Right from Genesis 1 the Bible seems pretty fascinated by the ambiguous place the human person occupies in the created order. God creates man in his image, male and female he creates them. This distinguishes them from everything else in creation. Does not the extension of sacramental language to include the whole of creation obscure the really, really important point the Bible seems to want to make about human beings? When we come to actual sacraments--like circumcision, baptism, and Lord's Supper--the biblical language isn't applied indiscriminately to the created order, but to individual persons participating in specific sacramental rituals.
Created reality is dead and uncommunicative, as far as individual human beings are concerned. The heavens declare the glory of God, but the stain of sin on the human prevents human beings from understanding what they are saying. God becomes man precisely to render intelligible in a very human figure he wants to say.
Love this! Especially the poem - I look forward to more.
Right from Genesis 1 the Bible seems pretty fascinated by the ambiguous place the human person occupies in the created order. God creates man in his image, male and female he creates them. This distinguishes them from everything else in creation. Does not the extension of sacramental language to include the whole of creation obscure the really, really important point the Bible seems to want to make about human beings? When we come to actual sacraments--like circumcision, baptism, and Lord's Supper--the biblical language isn't applied indiscriminately to the created order, but to individual persons participating in specific sacramental rituals.
Created reality is dead and uncommunicative, as far as individual human beings are concerned. The heavens declare the glory of God, but the stain of sin on the human prevents human beings from understanding what they are saying. God becomes man precisely to render intelligible in a very human figure he wants to say.