ABSTRACT
The task of soteriology is to provide an account of how the things that God has made are to take their part in the working out of God’s purpose, and of how they shall constitute, thus, a fitting celebration of God’s glory. Salvation has to do with the perfecting of God’s creation, with the completion of what began when, through his Word and Spirit, God brought forth light in the darkness and gave order to the formless void. Precisely through the completion and the perfection of God’s creation, the love and the glory of God are revealed. Yet the purposes of God in creation encounter the resistance of human sinfulness. The creature has loved darkness rather than light (Jn. 3:19) and has brought chaos upon that which was ordered to our good. Salvation thus entails the overcoming of human sinfulness, the dispelling of darkness, and the re-establishment of God’s good ordering of things.
