Throughout the Apostles’ Creed we are shown the value the Christian faith places on physical creation. God is the Creator of heaven and earth. Jesus is conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, suffers in the body, and is resurrected bodily. The Spirit is at work in the church, made up of bodies, and is the power of the resurrection of the body.

The logic of Christ’s incarnation is at work at every level. God takes the physical world to himself (incarnation), judges it (crucifixion), and raises it (resurrection). This same logic of Christ applies also to his body, the church—to us. And it also applies to the entirety of God’s creation. God is bringing all his creation out of death and into resurrection.

The entire creation is destined for the flame of pentecost, which purges sin, death, and decay and transfigures as it burns.

Orthodox theologian, Sergius Bulgakov, puts it like this:

This fire—in which the present heavens and earth will be consumed on the day of judgment…—signifies the passage of the world through the Pentecost. The Pentecost’s fiery tongues become the flame of the world fire, not consuming but [transfiguring] the world. [This is] the cosmic Pentecost.

The call of Christian faith is to live faithfully in this penultimate world with the knowledge of the ultimate coming world (resurrection and life everlasting). Dietrich Bonhoeffer warns against two distortions of Christianity that we are tempted by: radicalism and compromise.

Radicalism is an other-worldly Christianity that wants nothing to do with this world and its worldly power. It is concerned only with the ultimate and ignores the penultimate.

Compromise is another kind of Christianity that desperately wants to be at work in the world, but hates the ways in which Jesus’s teachings interfere with getting stuff done and having control. It is concerned only with the penultimate and ignores the ultimate.

Bonhoeffer sums the problem of these two distortions like this:

Radicalism hates time. Compromise hates eternity.

Radicalism hates patience. Compromise hates decision.

Radicalism hates wisdom. Compromise hates simplicity.

Radicalism hates measure. Compromise hates the immeasurable.

Radicalism hates the real. Compromise hates the word.

Both radicalism and compromise are distortions because in Christ we see that the penultimate world and the ultimate world-to-come are brought together. He becomes incarnate in the penultimate world because of his love for it. He takes our flesh, our world to himself. He then judges it (crucifixion), and by that judgment brings about the ultimate world-to-come (resurrection).

The call of the Christian is to not compromise or become a radical, but to take responsibility for the world around us, for our neighbors and our communities. But we must do it in ways that are faithful to the way of Jesus (without seeking control through coercion).

Further resources:

* I drew heavily on Ben Myers’ wonderful book The Apostles’ Creed.

* You can find more from Bonhoeffer on the penultimate/ultimate and the radicalism/compromise distinction in his Ethics.

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