t let you fall into the thought that God is only inaccessible and it doesn’t allow you to know him wholly accessible.

Scripture is set up for us to have mediators, but the scandal of Christianity is that God mediates as God. Jesus is shekinah, temple, etc…but he is also GOD. Because he is God and not some creature, what does this mean? The Mediation is complete. Never before has the mediation been complete because some is lost in the translation. Now that it is God doing the mediation, then nothing is lost.