Evil and Creation: Historical and Constructive Essays in Christian Dogmatics

By David Luy, Matthew Levering and George Kalantzis

"My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth."

Evil is an intruder upon a world created by God and declared good. Scripture emphasizes this: laments are regularly juxtaposed with declarations of God as creator. But evil is not merely a problem for the doctrine of creation. Rather, the doctrine of creation provides a hopeful response to evil.

In Evil and Creation, David J. Luy, Matthew Levering, and George Kalantzis collect essays investigating how the doctrine of creation relates to moral and physical evil. Essayists pursue philosophical and theological analyses of evil rather than neatly solving the problem of evil itself. Including contributions from Constantine Campbell, Paul Blowers, and Paul Gavrilyuk, this volume draws upon biblical and patristic voices to produce constructive theology, considering topics ranging from vanity in Ecclesiastes and its patristic interpreters to animal suffering.

Readers will gain a broader appreciation of evil and how to faithfully respond to it as well as a renewed hope in God as creator and judge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Release date: Dec 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781683594352

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EVIL and CREATION

Historical and Constructive Essays in Christian Dogmatics

Edited by DAVID LUY, MATTHEW LEVERING, and GEORGE KALANTZIS

STUDIES IN HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

Copyright

Evil and Creation: Historical and Constructive Essays in Christian Dogmatics

Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology

Copyright 2020 David Luy, Matthew Levering, and George Kalantzis

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

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All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. for all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [e-mail].

Scripture quotations marked (CSB) are from the Christian Standard Bible®, copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) are from the King James Version. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NRSV) are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (RSV) are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Pages 84–110 are originally from Retrieving Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation by Gavin Ortlund, copyright © 2020 by Gavin R. Ortlund. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com.

Pages 201–17 are from Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution by Daniel Houck, copyright © 2020 by Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.

Print ISBN 9781683594345

Digital ISBN 9781683594352

Library of Control Control Number 2020943976

Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Lisa Eary, Abigail Stocker

Cover Design: Owen Craft

The Chicago Theological Initiative (CTI) exists to promote ecumenical scholarship and spiritual friendship among theologians within the broader Chicagoland area.

CTI is committed to the creedal inheritance of catholic Christianity and equally committed to following the crucified and risen Christ in self-sacrificial moral life.

It fosters inter-confessional and inter-institutional collaboration for the sake of advancing the theological disciplines and enabling mutual edification among Christian scholars.

In obedience to the command of the incarnate Lord, CTI hopes for full visible and confessional unity among Christians, but pursues this goal through a ministry of friendship and of mutual encouragement along the path of witnessing through teaching and scholarship to the truth, love, and mercy of Jesus Christ.

In this sense, CTI’s mission pertains fundamentally to the evangelization of the academy so that Christian scholarship will be able to perform its task of contemplating and handing on the mysteries of faith to the next generation.

PIXFinal

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

1.Introduction

Evil in Christian Theology

David Luy and Matthew Levering

Part 1: Evil in Early Christian Sources

2.Judgment of Evil as the Renewal of Creation

Constantine R. Campbell

3.Qoheleth and His Patristic Sympathizers on Evil and Vanity in Creation

Paul M. Blowers

4.Problem of Evil

Ancient Answers and Modern Discontents

Paul L. Gavrilyuk

5.Augustine and the Limits of Evil

From Creation to Christ in the Enchiridion

Han-luen Kantzer Komline

6.Augustine on Animal Death

Gavin Ortlund

Part 2: Contemporary Explorations

7.The Evil We Bury, the Dead We Carry

Michel René Barnes

8.Creation and the Problem of Evil after the Apocalyptic Turn

R. David Nelson

9.Creation without Covenant, Providence without Wisdom

The Example of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing

Kenneth Oakes

10.The Appearance of Reckless Divine Cruelty

Animal Pain and the Problem of Other Minds

Marc Cortez

11.Recent Evolutionary Theory and the Possibility of the Fall

Daniel W. Houck

12.Intellectual Disability and the Sabbath Structure of the Human Person

Jared Ortiz

Contributors

Subject Index

Scripture Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This volume originated as a series of papers delivered in 2018 at the spring colloquium of the Chicago Theological Initiative, which took place in the Harbor House at Wheaton College. Chicago Theological Initiative is a cooperative venture involving a number of Chicago-area institutions. Accordingly, there are many people for us to thank and acknowledge. We are honored to have received financial assistance from the Carl F. H. Henry Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. We are indebted especially to Thomas McCall (director) and Geoffrey Fulkerson (assistant director) for their willingness to include our colloquium as part of the Henry Center’s Creation Project, which is funded by a generous grant from the Templeton Foundation. Without this funding, neither the colloquium nor this book would have been possible. In addition to acknowledging the Henry Center at Trinity, we must also express our thanks for the shared leadership and support provided by the Center for Scriptural Exegesis, Philosophy, and Doctrine at Mundelein Seminary and The Wheaton Center for Early Christian Studies at Wheaton College. We are grateful to Lexham Press for agreeing to publish this volume and especially for the work of Todd Hains in bringing it to completion. Finally, we wish to thank each of the exemplary scholars who contributed an essay for this volume.

ABBREVIATIONS

1

INTRODUCTION

Evil in Christian Theology

David Luy and Matthew Levering

The essays comprising this book consider evil in relation to the Christian doctrine of creation. A theological account of evil is not exactly the same thing as a response to the problem of evil, even if the former typically includes aspects of the latter. Some of the chapters in this book address the problem of evil (for example, chaps. 3, 7, 9), but the purpose of the collection as a whole is not to produce a theodicy. It is rather to reflect on the emergence of moral and physical evil from the standpoint of a particular doctrinal locus. In this introduction, we expand briefly on the nature of this task, calling special attention to the difference between a theological account of evil and a response to the problem of evil.

BEYOND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

For ancients and moderns alike, the question of God is deeply intertwined with the riddle of evil. At least in the western tradition, Herbert McCabe observes, nothing so affects our attitude to God as our recognition of evil and suffering.¹ In the late modern West, evil happenings in the world may seem to awaken religious skepticism. For those living downstream of Voltaire and David Hume (and in the shadow of twentieth-century atrocities), the intrusion of evil appears to call traditionally Christian notions of God automatically into question.² The recorded experience of Christian saints across the centuries bears witness to an alternate possibility, however. The endurance of bitter suffering can serve to deepen rather than enervate religious commitment.³ It is true, McCabe acknowledges, that suffering may cause us to reject God as infantile, as unable to comprehend or have compassion on those who suffer and are made to suffer in his world. But it is also possible, he continues, that suffering may cause us to find, "as Job did, that it was our view of God that was infantile; we may in fact come to a deeper understanding of the mystery of God."⁴

The second response and existential posture described here by McCabe implies a theological construal of evil and suffering wherein the bitterness of affliction has been incorporated into the broader task of faith seeking understanding. Suffering relates to the experience of God here in two primary ways. First, it functions as a purifying agent. Existential trials bear a potent capacity to expose the superficiality of theological frameworks unable to prove their mettle in the face of calamity.⁵ As Martin Luther (1483–1546) so often insisted, the true theologian is one whose religious commitments have been tested and steeled in the fires of affliction.⁶ In this sense, suffering refines the church’s theological understanding. At the same time, however, suffering can achieve significance for religious piety only to the extent that it is itself understood theologically. Affliction on its own is at best ambiguous so long as it remains abstracted from a theological framework. One of the essential functions of Christian doctrine within the life of the church is that it gives direction to the way in which Christians reflect on their experiences of evil and suffering in the world. Doctrine supplies the decisive hermeneutical framework in relation to which suffering becomes endurable for the Christian, even if evil itself remains to some extent an impenetrable mystery.⁷ A theological account of evil locates trial and affliction within a theological context, acknowledging that suffering also often quickens, purifies, and refines the church’s theological understanding.

Such accounts are standard fare within the literatures of premodern Christian theology. Awaiting execution from his prison cell, Boethius (ca. 477–524) seeks consolation in his plight by reflecting on his experience in relation to a theological frame of reference (i.e., the mysteries of providence and divine eternality).⁸ Likewise, Macrina (ca. 330–379) ponders the immaterial soul and the bodily resurrection in conversation with her brother Gregory as she anticipates her impending death.⁹ In an exposition of Psalm 139 (138 in his Latin version), Augustine (354–430) situates earthly sorrow in more general terms by framing the volatility of human experience with a theological canvas.

During this night, during this mortal life, human beings experience both light and darkness: the light of prosperity and the darkness of misfortune. But when Christ has come and made the soul his own dwelling through its faith, when he has promised a different light, when he has inspired and granted patience, when he has counseled men and women not to be too happy over prosperity lest they be crushed by adversity—then believers begin to treat the present world with detached indifference. No longer are they elated when things chance to go well with them, nor are they shattered when things turn out badly. They bless the Lord in all circumstances, not only in abundance but also in loss, not only in health but also in sickness. The promise sung of in another psalm is kept in their lives: I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall be in my mouth always (Ps. 33:2/34:1).¹⁰

Notice here that Augustine is not advancing a theoretical explanation for why suffering exists in the world. His purpose is rather to recontextualize the experience of suffering by situating it within a theological context. For Christians indwelled by the Spirit of Christ and illuminated by the light of a glorious, eschatological promise, the volatile realities of this earthly life lose much of their bitter sting.

Johann Arndt (1555–1621) casts a similar vision. In his influential devotional text True Christianity (1610), Arndt writes:

A magnet draws a heavy piece of iron toward itself, and likewise a heavenly magnet, the love of God, ought to draw the burdens of our cross toward itself, so that it becomes light and easy. Why then should man’s heart be troubled? Sugar makes bitter food sweet. How much then, ought the sweetness of divine love to make the bitter cross sweet? Because of this, the great patience and joy of the holy martrys arose, for God made them drunk by his love.¹¹

The purpose of these theological meditations on suffering is pastoral. The reader or hearer is not summoned by Boethius, Nyssa, Augustine, or Arndt merely to adopt some new theoretical understanding of evil. The theological architecture these authors supply in the course of their examination of suffering is meant to evoke a new existential posture in relation to worldly vicissitude. In this respect, these premodern writers may be understood as seeking to outline a theological account of evil.

Does such reflection need to be recovered in modern theological inquiry? To be sure, the impulse to make theological sense of suffering remains a constant for many faithful Christians living today. Surely it would be wrong to imply that such impulses receive no assistance whatsoever from the contemporary theological guild.¹² Still, it has sometimes been the case in recent centuries that theological accounts of evil (as we term them) have been eclipsed by an abiding preoccupation with the so-called problem of evil. Susan Neiman has argued somewhat provocatively that the problem of evil is the defining theme of modern philosophy.¹³ From the devastation of Lisbon’s earthquake in 1755 to the atrocities of the Holocaust in the 1940s, modern philosophical discourse may be understood as a protracted struggle to rediscover a meaningful world after the collapse of the medieval synthesis. Since philosophy sprouts fundamentally from a demand that the world be intelligible, the emergence of evil in the world may thus be construed primarily as philosophical challenge.¹⁴ Radical evil evokes the grim possibility of a world governed by chaos.¹⁵

The challenge posed by evil in modern philosophical literature falls hardest on the classical Christian view, which insists even in the face of radical evil that Christians may affirm, on biblical and philosophical grounds, that the world is providentially ordered by a God who is maximally good, just, and powerful. For many critics, evil exposes such a notion as utterly absurd.¹⁶ As such philosophical criticisms have proliferated, it is understandable that the collective attention of modern theology has likewise migrated to the philosophical problem of evil and its modern permutations for the purpose of mounting a defense. The migration of attention is not by itself a problem. It becomes detrimental, however, when an elevated preoccupation with the problem of evil causes theological accounts of evil to wither from neglect or lapse entirely into desuetude.

Another potential hazard of the shift arises when sustained preoccupation with the problematics of evil and suffering leads to a fundamental reconfiguration of the architecture of theology. Such is the case, we (David and Matthew) contend, for a number of recent theological proposals that seek to account for evil in the world by suggesting that the existence of evil is a necessary entailment of the act whereby God creates the finite order.¹⁷ This approach seems to allow a preoccupation with evil to overwhelm the doctrine of God (his transcendent freedom) and the doctrine of creation (its original goodness). Even if the account succeeds at making evil intelligible to some extent, from a dogmatic perspective the possible gain comes at too steep a cost.

In a similar vein, some recent arguments in favor of universalism appear to rest on philosophical presuppositions concerning what God must do if he is to be vindicated in the final analysis as just and good. David Bentley Hart has recently outlined a sophisticated version of this position. He contends it becomes apparent in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov that even if something like Gregory of Nyssa’s vision of the last things [whereby suffering exercises a purgative function for a redemptive economy in which all are saved] should prove true, it will still be a happiness achieved as the residue of an inexcusable cruelty. After all, Hart points out, it is God who willed to create a world—or, at least, he chose to allow the ongoing existence of a fallen world—in which temporal creatures are subjected to all sorts of gruesome and horrific sufferings, often through no fault of their own. In order to justify the creation of such a cosmos with its incalculable number of torments, God must do more, says Hart, than simply resolve all things in a universal salvation at the end. Rather, God must reveal in the end that He has in fact actively rescued creatures from the consequents of sin and suffering, and that absolutely nothing is lost. Hart sums up, If God is the good creator of all, he is the savior of all, without fail, who brings to himself all he has made.¹⁸

This position requires of the Creator God something that God has not, in Christ, specifically revealed that he will do. Because theologians, indeed all humans, are limited as creatures, we suggest theologians must not determine what the Creator God must do in order to vindicate his own goodness. Certainly, the problems Hart means to address should continue to command our theological attention, but even in the face of conceptual dissonance we must resist the temptation when faced with the problem of evil to impose a philosophical solution that, however plausible, exceeds what we can know or require of God on the basis of what God himself has revealed.¹⁹

With these concerns having been registered, we readily acknowledge that a response of some sort to the philosophical problem of evil remains an indispensable task. After all, Scripture itself and the theological tradition prepare for just such a response, though naturally the response implicit within these sources is rooted existentially in the self-revelation of God and includes an affirmation of God’s personal presence and solidarity with sufferers. Without any response to the philosophical problem of evil, it will be impossible to demonstrate that the broader theological account of evil available among Christian thinkers might even possibly possess real intelligibility and value.²⁰ We freely admit the premise that a view rightly deemed to entail a logical contradiction should not be retained even if it proves stimulating or useful in other respects. Still, even as we acknowledge the importance of such inquiry, a response to the problem of evil is not the same thing as a theological account of evil. Whereas the effort to respond to the problem of evil removes an important obstacle to the embrace of doctrinal Christianity, a theological and biblical account seeks to make sense of suffering by incorporating it within the larger, existentially contextualized task of faith seeking understanding, in which a living relationship with Christ in the Holy Spirit conditions human reasoning about the justice, mercy, providence, and love of God.

If our suggestion is accurate that an abiding preoccupation with the philosophical problem of evil has sometimes distracted modern theologians from the task of formulating a theological account of evil, it is important for contemporary theological reflection to correct the imbalance. It will always remain a necessary task for Christian intellectuals to reflect on evil within the context of a prosecutorial trial in which Christianity sits as defendant. This was already a task taken up by Job, Jesus, Paul, and indeed all the biblical authors, though, of course, the prosecutors were not Humeans (though some were thoroughgoing skeptics of the kind found in the opening chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon). At the same time, theologians and pastors must always leverage the full resources of Christian doctrine—rooted in the living realities of faith—within a more synthetic attempt to make existential sense of suffering in theological and biblical perspective. These two tasks are not mutually exclusive, but should rather be affirmed as distinct and complementary moments within a fulsome account of theological inquiry.²¹ Whereas the first moment considers the coherence of Christian theism primarily from the outside looking in, the second moment intentionally inhabits the intricate matrix of Christian dogma—a matrix of lived supernatural realities—and considers the world of experience (including the experience of evil and suffering) from the inside looking out. By embracing this second sort of inquiry, Christian dogmatic inquiry, as a living work of faith, moves beyond the problem of evil, but without leaving the problem of evil entirely behind.

The essays in this book pursue a subset of this task by considering evil in relation to the doctrine of creation. Creation is by no means the only doctrinal reality pertinent to the larger task, but it surely occupies a position of fundamental importance. After all, the mystery of evil comes into focus when we consider the fact that evil has intruded a world created by the eternal and all-knowing God and declared by him to be very good (Gen 1:31).²² It is also characteristic of the rich tradition of lament psalms to counterpose the outcries of human suffering with doxological meditations on God as creator. I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth, Psalm 121:1–2 proclaims. My days are like an evening shadow, the afflicted one cries out in Psalm 102:11. I wither away like the grass. O my God, the psalmist pleads, do not take me away at the midpoint of my life (102:24) Here again, solace crests the horizon only when the sufferer turns to contemplation of the eternal God, who created this transitory world in which he presently languishes.

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth

and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you endure;

they will all wear out like a garment.

You change them like clothing, and they pass away;

but you are the same, and your years have no end.

The children of your servants shall live secure;

their offspring shall be established in your presence. (Ps 102:25–28)

In this, we discern an important truth that is clearly expressed in Psalm 75. The mystery of evil becomes endurable for the believer only in an experientially rich recognition of the fact that the teetering pillars of the earth are steadied in the end only by him who laid them in the first place (75:2–3).

Part 1

EVIL in EARLY CHRISTIAN SOURCES

2

JUDGMENT OF EVIL AS THE RENEWAL OF CREATION

Constantine R. Campbell

Look, I am making everything new.—Revelation 21:5

INTRODUCTION

This essay explores the relationship between the judgment of evil and the renewal of creation. With special reference to the apostle Paul, the essay examines the interrelationships between evil and the corruption of creation alongside judgment of evil and the restoration of creation. The essay also probes Paul’s theological support as found in Genesis 2–3 and Isaiah 65–66, as well as various texts found within Second Temple literature. Returning to the New Testament, the essay then considers the voices of 2 Peter 3 and Revelation 19–22. While these texts have much in common with what we will find in Paul, they also raise the question of continuity versus discontinuity. In order to vanquish evil, will the new creation replace an old creation that needs to be destroyed? Or will the new creation constitute a restoration and renewal of the old created order? In other words, does the destruction of evil come at the cost of the destruction of all creation?

PAUL

Paul’s eschatological vision includes the full sweep of creation, as all things in heaven and on earth will be renewed and centered around Christ. There is an inextricable link between the fate of humanity and that of creation, with the latter being subjected to decay because of the former. Just as humanity is gripped by suffering and death, so is the entire created order. It will only be released from its bondage to decay once humanity has been restored. This restoration can only occur in the wake of judgment.

FINAL JUDGMENT

The expectation of final judgment is a central theme of biblical eschatology, of Judaism, and, of course, for Paul. It is an indispensable feature of Paul’s hope for the future, as he expects evil to be judged and justice to prevail. Ultimate justice constitutes the universal judgment of sin and evil. And it rights all wrongs.¹ According to Paul, God’s wrath and anger are stored up for the disobedient, while glory, honor, and peace await those who do what is good (Rom 2:1–11; Eph 5:5–6; Col 3:5–7; 1 Tim 5:24–25). Judgment is viewed as reaping what has been sown—either destruction reaped from sowing according to the flesh, or eternal life reaped from sowing according to the Spirit (Gal 6:7–9). It also takes into account the role of conscience and exposes what is kept secret (Rom 2:14–16; 1 Cor 4:3–5). While all people begin as children under wrath by nature (Eph 2:1–3), believers are saved from God’s wrath, since they have been declared righteous by the blood of Christ (Rom 5:8–10; 1 Thess 1:9–10; 5:9–10) and will be held blameless in the day of Christ (1 Cor 1:6–8; 1 Thess 3:13).

Anticipating objections to the contrary, Paul is adamant that God’s judgment of the world is righteous (Rom 3:1–6; 9:19–24). The whole world is subject to his judgment (Rom 3:19), and all people will stand before the judgment seat of God to give an account of themselves to him (Rom 14:10–12). More specifically, Christ himself will judge the living and the dead (2 Tim 4:1–2; 4:8).

PERSONAL NEW CREATION

Before turning to Paul’s use of the expression new creation—which only occurs in 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15—we consider the Jewish background for the term. The Second Temple book that, according to Moyer Hubbard, best illuminates the perspective of the pre-Christian Paul is the book of Jubilees. The phrase new creation occurs twice in this book, in 1.29 and 4.26. Jubilees connects the new creation with the defeat of earthly and demonic powers that rage against Israel, and in this way is consistent with the main eschatological thrust of Second Temple apocalypses. Their picture of the future was that of a completely transformed universe.²

Also related to Paul’s new creation terminology is the Second Temple book Joseph and Aseneth, in which creation and conversion become synonymous. Not only does the book offer a vivid portrayal of conversion as new creation, but it is none other than the Spirit who effects this new creation. The Spirit’s function in Joseph and Aseneth is to impart life.³ The parallels here to Paul are self-evident.

In 2 Corinthians 5:16–17, Paul writes,⁴

From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

The new creation here is, of course, the person in Christ—not the whole created realm, but a member within it. Rather than regard anyone from a worldly perspective (5:16a), Paul sees anyone who is in Christ (en Christō) as a new creation (5:17a). This apparently means that the old has passed away, while the new has come (5:17b).

The language of new creation evokes the sense of realm contrast, in that the person in Christ now belongs under the realm of Christ.⁵ This is how they are regarded as a new creation—being under the realm of Christ changes who they are, their allegiances, and their purpose for living.

In Galatians 6:14–16, Paul writes,

But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world. For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation. May peace come to all those who follow this standard, and mercy even to the Israel of God!

Regarding the issue of circumcision and uncircumcision, neither status means anything in light of the cross of Christ. Paul will certainly never boast about anything apart from the cross (6:14) because any fleshly boast or status is made irrelevant by it. What matters instead is a new creation (6:15). This is the standard that is to be followed by all who desire peace, even for the Israel of God (6:16).

Paul does not elaborate on the meaning of this new creation, but he clearly refers to the person who, like him, has been crucified to the world (6:14). The notion of being raised with Christ is not mentioned here, but such a concept is implied by the new-creation language. The old has been crucified with Christ already. The person who is raised with Christ is therefore a new person and a new entity. Or, as Paul puts it, a new creation.

In Ephesians 2:8–10, Paul writes, "For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. The element of new creation in this text is found at its end, referring to those who have been saved by grace through faith—we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works" (2:10a). People who have been saved by grace through faith are regarded as God’s workmanship, or his product (poiēma), having been created in Christ Jesus.

The notion of new creation has been brewing since the beginning of the passage, where Paul describes his readers as dead in your trespasses and sins (2:1). These humans were spiritually dead. They were cut off from a relationship with God—the giver of life—because of their commitment to evil. But, Paul says, God made us alive with Christ (2:5). Thus, the transformation in view is not one of reformation but of spiritual resurrection. Those who were cut off from God—and were walking in the direction of eternal death—have been brought into a life-giving new relationship