Distinction from the World (Revised)

This is a comment on the previous post.

The point of the previous post is that the church must maintain spiritual separation from the world.  But, sometimes the word "separation" has a bad image.  So, I will express what I mean by using another word -- "assimilation."  The church permeates the world, but is not to be "assimilated" to the world.  There remains a spiritual distinction from the world -- a distinction which is visible not only in worship and in personal Christian behavior and testimony, but also in the serious requirement of intra-church Christian social communion where the Lord's grace, wisdom, and encouragement is shared between the believers.  This fellowship manifests the spiritual bond which makes the believers' first priority in prayer and action to be the welfare of other believers in Christ.  We should do good to all men, but especially to the household of God.  Our lifestyle is not to dissipate ourselves by throwing ourselves into the embrace of the world to convert the world, but to draw people from the world into the embrace of Christ.  The church is a "counterculture."  That distinction of worship, life, and spiritual separation must characterize the body of believers, lest their testimony before the world lose its vitality.  My thesis in the previous post is that engaging the world while forgetting to be the counterculture is spiritually fatal to the welfare and testimony of the church.

Therefore, whether it's too much preterism, or too much visionary medieval-style communion of church and state, the spiritual effect is the same.  The church and the world become only formally, but not vitally, distinguishable, to the detriment of the church.

During the days of union and communion between church and state, it was the monks who continued to preserve the distinction between the church and the world.  In a sense the church of Christ, following Judaic principles rather than Greek philosophy, must adopt the monk's sense of spiritual separation from the world, without the asceticism.  The good that those monks did could only be done because they were monks -- separate.  Likewise, the good that we do can only be done because we are separate.  If we lose our separation, we will lose our calling and our effectiveness in the world.

Preterist Hope and Resurrection

This article keeps being revised, in order to clarify the language, remove unnecessary offense to brethren, and be more correctly adjusted to its practical environment. However, any hyperbole still present is intentional, because if there were no hyperbole, no attention would be paid to its technical language and apparent theological blandness.  This article is commented on in the next post.

In the Reformed "Covenant of Works" it is regularly assumed that the destiny of the race is properly understood from the standpoint of the original creation, as if the Fall was a fatal blot on that original plan which was cured by Christ's redemption, so that the recovered plan of world dominion can now be carried forward in the present age in Christ.  When this idea is coupled with a preterism which denies a final apostasy, the Kingdom of God becomes an immanent kingdom.  It comes here and now, in this age, though gradually.  The distinction between the "Now" of Kingdom life in the present age, and the "Not Yet" of Kingdom life in the Age of Resurrection gradually fades away as the kingdom comes, and, in the end, a saved and glorious world is made ready for the final advent of the Savior, and the destruction of the last enemy -- death.  But, resurrection is icing on the cake, in what may be a far distant future.  The focus of the church is on this age,* and on the expectation of the increasing triumph and glory of the kingdom of God in this age.  As a consequence the resurrection age inadvertently becomes distant, ethereal, disembodied, perhaps even "gnostic," compared to the realism of kingdom now, the beginnings of which we perceive with our senses.  Life is now.

This focus has a profoundly negative effect on the practical mission of the church and on the life of faith. By asserting a vision of increasing fulfillment, contentment, triumph and glory in this age, the church embraces the world, hoping to redeem the world through Christian accomplishments and good works and (hopefully) the preaching of the gospel, but the result is that the world embraces the church.  A vision of world-conquering, world-integrating moral triumph through charity (and a subsidiary profession of orthodoxy) replaces the gospel vision of salvation from the world-system, personal and corporate holiness, and Christian accomplishments and good works that preach this deliverance.  We've been here before:  Look at the policies, activities and failure of the "liberal" churches.

There are theological reasons why this is an unworthy way to conceive of the divine plan.  For one thing, the Fall occurs so early in the Scriptural record, and so little is revealed of the original creation, that it's clear that the Scriptural record is just not focused on the restoration of the original creation in its original form.  That original creation is irretrievably lost in death, just as Christ's participation in the life of this age was brought to the fullest and most complete death on the cross and in the tomb.  And yet, in triumph, Christ rose from the death of the first creation, and he himself became the embodiment of the New Creation, along with all those spiritually in him.

The New Testament is clear that this redemptive work is accomplished by our Lord's participation in the first, fallen creation (yet without sin on his part), as he dies.  But he is not resurrected back into the first creation.  He remains "dead to the Law," which killed him, for ever and ever.  Yet, He himself becomes the New Creation in Resurrection, living to God in a new way, by the Spirit, corresponding to the New Covenant.  The home of the New Creation is the resurrection body, ultimately in the resurrection age.  Therefore, we should only see our redeemed destiny in resurrection terms.  We are spiritually resurrected now, as believers, but we live in bodies which are the products of the first creation, and we live in a fallen age.  We cannot see the Kingdom of God fully manifested in this age, because this is not the age of resurrection.  The Kingdom of God is not inherited by flesh and blood (the Adamic inheritance of the first creation).  The Kingdom of God is fully inherited only in the resurrection body, in Christ.

This explains why Paul is so insistent that our spiritual attention be directed to Heaven where our treasure lies waiting for the age to come, the resurrection age, and that our spiritual attention not be directed to this age, which is groaning under bondage to corruption and death.  After all, the creation is also doomed to be delivered from death in the same glorious resurrection that we will experience at the Last Day.

Therefore, we must divert our vision from an immanent kingdom of God, with a vision of glory in outward life in dominion and triumph in this age, and direct our vision to the future and transcendent kingdom coming with resurrection, with only a hidden glory now in the triumph of our suffering, until the great day of deliverance from death comes, and we participate in the full manifestation of the Kingdom of God.  This is the only vision that separates us from the world-system and makes us a holy people of Kingdom-come, and this is the only vision which testifies to the world that Christ has come.

Unless the End comes first, we will all die a death that was ordained for our sin, and that has been transformed by Christ's resurrection into a doorway to the presence of Christ, until eternal glory dawns.  Yes, the last enemy to be destroyed is death, but what an enemy!  It's really paradigmatic of all evil and sin in our lives.  Death is the curse!  Therefore, let us no more have "boys' religion" about these things, confusing our vision of eternal life with a vision of worldly glory in this age.  No.  Our destiny is death and resurrection, following in the steps of our Lord, unless he should return first.  Focusing on the glorious manifestation of the Kingdom of God in this age will have a carnalizing influence on us and on the practical ministry of the church.  But, focusing on the eternal kingdom in resurrection will make us a holy people who preach a holy gospel, and do holy works testifying to the glory of Christ.

There is a warning here:  The true vision of the city whose builder and maker is God is held by those who view themselves, like Abraham, as migrants and pilgrims through life in this age, seeking that city and glory which is eternal, and is not of this age, but of the age to come -- the age of resurrection.  Only a converted heart can rest in that vision.  The flesh wants glory now, and anything that satisfies that urge in this life has corruption in it.

This post is commented on in the next post.

*  My claim about "focus on this age" is not vain, because, after writing this post, with my own ears I heard an ordained PCA Teaching Elder (Minister) not associated with my church, use these very words unguardedly in a comment stating that our attention should be focused on this age and not on some other (future) age.  He wasn't thinking, but the loose and uninterpreted comment nevertheless illustrates what I mean.

Love One Another (Revised 07/29/2011)

Do not love the world or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life -- is not of the Father but is of the world.  And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:15ff

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!  Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.  Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.  1 John 3:1-3

Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.  He who does not love his brother abides in death.  Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.  1 John 3:13-15

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.  And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  1 John 3:16

... whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing to His sight.  And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.  1 John 3:22-23

... every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.  And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.  You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.  They are of the world.  Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them.  We are of God.  He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us.  By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.  1 John 4:3-6

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  1 John 4:7-11

Little children, keep yourselves from idols...  1 John 5:21

It probably seems simple-minded to many nowadays that the New Commandment, and virtually the Final Admonition to the Christians from Our Lord himself (and John) is to "Love One Another."  We take it for granted that we do, but don't understand the context in which this is said.

Close examination of the contexts of John and 1 John shows that the context of "loving one another" is the evil context of the "world."  The unremitting and lethal envy of the world, now more hidden, and then again exposing itself, is obviously one main reason for this exhortation.  The experience of Our Lord in the world is and will be our experience in the world, until the Day of Glory when we are revealed to the cosmos as the Sons of God.  This is a good reason to "hang together, lest we hang separately."

This comment may seem to you to be extreme in our current situation.  After all, we are going forth into the world, boldly by our influence and quality activities increasing the Lord's dominion over all his enemies.  But, let me put forth a caution.  Even though it seems so plain to us that we are not deceived by the world's evil, we need to look more closely at this question.

We are exhorted by Our Lord to love one another.  So, think about what will it look like to love.  Remember Jesus' description of eternal life -- it is to know the Father and the one whom he has sent (Jesus Christ).  This knowledge, of course, is not a bare external knowledge, but an intimate knowledge.  In fact, it is hard to discern the qualitative difference between knowledge and love.  In a relationship these two go hand-in-hand.  So, we might say that for us to "love one another" is much the same as for us also to "know one another."

But, knowing and loving one another cannot be based on mere acquaintance.  It takes time spent with one another in all the vicissitudes of life -- the pains and joys, ups and downs, sins and graces.  We must see our fellow believers as the true spiritual friends and family members that we can rely on in the midst of our enemies.  We must know and love one another, and help and pray for one another, in order to reap the fruit of Our Lord's commandment!

You have to see that institutional, routine acquaintance, and friendship by "Sunday-howdy's" and slaps on the back does not manifest the degree or kind of love which is the fulfillment of Our Lord's New Commandment.  We all have our friends, to one degree or another, but how much time and effort is expended on becoming acquainted with and actually coming to know our fellow believers with whom we are bound together in this church?

Nor is fulfillment of Our Lord's commandment found in the vision of the church as a smoothly running institution, maintaining membership lists, listing prayer requests, working the mercy ministry, and tending the budget.  The necessary formal side of institutional life is not the inner life of the church.  Without that inner life with one another, developed in corporate worship and private spiritual fellowship, the best run church institution is a mere husk.  One can be caught up participating in the institutional life of the church and have no time left to experience the spiritual fellowship called for in the New Commandment to love one another.

Do we even have a desire for the real thing?  Is there even any kind of cognizance of what the real thing is in the souls of many?  It's hard to say.  The eternal, time-kept business of our lives truly belies the Christian profession that we hold.  The Word may be in us, as the parable says, but the thistles and thorns of worldly busy-ness are choking out its fruit.  There is no time for spiritual fellowship!

Why do we think that the "cares of the world" which strangle the Word are bad things!  Bad things would drive us to God!  The "cares of the world" in that parable, at least the kind of "cares" that can infect us, are likely to be "good things," such as the business of the world, making a living, getting educated, traveling, being excellent in our professions, being good citizens, training our children, engaging in acts of charity, etc.  But, these things become idols when the fruit of the Spirit and the spiritual intimacy of our relationship to one another as believers are sacrificed to them.

Is it even possible that we could change?  It will obviously take a miracle.  But, all I know to do is to pray, and not give up.

Paraphrasing John: "Little children, love one another -- and keep yourselves from idols"!  These two thoughts are intimately related in John's thought, and ought to be in ours! It is precisely the idolatry of "good things" that seduces us and subverts our love for one another!  Moloch sometimes wears a pretty face, and he is then all the more dangerous!

Participation in all the "good things" takes away from us the short time we have to spend on the thing that really counts -- to love one another (sacrificially) as Our Lord loved us.  Only then, seeing this in us, can the world know that Christ has come (John 17:20-23.

Christian Suffering, Spirituality and Eschatology (revised 5/28)

This is the first post of what may be an occasional series of posts on the interrelationship of Christian Suffering and Eschatology.  

The basic thesis of these posts, which I will try to support over time, is this:  The age-long continuance of Christian Suffering is such a significant emphasis in the New Testament, that a view of the progress of this age which sees a gradual end to suffering by the time of the Second Coming of Christ must be an eschatology which is seriously at odds with the New Testament.

A few points are:

1)  The general cast of the New Testament is opposed to gradual entrance of conditions of such spiritual and experiential peace and plenty such that the transition to the eternal state is not catastrophic.  Put another way, the eternal state does not come by a process of development, or spiritual evolution, in either extent or quality.  I do not deny by this that the current age has a path of spiritual development, and that that development tends to the sharpness of the distinction between good and evil, nor do I deny that the preponderance of Christianity, and its effects, increases.

2)  The experimental suffering which is put forth as the norm in the Bible as a whole, and especially in the New Testament, must be the experience of all believers in this age, until the end of the age.  The maintenance of Christian spirituality depends on this.  Therefore, a view of the end of the age in which spiritual conditions approach conditions in the Eternal State is inimical to the New Testament vision of the spiritual value of the suffering that characterizes the present age.

3)  The whole Bible narrative of the believers' experience shows that an easy life is spiritually harmful to those still in the un-resurrected flesh.  Our fidelity to God is only guaranteed through spiritual struggle.  Christ, the perfect man, learned obedience through suffering.

4)  The spiritual purity and "separation" of the church from the world, so important in the text of the New Testament, is at stake.  The only way to maintain our testimony and actually have an effect on the world is to maintain this separation.  The liberal churches have simply identified their eschatology with popular political and social progressivism in all its methods and results, and thereby demonstrate the result of this kind of "postmillennialism."  A theonomic replacement of the world's carnal "law" with God's Law will not fix this problem, because the problem is spiritual in a way which transcends "law."  The Church is a New Creation, not simply a renovation of the Original Creation.

5)  Finally, the "proof-texts" for the evolution of gradual spiritual perfection do not support this picture.  Any sustained argument built up from the full revelation of the New Testament will show the continuing threat of apostasy -- even a final apostasy, and the spiritual warfare between the wheat and the tares will not end until the harvest.

Good and evil will "come to a point" at the harvest at the end of the age in such a manner that Christian suffering will remain the Christian lifestyle until the end of the age.  Our hope is in the Eternal State, not some near-perfect manifestation of God's Kingdom before that time.  To focus attention and hope on the pre-Eternal State as capable of containing the near-full manifestation of God's Kingdom is to lose the eschatological vision, and potentially to fall into the trap of worldliness which is condemned in the New Testament.

Our expectations in this age must be properly focused, lest the spirituality and separation of the Church from the World be lost.  If the spirituality and separation of the Church is lost through some kind of "gospel reductionism," and if the central focus of the hope of fulfillment in an Eschaton which transcends the current aeon and its ways of life is lost, the result will just be "liberalism" again.

Christian Community in the City

Christian "community," (sometimes called fellowship), is that social and active fellowship enjoyed by the believers, whereby we edify one another in our life in Christ.  This post investigates the nature and vitality of Christian community in the city.

Now, the greatest impediment to Christian Community, in city life, is the lack of time.  The ceaseless round of weekly activities uses up all the time.  There is no Christian quietness or time for spiritual fellowship.  Quietness is boring -- or frightening.  It is certainly not a virtue in our busy world.  If you are quiet, you may lose an opportunity to get ahead!

Most times, I'm sure, our weekly activities are all considered to be necessary or excellent benefits to ourselves and to our children which we cannot afford to pass by.  Particularly is this the case when it comes to giving our children that initial boost in life which we believe that they need for future success.  Business requirements, too, including "church" business, can dominate our schedules.  Whatever the cause, a vital casualty of this lifestyle is Christian community.  When, in the city, there are so many available activities, even so much "good" that can be engaged in, even so much Christian good, the virtues of a quiet life are lost and remain undeveloped in our souls.  Christian community, if it exists at all, can only be "scheduled" like everything else.  But, can those necessary heart-to-heart talks always be "scheduled"?  No.  They will just never happen.

The church has always thought this busy-ness to be dangerous and wrong.

So, how does time for Christian community, or even time for personal contemplation, come about?  Something has to be sacrificed!  And, if your life and your family's life is not filled with time-wasting activities, then something good will have to be sacrificed.  And, in order for something good to be sacrificed, Christian virtues of a quiet life must rise in our consciousness, beyond the good of the good things we must sacrifice!

Here are some random thoughts:

You train your children in all sorts of intellectual programs and physical sports for their future good.  Yet, how much of this is competitive training which teaches them to be motivated by the desire to be "first"?  Is this realistic -- or Christian?  Think of your own life experience.  How will this motivation to be "first" serve them throughout their lives?  How much of the intellectual activity or physical sport which they engage in are to train them in accordance with their actual gifts?  Is any part of their lives given over to "play"?  "Boredom" is a vital stimulant to creativity.  Can you arrange your educational program to train them ultimately in those things that they are best at, and in which, by living as quietly as their calling permits, they will contribute to society and church in a productive manner?

People in business, educators and church-workers, male or female, can ask the same questions about their own professional activities.  How much of this is necessary, and how much of what I do is to feed my personal ambitions?

The bottom line is this:  Is it spiritually clean to be busy all the time?  Have we made "idols" of good things?  Can life be quieter?  Can there be more time for God and our fellow believers?

The answer to this must be "Yes!".  But, then, we Christians must live differently than the world -- even differently than the rest of the "Christian" world that is as busy as the world!

There needs to be a taste of Paradise in our Christian social lives, just as there is in worship.