Creation and New Creation

"At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."" - Mark 1:9-11 (NIV)

For the Spirit of God to be pictured as a dove is not particularly striking to us, but when Mark was writing, it was very rare. In the sacred writings of Judaism there is only one place where the Spirit of God is likened to a dove, and that is in the Targums, the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that the Jews of Mark's time read.

In the creation account, the book of Genesis 1:2 says that the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters. The Hebrew verb here means "flutter": the Spirit fluttered over the face of the waters. To capture this vivid image, the rabbis translated the passage for the Targums like this: "And the earth was without form and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttered above the face of the waters like a dove, and God spoke: 'Let there be light.'"

There are three parties active in the creation of the world: God, God's Spirit, and God's Word, through which he creates. The same three parties are present at Jesus' baptism: the Father, who is the voice; the Son, who is the Word; and the Spirit fluttering like a dove. Mark is deliberately pointing us back to the creation, to the very beginning of history.

Just as the original creation of the world was a project of the triune God, Mark says, so the redemption of the world, the rescue and renewal of all things that is beginning now with the arrival of the King, is also a project of the triune God.

- Timothy Keller, King's Cross

(Thanks to Caleb for blogging about Keller's new book.)

When the rich young ruler asks Jesus, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" he isn't asking how to go to heaven when he dies, though people have regularly read it like that. He's asking about the fact that pretty soon God is going to turn around this world and fill it with justice and joy and peace and glory and delight - and who's going to be part of the team when that happens?

- N. T. Wright, Gray Lecture at Duke Divinity School (11 Oct 10)