SNYDER: SALVATION MEANS CREATION HEALED
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the cycle and disorder of predation and set humanity and human history on the right course, the divine course of self-giving and loving concern for the other. Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the firstfruits of the new creation, and by the Spirit we already with Christ become the firstfruits of the new creation (1 Cor. 15:20, Rom. 8:23, .las. 1:8, Rev. 14:4). Jesus' resurrection brings healing and deliverance to both the human and the nonhuman creation. Presumably Jesus would not have died for the non-human creation if it had not been the home of his specially-imaged human creation. 12 So helping people come to transforming faith in Jesus Christ is always a central focus of Christian mission. But this is not an either/or, for God wills, now as always, to save his people andhis land and bring heaven to earth (Rev. 21:1-2) - not to take disembodied souls to a nonmaterial heaven; that view would be gnosticism, not biblical Christianity. Jesus' atonement through his death and triumphant resurrection is a cosmic-historical act through which all creation is redeemed - potentially and partially now, and fully when the kingdom comes in fullness. Frank Macchia writes, "Justification is a trinitarian act of cosmic proportions that is based in the Father as the one who creates and elects, in the Son as Redeemer, and in the Spirit as the giver of life." It is "the Holy Spirit's work to bring about justice through new creation." A fully trinitarian understanding of God's work in Jesus Christ, Macchia suggests, would not confine the Spirit's role to the subjective or even interpersonal dimensions of the life of faith. The Spirit's involvement as advocate and intercessor for creation is implied in the Spirit's groaning in and through us for the suffering creation (Rom 8:26). The divine will and judgment to justify and redeem may be seen as a response to an advocate and an intercessor already present in all of creation. [Think prevenient grace!] If the "Father's" will to justify is expressed in the divine will to send the Son, and the Son's will is expressed in the willingness to be sent, the Spirit's will would therefore be in the cry from creation to receive the gift that will be sent and in the cooperation with the Son in the shaping of the christological answer (Macchia 2001:214-15,217). God the Trinity wills to heal all creation. The biblical promise is that
radical, awesome, and hope-inspiring. New creation in Jesus Christ by the Spirit creates the flrstfruits-community that lives now the new-creation life in the fullness of biblical "all things" hope (Rom. 8:28, 32; 11:36; Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:16-20).