Art and Work Part 5: Redemption of Work

This week, we will take a short look at the nature of work (an important issue for artists, since art is work).  Many Christians think that work itself is a curse, a punishment that God has laid on mankind.  As we’ll see, this misunderstanding is fostered by the fact that mankind’s work is largely under a channel for sanctification and a redemptive activity.

How do we know that work is not itself a curse?  Because God works.  In the very first two chapters of the Bible, we are told of God’s work of creation and informed that God “rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done,” and that He sanctified that day, because “He rested from all His work” on it (Gen 2:2-3).  Indeed, because God rested from His work on the Sabbath, He commanded men to rest from theirs one day in seven as He did (Ex 20:9-11, 31:15-17).

In these same places in Scripture, men are commanded by God, “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all the work. . .” (Ex 20:9, 23:12, 31:15; Deut 5:13).  These commands simply made explicit the fact that God expected all men to work, as we can see in the fact that He made the first man, our common forefather Adam, for the specific labor of tending (or cultivating) and keeping the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:15).  That Adam had tasks to do is also seen in the fact that God created Eve to be a helper for him (Gen 2:18), and people don’t need helpers unless they have something to do which requires help.  (It’s also interesting to note that one of the jobs God gave Adam initially was naming the animals, a task that requires imagination, one that we would consider today an artistic function (Gen 2:19-20)). 

We see then that work is a part of what man is to be, a part of what it means to be made in the image of the God Who works (Gen 1:26-27).  So, how did people come to believe that work is a curse?  Because work is under a curse generally.  This curse was placed upon men’s work because of the Fall of Man through Father Adam, resulting in the need for much greater effort to achieve much smaller effect than before (Gen 3:1-19). Adam’s progeny have lived with this legacy ever since.

There is, though, cause for hope, joy and relief in this.  Jesus was a carpenter (Mark 6:3).  He worked.  The implications of this simple fact are staggering for mankind.  Why?  Because the Lord Jesus, Who was perfect, sinless man (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22), as well as being God, hallowed the act of working just as He did the entire range of human existence by sinlessly living out His humanity, showing us that work was an important part of holy living.  In this, as in all aspects of His life on earth, we are to follow His example (John 13:15; 1 Peter 2:21).

 The great news is that He offered Himself, and all that He had done as a perfect man, to God to atone for Adam’s sin and ours, in exchange for our freedom from the Fall and all of its attendant curses (Gal 3:13; Rom 8:3-4, 5:6-21).  For Christians, our unity with Christ has freed us from sin’s curse (Rom 6:1-23; Gal 5:1) positionally (Eph 2:1-7), so that, as we obey Him, we gradually become more and more like Him (2 Tim 2:21; 2 Cor 3:18).  This is important, because we are promised increased blessing on our work as a result of our obedience (Deut 28:1-14), a promise that is a sort of first-fruit blessing that is a foretaste of life in the world to come, a world where, since there will be no sin, there will be no curse at all (Rev 22:3).

 Meanwhile, we are to obediently perform the work God has prepared for us (Eph 2:10), that He has gifted us to do (1 Cor 12:4-11), knowing that, though the effect of the Curse still afflicts our work, we not only one day will be completely freed from its effects, but even now can know Christ’s redemptive blessing and power in our work, as we progress in our sanctification and obedience, seeing our efforts become more effective by God’s grace as a channel of life through Christ to the world.  As we move “from glory to glory” in our lives and callings (2 Cor 3:18), let us embrace the tasks God has given us in both their difficulty and ease, looking forward to the Day when Christ Himself may say to us of our work, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matt 25:21).

 Next week, we will look at the overall summary of what God has to say to us on the subject of art and work.