The New Commandment (Revised)

This post has been slightly revised for emphasis in the last three paragraphs.

I grew up dispensational, being taught Dispensationalism by Hal Lindsey while he was assistant pastor of Berachah Church, Houston TX, a long time ago, before he wrote books or became famous.

Much later, along about 1982, I think, through hearing teaching and doing some reading, I saw that the Dispensational approach was not in full accord with the Scripture.  But, rather than trying to find a substitute for Dispensationalism, I decided to withdraw from detailed study of eschatology, and simply to hold the "catholic" position that Christ is coming again, bodily, for the Day of Judgment, at which point we will be resurrected bodily to enjoy eternal fellowship with him.  In other words, I gave up direct study of eschatology, and gave my attention to other topics.

This benign neglect of curious detail worked until 2005.

At that point we joined a church with a strongly postmillennial cast, and so I began to hear about this approach first-hand, being immersed in both the doctrine and the practice of the church.  I did not know that this experience was also set to be a lesson in eschatology!

Even now I do not know to what extent the functioning of the internal, mutual ministry of the church is influenced by what appears to me to be the reigning postmillennial eschatological doctrinal position.  So, perhaps this exercise is simply a learning experience for me.  It is certainly the case that Our Lord has decreed that I will now learn some eschatology! 

Now, my main interest is not an abstract investigation of millennial types.  My main interest concerns the effect eschatology has on the spiritual life of the church. 

This investigation, in turn, takes place amidst my personal redemptive-historical theological view which regards the New Testament scriptures to contain the preeminent hermeneutic for interpreting all of Scripture -- both Old Testament and New.  Therefore, all the unfulfilled, and yet to be fulfilled, eschatology of the Old Testament, as well as the New, is interpreted and explicated according to the norms of the New Testament writers.  The New Testament is never transcended throughout the age.  It is not a standard of ecclesiology and Christian ethic suited only for the childhood and youth of the church, but is also supremely suited for her maturity.

Now, the New Testament carries within it themes of triumph, themes of conflict, themes of judgment, themes of love for the world, and themes of separation from the world.  All these themes need to be well-balanced and Scriptural in the life of the church.

Now, we know that the church is both separated from the world and in the world, just as the individual Christians are.  We are in the world but not of the world.  Furthermore, my reigning concern on this topic is that the mutual love shown in the internal fellowship of the church, in separation from the world, is (along with gospel preaching) the visible testimony to the world that Christ has come.

Another way to put this is to say that the redeemed humanity, the visible church, is a new, gospel-preaching and gospel-acting culture, a counter-culture to the world, which testifies in the world and to the world what is the nature of the inner life of the New Humanity, and that this testimony of the true inner life of the New Humanity is the testimony to the world that Christ is the Savior.

Jesus said, in the Upper Room, after Judas had gone out (John 13:31ff):

So, when he [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

We are probably so used to reading about the New Commandment that we hardly grasp the astounding significance of Jesus saying this:  He's exceeding Moses (not that Moses would ever disagree with what Jesus is saying).  John, of course, was lying back toward Jesus while they were reclining at the Table and marked this saying well.  Even the testimony of the Apostolic Fathers about John's deportment as he was carried to church in a chair in his old age was that he was continually exhorting them to "Love one another."  This is not some kind of mushy, gooshy emotionalism, but John's recollection and re-anouncement of the New Commandment, which he obviously regarded as the real guiding principle of the New Covenant:  In the quote from the gospel given above, "Love one another" is repeated three times!

Therefore, a scriptural eschatology, regardless of the positioning of the "millennium," and regardless of how much the Kingdom of God is fulfilled in this present age, must teach us how to execute the New Commandment!  The Church must know, or come to know, what real Christian love for one another actually is, and must live it in Christian community.

But, there is a problem.  There appears to be no time for the cultivation of deeper Christian friendship and mutual ministry amidst urban busy-ness and the accompanying idolatry-of-good-things.

It may also be so hard to see the need because the upper-middle class church is materially "rich and in need of nothing," even though spiritual poverty is actually widespread (Rev 3:14ff).

Might it also be, to some degree, a defect in eschatology?  Can an eschatology and vision of individual and church "world-engagement" be a detriment to the inner social life of faith, apart from the world?