Heaven is a Place on Earth: Why Everything You Do Matters to God
Michael E. Wittmer
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Zondervan (May 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0310253071
ISBN-13: 978-0310253075
Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
Buy Here: amazon.com

In the last post, I surveyed the first four chapters of Michael Wittmer’s book, Heaven is a Place on Earth. These chapters make up the introduction and the first of four parts, focusing on “What is this Place?” which is a look at what the Bible says about creation. He ended the section with a piece on being made “in the image of God” with a really helpful chart on the “three-fold” image (see last post for the chart). The chapters in Part Two, “Why are We Here?” focus on those relationships between people and God, other people, and creation. This section will be the focus of this post.

Part II: Why Are We Here?

This section begins with chapter 5, entitled: To Love God. Wittmer takes his cue from the opening chapters of Genesis, as well as the well-known quote from Augustine, “You have made us for yourself.” He says, “If…God has put us here, then might not our purpose in life somehow involve him?” (pg 90). The naturalistic world-view, which says that there is nothing beyond this material world, is unable to come up with an answer for the meaning of life. The “spiritual” answer says that the “only things that matter in life are objects that last forever…since everything will eventually burn up when the earth passes away” (pg 94). The problem with these answers is that they never actually satisfy- they don’t give meaning and purpose to life now, if at all. They don’t speak to the majority of what it means to be human- most of which consists of thing that wouldn’t be considered “spiritual,” i.e. brushing our teeth, buying groceries, taking our children to the park or zoo, etc. (cf pg 94-5). Wittmer offers a solution: “Why not view our temporal, earthly endeavors as opportunities to pursue kingdom values?” (pg 96). This sounds good, but how are we to say that “loving God” is our priority when we are talking about mowing the grass? Wittmer responds:

“But what if, rather than view God’s preeminence as an obligation to rank everything else as a distant second and below, we recognize that giving God first place demands that we remain active in every other area of life? Then seeking first the Kingdom of God will not mean that we ignore daily matters so we may focus exclusively upon him, but it will mean that in every area of life we passionately strive to honor God. This view recognizes that because God the Creator has made every area of life, his preeminence necessarily includes rather than excludes each aspect of our existence.” (pg 97)

This marks out a paradox- “on the one hand, [he argues that] we must prevent the things of this world from choking our love for God; on the other hand, [he] suggests that we rightly demonstrate our love for God through our active participation in the world” (pg 99). Or, to put it another way, “It is not enough to love God more than the world; a true disciple of Christ will also love the world for the sake of God” (100).

The second relationship established by the image of God is between people. Chapter 6 looks to develop the question of “Why are we here?” with the answer “To Serve Others.” This is obvious in both the Old and New Testaments. Today, we live in a time of great technological change that requires idea of “who is my neighbor” to be recast- with the internet and other technologies, we have access to people and stories all over the world right in the comfort of our own homes. But this leads to a problem, as “the same technology that makes everyone our neighbor on a global scale also threatens to leave us with too few neighbors on the local level” as we “breeze through an entire day with almost no personal interaction with another human being” (pg 103, a concept that is also excellently handled in Eric O. Jacobsen’s Sidewalks in the Kingdom). The answer to this is to understand “the biblical vision for our social networks.” The best framework we have is the understanding of the hebrew word shalom, which is often translated “peace,” and “describes the sense of well-being and wholeness people feel when all is right in the world… it expresses the way things ought to be” (pg 105). Shalom is the creation that God pronounced good- everything working together in interdependence. This was shattered by the fall. At this point, Wittmer turns his attention to Isaiah’s coming prince of peace, and how this is fulfilled in Jesus- whose kingdom brings the recovery of shalom. Where does this place us? In the “awkward pause between Christ’s first and second advents” where “we who pray ‘thy kingdom come’ must also be willing to work for it.” By working for it, Wittmer means both “preaching the gospel” as well as “practicing the gospel” (pg 113). The gospel proclaimed and lived repairs the torn fabric of shalom (ibid.), but the ultimate expression will not come until Jesus returns. The promise of peace in the Gospel, a peace which promises to fill the earth, inevitably spills into our relationships- to our neighbors. This gospel brings redeemed sinners into a new community- one where we are called to “sacrificially serve one another in the name of the Prince of Peace” while simultaneously “silently announcing to a troubled world that the kingdom of shalom is present in our midst.” (pg 121).

Chapter 7 discusses the last of our three relationships that stem from the fact that we are created in God’s image: our relationship to creation. This chapter focuses on the first command that God gave to people- to work the garden and take care of it. This is found in the cultural mandate given in Genesis 1:28 which tells us to be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over the rest of creation. This command is filled out in 2:15: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” As Wittmer says, “God did not create a static world. he didn’t want his pristine creation to remain the same, but commanded Adam and Eve to make it better… to take the raw materials of a perfect world and arrange them to produce the highest possible benefit” (124-5). They were called, as Andy Crouch would say, to be Culture Makers. In this beautiful command, God has invited Adam and Eve, and us, into the ongoing creation project. The act of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) was completed by God alone, but we are invited to take up the task of forming and cultivating the materials he has given us. By the time of the reformers, there was an escapist attitude that had its roots far more inline with plato than Genesis. The Reformers response was to teach the idea of “vocation” or “callings.” Each of these callings “describes a specific responsibility that I have before God to care for his world” (Pg 129). The purpose of such vocations is to serve God through serving others. Through these vocations, we cultivate the earth. In what seems to be an allusion to 1 Corinthians 15, Wittmer sums up the chapter: “Because we now recognize that our vocations matter to God, we must take them very seriously… every corner of our existence matters to God.” (pg 138).

The final chapter in this section, Chapter 8 is “To Savor the Works of our Hands” which discusses the importance of the Sabbath. “The story of creation depicts the rhythm of life, a rhythm that alternates between the pulsating allegros of the workday week and the serene legato of the seventh-day rest…[which] was a time to enjoy the works of his hands, to delight in the beauty of his creation, and to savor the perfect community that existed between [God] and Adam” (pg 140-1). This leads to the often asked question on whether the Sabbath is for Christians today or not- after looking at some texts in the New Testament which point to its fulfillment in Christ and Paul’s relegation of it to Christian liberty. In the end, he agrees with Calvin, that “the Sabbath command has been fulfilled in Christ, yet he contends that there remains an important place in the Christian life for the Sabbath principle” (pg. 150). This is the flip-side of the last chapter- “The Lord’s Day is a wonderful gift, an opportunity to stop the continual flow of life and remember what is important: the presence of our Father and his incomprehensible love for us” (pg. 152).

It is with this look at work and rest that Wittmer finishes out the second part. He has written about where we are and who we are- two of the four main questions that a world-view attempts to answer. The last half of the book will look at two more: “What is Wrong with Me and My World? The Fall in Genesis 3″ and “What is God’s Plan for This World? Redemption in Genesis 12-Revelation 22.” The next post will address the two chapters in Part III.