Life by Design

by Michael Schutz

Recently I’ve added a newer phrase to my teaching toolkit: “God’s design.” It’s a way of describing God’s Law as I try to convey to people that the Law is something different (and much better) than an arbitrary list of rules. In our circles we have a solid grasp on God’s Word to us in Law and Gospel, and yet people in our culture (including in our congregations) can struggle to get beyond the idea that God’s Law—His will for the world and for our lives—is more than a set of rules to obey simply for the sake of obeying.

I use the word “design” purposefully. In fact, the word is itself full of the idea of purpose. It’s the exact opposite of arbitrary. Most people think design is about how something looks. But appearance is only one small part of design; it’s much more about how something works. By using the phrase “God’s design” as one way of talking about the Law, we draw attention to the fact that God isn’t an arbitrary rule-maker; He specifically ordered the cosmos in ways that work together in harmony and peace, as we hear even from the beginning of Holy Scripture. Contrary to what many people believe today, we haven’t arrived at this point in history by chance or mutation. We’re here because God created—designed—the whole cosmos according to His goodness.

Now, sin has corrupted the whole cosmos so that it no longer works together in the ways that God designed it to work. Not only have the relationships between God and people been broken by sin, but so have the relationships between people themselves, and between people and the whole rest of creation. In fact, God’s design of the whole cosmos has been so corrupted by sin that it’s beyond any restoration except for that which has been done by God Himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we give God all thanks and praise that He has done exactly that in Christ! In Christ, all things are made new; all things are re-created.

We’re awaiting the fullness of the new creation in the new heavens and the new earth. But while we wait, we get the great privilege of proclaiming this new creation to the world. The more that I consider this, the more I become convinced that one of the best ways to do that in our culture is to hold up God’s Law using the language of design.

During the Easter season this year, I emphasized in our congregation the resurrection of the body—the physical nature of both Christ’s and our resurrections. It struck a chord with people in a renewed way. I believe one of the reasons it resonated more this year is because we’ve become so “disembodied” in the past year with much of our communication done on a screen, even for close family, friends, work and school colleagues, and neighbours. “Zoom fatigue” isn’t just about the technical challenges of meeting online; it exists because we haven’t been designed to have such a large part of our daily communication take place over screens.

This has become a touchpoint for people. We can easily say, “how we long to be back in person!”, and that applies to so many situations. Even now, as Canadians consider a slow, careful return to something approaching pre-pandemic life, there’s a renewed sense among us that we aren’t meant to be this isolated from one another. Having experienced life with so many of these normal touchpoints removed (again, literally: points of touch like handshakes and hugs), we’re coming to the realization that digital technology, while certainly valuable, has its limits.

It’s here that I believe we have a great opportunity in the Christian Church. I’ve written previously about what I call “cultural exegesis,” which is “reading” the culture around us so that we can draw out meaning about what’s actually going on in our world and respond to it. If I’m doing good cultural exegesis in this case, people in our culture are beginning to realize in a new way that there’s more to life than pixels on a screen. And with that understanding of what’s going on, we have an opportunity to be ready to give an answer in this situation for the hope that lies within us.

That opportunity is to point people—both inside and outside the Church—to God in a new way. And not just to any generic idea of a god, but to Yahweh: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I say “in a new way” because the language of design has been around for a long time. It’s one of the classic arguments for the existence of God—the so-called “teleological” argument that the universe looks to be designed with a sense of purpose instead of appearing to be random, and so some “intelligent designer” must have done it. While we would agree that our Lord is certainly an intelligent designer, that argument only goes so far; it only gets us to the possibility of a being that ordered the natural world. Our Lord certainly is that, but He is so, so much more.

In fact, our Lord’s design for our lives, and for the whole cosmos, is a reason for great hope. Just imagine a place where not only does no one ever murder someone else (or even hurt them in any way) but no one ever even wants to hurt someone else, wanting only to help in every bodily need. Imagine a world where not only does no one ever use sex for selfish reasons, but the only thing anyone wants is to honour God with his or her body and lead a pure life in words and deeds. Imagine a world where not only does no one steal anything from someone else, but no one even wants to obtain something that doesn’t belong to him or her. How good of a place is that? I’d sure like to live there, wouldn’t you?

In the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus explains the full design (there’s that word again) of God’s Law; it’s not just about avoiding doing evil behaviour but about even the desire to do evil. As He explains what sin truly is and how deep sin truly runs, we also see what God’s design truly is and the depth of its (and His!) goodness. Thus, we see that God’s Law—His design—is actually altogether good, as the Psalms so often express. His design is that the entire cosmos live and work together in harmony, in complete peace. And in Christ, we look forward to that actually happening. That’s the hope we have in Him!

Earlier I mentioned that we eagerly await this new creation and proclaim it while we wait. This new creation will not just involve our bodies and all of the cosmos being restored by God, but every relationship between all created beings will be restored too! It’s precisely that promise which can speak into hearts and lives in a time of such brokenness in our world. It’s precisely that message that brings such hope: there is a God who designed this harmony and peace, who in Christ brought reconciliation when it was devastated by sin, and who will fully restore it for those who are in Christ for all eternity. Receiving eternal life isn’t about a reward for following rules; it’s about receiving the fullness of a cosmos designed by a perfectly good God who loves His whole creation, including you and me!

Rev. Michael Schutz serves as Pastor at Concordia Lutheran Church and School in Penticton, B.C.