In the 1996 movie The Preacher’s Wife, Denzel Washington plays the role of an angel named Dudley. One scene is a particular favorite of mine. A little boy, unaware that he is speaking to an angel, asks Dudley to fix a broken toy ambulance. Dudley takes the little vehicle, turns it over in his hands, and gives it back to the boy. The next moment, the ambulance is moving across the floor, lights flashing, siren blaring. “Wow!” exclaims the boy. “It never had a siren!” “Oops!” is all Dudley can say.
This charming scene perfectly illustrates a wonderful truth: When God repairs something, it is better off than it ever would have been had it never gotten broken in the first place. How consoling! I may be legally blind now, but in heaven, when God gets through with me, my vision will not merely be as good as new. It will be better than new.
In point of fact, the Church makes precisely the same claim when it comes to the saving mission of Jesus. Christ’s work of redemption brings about more than a mere restoration of fallen human nature. The Church teaches that, in Jesus, our human nature is raised to a height higher than it ever would have been had our first parents never sinned! Those who steadfastly follow Christ will know a glory greater than that which we would have enjoyed had Adam never disobeyed God! Note, for example, these words from the collect for Thursday after the Fourth Sunday of Easter: “O God, who restore human nature to yet greater dignity than at its beginnings, look upon the amazing mystery of your loving kindness, and in those you have chosen to make new through the wonder of rebirth, may you preserve the gifts of your enduring grace and blessing.” God certainly did not will the sin of our first parents, but so rich is His mercy that He is able to bring out of our sin blessings far better than those which had been lost (see Genesis 50:20). Our exaltation in Christ will ultimately be far greater than the bliss which had been forfeited by Adam. Thus, during the solemn Mass of the Easter Vigil, the Church raises her voice in the wonderful chant known as the Exsultet and cries out: O certe necessarium Adae peccatum, quod Christi morte deletum est! O felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem! “O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”
Imagine my surprise and delight when I found this same idea expressed in, of all places, John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Here are the words Milton puts into the mouth of fallen Adam, who has just been given a prophetic vision of the redemption Christ would one day accomplish:
O goodness infinite, goodness immense!
That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good; more wonderful
Then that which by creation first brought forth
Light out of darkness! full of doubt I stand,
Whether I should repent me now of sin
By mee done and occasiond, or rejoyce
Much more, that much more good thereof shall spring,
To God more glory, more good will to Men
From God, and over wrauth grace shall abound.
[Paradise Lost, Book XII, lines 469-478.]
Jesus is indeed a great Redeemer, and His Gospel is indeed good news! He will not only make all things new (Revelation 21:5). He will make all things better than new!