Boneyard World. Resurrection World.

“But let us never preach the doctrine of total depravity without also declaring there has been a great earthquake, and that an angel of the Lord has rolled away the stone in front of that imposing doctrine. ‘Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more’ (2 Cor. 5:16). This is crazy talk, I know. but it is also biblical talk. This whole world, since the sin of Adam, has been nothing but one, vast, pole-to-pole boneyard. Whatever would Jesus do in a world like that? What could He possible do that could transform a world like that? The gospel reply is that He could come back from the dead in it. . . . The sacramental history of the church has consisted of large numbers of people making the same mistake that the Jews here made [see John 8]. Something is given that is wild and heavenly, and we expend all our energies to make it domesticated and earthly. We take the lion of the tribe of Judah–from the upland savannahs of Heaven–and turn it into a tabby cat to keep the bishop’s chair warm for him” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 110, 113).