By "Second Creation" I mean Heaven - and that Heaven was made a possibility by the work of Jesus Christ.
I feel strongly that what Jesus offered to Men was an added possibility (resurrection and Heaven) - added-to what was possible before Jesus. Yet, because it became available, and was something brought to the attention of all (after death, if not before) - the act of choosing to accept or reject Heaven, takes on a significance that did not exist before Jesus.
It is rather like someone offered promotion at work. Whether he accepts or declines that promotion, either way there are consequences. After the choice, he is not the same as before the choice. The reality of that choice is unavoidable transformation.
So it is with resurrection. The possibility of choosing to live wholly by love, choosing our own transformation to become wholly good and immortal - to leave-behind all of us that is corruption, disease, sin, and death... That chance/ choice/ offer is bound to change us - whether we accept or reject the possibility.
To know and reject a reality of good; is different from never having had the possibility of becoming good.
Thus Hell arose as a consequence of Heaven.
But why must we die to become good? Presumably, because of the profundity of the transformation. We must be unmade before we can sufficiently be remade.
But why must we incarnate, and into mortal bodies? Why not resurrect from being spirits; or incarnate directly into resurrected bodies? Because we must be bounded from God in order (eternally) to choose God, to affiliate with God: to be remade such as we shall thence be eternally affiliated with God in love.
...Such a decision can only be made from a situation of separation from God; such an outcome can only come from active participation in the remaking of the self - which again requires separation of the individual will from God.
...We must stand apart and on our own feet, in order to be able to come-together - with two purposes and two wills in eternal and loving harmony.
So an intermediate stage of incarnate but mortal life is necessary between pre-mortal spirit and post-mortal resurrected life.
What about Jesus - was he predestined from before incarnation to do what he did? No, that cannot be - Jesus must have been fully an agent in order to do what he did; therefore he was not constrained to choose as he did, but he freely chose to do what he did - from his own nature and self.
It was not foreknown that Jesus would be The Christ until he made that commitment, and became The Christ (anything else denies his agency, and destroys the necessity for Jesus's divinity).
Jesus first became divine (at his baptism, apparently); then died, was resurrected, and finally ascended to Heaven.
He did this that we Men may achieve the same end result, but in a different order:
We (in contrast to Jesus) first die; and then are resurrected to eternal divine life in Heaven (i.e. divinity, resurrection, Heaven - come after death and, pretty much, all at once, it seems).
(One exception: Lazarus was resurrected through the divine nature of Jesus, but before Jesus was resurrected - and only later, if at all - unrecorded - ascended to Heaven. Such exceptions are part of God's nature and working; because all individual Men are unique - indeed, all Beings are unique - so it would make no sense to be constrained to deal with multitudes of unique Beings in accordance with a standard pattern. By the very nature of things, there will be exceptions - therefore, exceptions to regularities or rules, are actually part of the rules!)
In sum; I find it very helpful to regard the work of Jesus Christ as a second creation.
The second creation was not 'logically' necessary; it was instead a gift, an offer, a possibility.
After death; a Man might choose to remain in the first creation (with various possibilities); or else to undergo the transformation called resurrection - requisite to dwell eternally in the second creation.
This possibility of Heaven changed the human condition thenceforth!
Because to accept, or to reject, this gift, this possibility - divides Mankind: divides indeed all the Beings of creation.
1 comment:
Just taking the account of whomever wrote the gospel of John, since I know that is a primary text for you, it seems that Heaven was a place that existed prior to Jesus' birth... in that, he said multiple times Heaven is where he was sent from, and thus why he was able to ascend back there. He also referred to it as a physical place where his Father lived.
So, I don't think Jesus' actions on earth created Heaven, if that is what you are saying. But it could be that he did radically change things the destiny of Heaven (and I guess in this sense, creating a new Heaven), in that the path to inhabiting it now ran through being a Resurrected Man just like Jesus is. Whereas before it was other Beings, and not Men, who were able to inhabit that place... but even that was viewed as not being forever, something that would not last.
To say it another way, it is possible that Jesus flipped the destiny of Men on its head - whereas before it was their fate to leave this creation or the circles of the world upon death (including both earth and heaven), now following the resurrection their path was to stay if they wished - the resurrection now making this possible. And not just them, but all Beings, if they wished to retain a place in Heaven, would need to follow the example of Jesus, condescend from Heaven, be born as Men so they could also take part in the resurrection and thus live in this new, eternal Heaven.
I also understand your thoughts on Lazarus, but there may be something fundamentally different between being raised from the dead and the resurrection that Jesus is talking about. Lazarus isn't the only person raised from the dead prior to Jesus' resurrection. I consider the bible to be pretty untrustworthy, so I won't use the examples of Elijah and Elisha, but would instead point to the Book of Mormon where Nephi (son of Helaman) raises his brother Lehi from the dead in the years immediately preceding Jesus' birth.
The power to raise the dead seemed to have existed prior to Jesus, and so what Lazarus experienced is not necessarily a resurrection in terms of the final change that will happen to our spirits and bodies. There are many potential paths to Lazarus' story following his raising from the dead, I guess (you have articulated one of them in the person of John), and this point doesn't necessarily preclude any of them, other than to say his being brought back to life may not (likely not, in my opinion) have been the same thing as what occurred in Jesus' resurrection.
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