“Redemption doesn’t mean scrapping what’s there and starting again from a clean slate but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved. It is the remaking of creation, having dealt with the evil that is defacing and distorting it. And it is accomplished by the same God, now known in Jesus Christ, through whom it was made in the first place. We are citizens of heaven, titles—will come from heaven to earth, to change the present situation and state of his people. The key word here is transform: That same love then allows creation to be itself, sustaining it in providence and wisdom but not overpowering it. God intends in the end to fill all creation with his own presence and love. ‘The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.’ They are the sea. It looks as though God intends to flood the universe with himself, as though the universe, the entire cosmos, was designed as a receptacle for his love. One day, when all forces of rebellion have been defeated and the creation responds freely and gladly to the love of its creator, God will fill it with himself so that it will both remain an independent being, other than God, and also be flooded with God’s own life.”
~N. T. Wright
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