Thursday 28 January 2010

The Scaffolding of The City Of God

Eden was never God's plan...

It was a taster for us..

God is a city-builder - His goal is the heavenly Jerusalem on Mount Zion

In preparation for His City
He builds the scaffolding (the tent) of the current creation

The scaffolding is necessary - it shadows the design, it gives some semblance of the product
Yet the scaffolding is like a mere seed compared with an oak tree - it pales in comparison

The scaffolding is flimsy and temporary
(much like the OT law & covenant)
The finished city is eternal and powerful
(think CS Lewis on the strength of the blade of grass in the new creation that can pierce through the old body's feet)

This creation is the scaffolding for the new creation
The flesh is built to be the vessel for the Spirit

However in having efficient construction - the scaffolding is consumed in the creation
The Flesh is infused with the Spirit (cf Irenaeus)

Jesus came and was built in the scaffolding of the flesh
then filled the flesh with the substance of the Spirit
(man shall not live by bread alone...)

The Spirit then infuses the flesh
and now needs the final process - the kiln/furnace - the fires of judgement

the testing that completely fuses flesh with Spirit - to create a spiritual body
the dross or the remnant of the scaffolding is then burned away

leaving the new creation
Here then in Christ in His eternal resurrection form
Here is our destiny - now we are still being infused, some are waiting for the permanent fusing
All creation will follow suit

Then is Zion built in glory, and the Father joins in His Creative work finished

2 comments:

Paul Blackham said...

This is so important.

Our future hope... well, our present understanding of reality... needs so much more. The more we look at the world and really consider everything in the light of Jesus we are drawn to see this scaffolding/permanent pattern.

With the 'neo-logical positivism' that the neo-atheists constantly triumph, part of me wants to love them for their earnest desire for 'empiricism'... but the other part of me laughs at the narrow definition of reality that they work with. How can we write into our very methodology before we begin the non-negotiable principle that reality will be nothing more than what I can deal with in my empirical framework?

The Living God who paints on such a vast canvas, working with such a deep and long game... when we glimpse reality or are shown a glimpse of reality [like Gehazi] from the mind of Jesus, then everything changes, the doors of perception really ARE flung open.

I was going through Plato's cave allegory with my boys this last week. I'd forgotten how fascinating it really is. Once we understand how the sudden explosion of Greek culture was fueled by the writings of Moses, we read this stuff with more care. Try reading that section of Plato, not according to the limitation of where Plato is going with it, but as if he really understood all that Moses was teaching about the scaffold and the final building.

Glory to Jesus! LORD, lift our vision from the scaffolding to the substance, to the home of righteousness.

Paul Blackham.

yemsee said...

Hi Paul

was just thinking on Plato and Aristotle and where they got it a bit warped - comparing flesh/spirit or physical-spiritual

physical being a shadow of spiritual
and spiritual being built on the physical?

where would i read it?
just a tiny section maybe - so that i could understand it =)