Untitled Sermon (2)
Order and Salvation. If orderliness is crucial for humanity’s cultural task, it is even more important for God’s redemptive work. For if God and his word bring order, sin disrupts it. God’s solution is to reassert order, again by distinguishing between things that differ. Thus the first redemptive promise is a promise of division between the seed of the woman and of the serpent, which will bring about the conquest of the serpent and a restoration of the divine moral order (Gen 3:15).
This restoration is achieved through God’s work of redemption in Christ. Jesus shows himself to be the Lord of creation in commanding the waves of the sea to be still. He restores the moral order by his death on the cross and sets the stage for the final judgment in which all things will be set right and there will be a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1).
Ultimately, the notion that God is a God of order and not of confusion (1 Cor 14:33) extends beyond the physical realm to include relationships within the state and the church. It includes God giving authority to civil rulers to protect life, to restrain evil and to provide social stability so that the gospel may be preached and lived in peace (Rom 13:1–7; 1 Tim 2:1, 2). It also embraces the obligation of church leaders to be certain that all activities within the household of God are conducted “decently and in order” (1 Cor 14:40