This book by Jacques Ellul just keeps popping up on my radar over the past year or so and here it is back on my mind again. I still have yet to read it. It just seems to be something the Spirit keeps stirring up in me and I think I know why.....GRACE....GRACE....GRACE.
I googled the book title today and ran across this description from Ellul of how he sees the City....Cain built the first city after he killed his brother because he wasn't satisfied with God's promise of protection:
The City is “counter-creation” man’s prideful response to God’s perfect creation.
A revolution of love and grace is what was set in motion by Jesus right in the middle of the City that functions by everything but love and grace because it is governed by law. Jesus prayed that Father would send us into the world as he had been sent into the world...into the city that is in open rebellion against God, seeking it's own protection. This reality has become so obvious to me right here in the city that I live. It's awakening to this reality that is another big part of the process of setting us free.
8 comments:
Keanu, I love you and want to have your babies.
Oh sorry ... what were you saying? :)
This whole city thing is one of those millions of tiny little things sitting on the Susie backburner. I have been wondering for ages why it is that the ending descriptors of the book of Revelation are of a city of God. I have been finding it strange that he would describe it thus considering how strong the pastoral theme is throughout scripture, and how much closer to reality just being out in the wild is compared to being in the city.
So this is very interesting to me. I shall go away and ponder some more.
(Reading some more of the bible lately. A bit of light fare, reading Revelation :) But oh, the imagery. It runs so so so so deep, every line just so full and deep that you could swim in it for hours before suddenly its meaning hits you between the eyes. I love you Papa :)
Sue,
I've occasionally pondered the city thing for the rest of eternity as well, since everything for us started in a garden, and it would seem appropriate for it to end that way.
But as I read through the last part of Revelation, I see that there are gates and walls, and a street down which the river flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and I see a Tree of Life on each side of the river. How many trees isn't clear-- maybe just one, but how can it be on each side of the river unless there are at least two, or maybe there is a row of them on each side of the river.
Anyway, no buildings are mentioned at all, except for the fact that it is emphatically stated that there is no temple. So, hmmmm... walls, gates, thrones, a street down which a river flows, tree or trees... sounds more like a massive walled garden to me!
The whole mansion thing seems to me to be a misunderstanding growing out of King James English in John 14. So we tend to assume that the city will be filled with mansions. But as I see it, Jesus Himself is our dwelling place, just as He is our Light.
OK, so I'm no NT scholar, but this is just my impression.
You two are pretty cool. I love where you took this post.
Sue, I'm glad you recovered quickly and got refocused again :)
All I know is I can imagine a place with no systems. They are man made and even though most can't imagine life without them they are very oppressive and hard on people....and work against freedom.
To be in them but not of them.
Now how to live in the city with all the demands it attempts to place on us and the lies uses to see those demands accomplished?
I'm just so stunned at seeing the absolute inability of law to accomplish what people assume it is there to accomplish and how so much trust is placed there...in a system of law that keeps growing because new laws have to be passed because people are breaking the existing ones.
Kinda like frightened humans though isn't it. Keep doing things in the same way they have always been done and keep getting the same frustrating/disappointing results.
I'm not suggesting society does away with it, I just long for more and more to come to see that law is never going to change our situation and that in a sense it exacerbates it....but love and grace has already and will change everything. Real love and real grace.
Hmmm, interesting thoughts to ponder. Thanks, guys :)
Bones - wondering why a walled garden would be required in an eternity that has been redeemed. Perhaps there is more to come than we know of yet. I have a problem with the word translated 'eternity' because often it means 'eon' instead. Thanks for your thoughts here - much to think about :)
Sue - good question about the wall, but since all the gates are always open, it clearly isn't there to try to keep anything out or in. Seems more like a whole lot of decoration, or else just something to hold up the gates of pearl.
Hmmm... if the city is filled up with the real love and real grace Kent is talking about, it would just go pouring out of all the 12 open gates. But with Him as the source of Love, Grace, Light and Life, it will always be full of all these even as they are pouring out into all of the new heavens and earth.
Bones.....now that's a beautiful vision.
Awww, that is beautiful. I can go for days on the smell of this type of stuff :)
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