Save the World, Save Me!!

John 3:16 states that because God loved the world, He incarnated Himself on earth in His Son (I kept looking at that wondering if it’s right because I felt compelled to mention His death, but it mentions nothing of His death, just His arrival). Our planet, the home of the ages, has experienced salvation. Christ came to it, lived on it, and died so that it would not experience the doom it had been destined for. Indeed, it has been rescued from its end, and will have eternal life, and its salvation will be complete when Christ comes back again to live on it forever and ever (why do they teach us we'll live in heaven forever?!).

John 3:16 also says that this eternal life is also available for people on an individual basis. In fact, whoever believes that God was incarnated on earth has this salvation.

At this stage in history - the ‘end of days’ - we can look back over history and observe the salvation process (assuming it’s the same ‘procedure’ for earth as it is for us). I think this is wisdom. We have creation, establishment, nations, the seed of salvation – Israel, empires, Christ’s birth, His life, His death (the day the sun stopped shining and the earth shook), His resurrection, the destruction of Israel, the church and its glory, empires, world wars, reestablishment of Israel (in place for another ‘birthing’?), and all hell unleashed in pure blackness and destruction, then glory and the reign of Christ.

For us who believe, is there any resemblance to our own salvation process? Is this the way salvation is worked out to completion in us too (Philippians 2:12)? Do our hearts, as our cores, resemble something like earth? I love how Jacob Boehme addresses this point:

As Christ was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger, so is Christ in man ever born amidst the animals in man. The newborn Savior is ever laid in a cradle between the ox of self-will and the ass of ignorance, in the stable of the animal condition in man; and from thence the king of pride (as Herod), finds his kingdom endangered, and seeks to kill the child, who is to become the ruler of the ‘New Jerusalem’ in man.*

Christ was born in the world, is born in us. He returns to the world forever, He returns to us forever. I think we could benefit from watching Christ’s salvation work on the world.

Some interesting points on the world’s salvation:
1. The world did not choose God, God chose the world and saved it without its permission
2. God brought about the fullness of salvation in His time and at His will; the earth merely bore the process, but had nothing to do with arranging it, striving after it, or positioning itself for it
3. The original form is recoverable and is not discarded to start new (ie. it's the same earth forever)

* Jacob Boeme: The Image of the Heavenly