Why Work? 4

The major contention of Darrell Cosden is that what we do — our work — is being redeemed and will be finally redeemed (saved) and will figure into Eternity, the Eternal City, the new heavens and the new earth. So, the 3d chp of The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work is his attempt to justify this theory by showing that the Bible’s sense of redemption is physical and earthly.

Question: What is your sense of the value of our work?
His argument combines Bible, theology, and inference — that is, he examines the Incarnation with Jesus as Prototype, 1 Corinthians 15, Colossians 1, Romans 8, and Revelation 21-22 to argue that redemption is:
1. Not just our souls or our spirits.
2. Includes our bodies, our world, creation, and all that is redeemable within it.
Thus, and I think his argument can be reduced to this:
If the Bible sees Jesus, the resurrected Christ, as a prototype of eternal redemption; and
If final redemption involves our bodies — transformed of course; and,
If final redemption involves all creation (Romans 8 ); and
If final redemption is depicted as a city and as Jerusalem, it follows that:
Inasmuch as work is involved in our earthly life, our bodies, our creation, and in cities and Jerusalem,
THEN, our work is also be redeemed, saved, swallowed up and will be part of the final redemption.
Now, let me put it this way:
IF Cosden is right,
THEN work is not something we do in the body but that does not ultimately matter (dualistic approach as we pass our time on planet earth),
THEN work is not just something we use in order to advance spiritual matters (dualistic approach as we divide the eternal and earthly into the spiritual and material).
Instead, work is our contribution to Eternity.
He hasn’t quoted Tolkien yet, but this chp led me numerous times to think of “Leaf by Niggle,” Tolkien’s wonderful little short story about Niggle painting leaves to discover that what he was painting was more than he knew.
From what I’m seeing now, work becomes Iconic in Cosden’s view.