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.

This World, or the Next?

It's worth making it a primary consideration in one's Christianity, whether the emphasis is going to be on this world (age), or the next world (age).  Is the Kingdom coming in this age in such a manner that our focus can be on its progress in this age, that is, do we believe that the Kingdom of God will be manifest in this age so strongly that the Final End is more or less the "icing on the cake," rather than a catastrophic revolution bringing in the resurrection state?

If the Kingdom comes gradually and fully, then our hope, though sourced in heaven, certainly lies in the progress of this age.  If the Kingdom comes catastrophically, then our hope is both sourced in heaven, and lies in heaven.  In other words, does heaven come to earth gradually, so that we focus on its coming in this age?  Or, does heaven come to earth catastrophically, so that we focus on the age to come?

It easy to see that I've phrased this question in terms that speak straight from the New Testament about catastrophe.  It's vital that we view the New Testament revelation as the reigning Kingdom Hermeneutic, or we will not have the proper focus on the nature of the Church and our relationship to the World.

If the Kingdom fully comes gradually in this age, then our focus IS on the world.  The ultimate correspondence of the Church and the World is expected.  However, if the Kingdom comes catastrophically, then our focus is on the Age to Come.  Then, a spiritual "separation" is maintained between the Body of Christ and the current Age (world).

The path of union with the world, even the neo-Kuyperian concept of the Organism of the Church permeating the world, while the Institution of the Church is limited to its own sphere, is contrary to the eschatology (as well as the ecclesiology) of the New Testament.  Common grace displaces special grace.  We will be "orthodox" liberals, will lose our "separation" from the world, will lose our spiritual fellowship with one another, will lose our morals, and will finally lose our doctrine. 

But, the Scriptures are plain.  All men are either sons of the devil or sons of God (1 John).  Light and darkness do not comport with one another.  God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  There is a harvest, in which the wheat come to fruition is kept as the King's Harvest, but the chaff and tares are thrown into the unquenchable fire!  Therefore, the spiritual antithesis between the Body of Christ and the "world" cannot end until the Day of Judgment.

To lose our "separation" from the world by a wrong eschatology will be (and has been, in history) the ruin of the church.  The wrong kind of postmillennialism can be heresy!  We must not go there!

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.

The Hegemony of the New Testament

Its hard to believe that so many aberrations of historic Reformed theology have developed in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Most of these aberrations can be cured by the application of two principles from the Scripture and from historic Reformed Theology.  These principles are:

1)  The New Testament reveals the hermeneutic for all of Scripture.

Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."  And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.  Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And you are witnesses of these things.  Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."     Luke 24:44-49

2)  The world-view of the New Testament is age-long.

"Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake.  And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.  Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.  And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.  But he who endures to the end shall be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:9-14

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.  For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.  Colossians 3:1-4 

When these two principles are applied, all sorts of doctrinal distortions fade away.

Most of the aberrations that face Reformed theology rely on a judaizing hermeneutic which forces a foreign understanding upon the New Testament, originating from a false interpretation of the Old.  This, in turn, requires an implicit or explicit denial that the New Testament world-view is age-long.

The implications of these two principles are revolutionary for those caught in a false hermeneutic.

Millennialism

This post is about the downside of millennialism.  Not that I'm intending to promote some bland, unexciting, pessimistic "amillennial" world-view.  Actually, as an optimistic amil learning about postmil, I too want excitement and success for the Kingdom of God.  But, it's still the case that the upside and downside of millennialism must be weighed.

A scholarly article on this subject may be found in a Richard Gaffin "festschrift" called Resurrection and Eschatology, edited by Tipton and Waddington.  The chapter I'm referring to is entitled "A Millennial Genealogy: Joseph Mede, Jonathan Edwards, and Old Princeton," by Jeffrey K. Jue.

This article is worth reading (borrow the book if you have to).  Jue details an instance of close connection between historic premillennialism and postmillennialism by showing a genealogical relationship in the writings of Mede (premil), Edwards (postmil), and Hodge.

The interesting thing about the article is that it can portray the two (pre- and post-) millennialisms to be siblings in their nature and effects on theology and the church.  This is distinct from the usual taxonomy which places premillennialism off to itself, and juxtaposes postmillennialism and "amillennialism."

On the last page of the chapter Jue writes:

The similarities between premillennialism and traditional postmillennialism have been observed and analyzed by others such as Richard B. Gaffin Jr.  Gaffin writes, "like premillennialism, postmillennialism -- distinguished from amillennialism -- 'de-eschatologizes' the present (and past) existence of the church." 

footnote: Richard B. Gaffin Jr., "Theonomy and Eschatology: Reflections on Postmillennialism," in Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, ed. Barker and Godfrey, 202.

What Gaffin is pointing out is that the assertion, made by pre- and postmillennialists, that another finite age (the millennium) will precede the eternal eschaton reduces the eschatological character of the present age.  How so?  If the present church age will be followed by another intermediate state, then the church's final eschatological hope is weakened and delayed.

In other words, 'Come Lord Jesus! Come in glory!' falls into the background, the "blessed hope" is deferred to the indefinite future (or reinterpreted to refer to the millennium), and the church goes on with her business participating in the creation of a Kingdom which may be more at home in this age and this world than it ought to be.

My advice for now:  Amils, don't denigrate the progress of God's Kingdom in this age.  Postmils, don't misperceive or overglorify (in worldly terms) the look and feel of God's Kingdom in this age.

The theological regulation of the New Testament scripture is normative here.  Jesus' description of the mysteries of the Kingdom must rule. The motif of 'glory hidden in suffering' does not pass away as the millennium comes in this age.  The children of God do "shine forth as the sun" -- when He Comes to raise them from the dead!  Only then does the "last enemy," which is also the first enemy and the cause of all our tribulations, get swallowed up in victory!

Meanwhile, we may leaven the whole lump -- very quietly -- and inexorably.  We're just not the whole lump.  We share the field with the fruiting tares until the last day.

Hermeneutics and the Mystery of the Kingdom (v3)

And He [Jesus] said to them, "To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, ...                     Mark 4:11

We are aware of how much the zealous Jews of Jesus' day looked for the coming of the Messianic Kingdom.  We are also aware of how their wishes did not seem to be satisfied by Jesus' deportment, even though he said that the Kingdom of God had come.  They did not see him or those associated with him organizing the army and all other things necessary to bring in that Kingdom in its fullness.  Jesus even said to Pilate that "my Kingdom is not of this world, else my servants would fight."

Jesus' answer to the common messianic expectation was to preach and teach in parables "so that those who were outside would not understand."  There are several astounding revelations made here.  For one, it is a clear premonition of what Paul (and Jesus) speak of, when they note that the Kingdom has been taken away from the Jews and given to the Gentiles until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.  The parables were spoken to the Jews, but only the rare elect, who were mostly personally instructed by Jesus, really understood them.  Secondly, the phase of the Kingdom of God introduced by Jesus' advent does not look like the Jewish Messianic expectation.  All this is covered by the term 'mystery,' to emphasize that there were developments in the manifestation of the Kingdom at Jesus' time which were not prophesied in the prophetic scriptures (Old Testament), and that these unrevealed aspects are more than important -- they are paradigmatic.  That is, the newly revealed (former) mysteries change the whole look and feel of the Kingdom in ways that could not be understood from the messianic prophecies alone.

Now, we need not overplay the 'mystery,' as if nothing about Gentile salvation and the nature of the future Kingdom were prophesied.  But there were many mysteries unrevealed, since those prophets desired to look into the things that they prophesied which pertain to us, but they were providentially limited in their understanding.  (1 Pet 1:10-12)  There were 'mysteries' of the Kingdom which were unrevealed to them, but which are revealed during the ministry of Jesus.

The Biblical-Historical hermeneutic to be drawn from this is that we must, in our Kingdom expectations and eschatology, be centered on the interpretation of the Kingdom which is provided for us in the New Testament.  The New Testament canonically elucidates and interprets the Old, not the other way around!

If this procedure is not adhered to, then a "judaizing" hermeneutic can pervade our interpretation of the scripture.  This judaizing can either disconnect the Old Testament from the church (as in dispensationalism), or (as in some elements of dominion theology) can color our expectations in this age to expect glory in worldly terms rather than seeing it to be hidden (but real), and experienced most often in our tribulations.

The lesson:  The New Testament teaching on the Kingdom of God must guide and direct our understanding of the prophets and the messianic age.

The Nature of Christendom

"Christendom" is an evolving concept.  We look back on the growth of this phenomenon as Christianity slowly took over the Roman Empire from the bottom up -- by slave, often.  As it gradually took hold among the elites, a socially-corporate conception of the relationship of the Church and Civil Government began to form.  (But, the actual separation of Church and State, Pope and Emporer, was not lost in principle, and seldom in practice).

The extremely interesting and informative history of this "Christendom" continued until more or less the time of the "Enlightenment," as which point it is commonly assumed to have been fatally wounded.

However, I don't think we should have a disappointed view of developments.  It was said, I believe in the early 1980's, that the conversion rate to Christianity in China was 25,000 per day -- 7 days a week.  This is bound to have an influence, even though it by no means makes Christians come anywhere being any kind of corporate majority in that State.  After all, it's the "leavening" that Christ has ordained.  The wheat and the tares continue to grow together -- coming more and more into their respective fruitage -- until the end of the age, at which the vindication of the Sons of God -- whose prayers have been keeping the world running all the time -- will shine forth.

Therefore, as we contemplate the "look and feel" of the new Christendom, we need to recognize several things:

1)  The old Christendom has gifts to convey to us, and it just as well shows us its limitations.

2)  The political turmoil of the Magisterial Reformation itself shows one of the major limits of that Christendom, due to too much intertwining of Church and State.

3)  The Anabaptists also have gifts to give us, just as the Romanists and Orthodox do.
4) The Anabaptist emphasis on church discipline was a gift to the church, and attempts were made to take this over into the Reformed Churches.
5) However, discipline could never be practiced properly, as long as the church authority was preempted by civil authority, as it always was where the churches were not "free." (Only the Anabaptists were free.)

6)  The Anabaptist radical disowning of the civil order was wrong, but few of our modern Evangelical "anabaptists" want to do that any more.  They want a certain "Christendom," too!  Therefore, our "catholicity" must extend to them.

7)  Even the Lutherans, during and after the diet at Augburg, had to begin to recognize that the government could be as much of a hindrance as it could a help to the reformation of the church.  The effect of that event was that the government had to "back off" from the imposition of Romanism.  Empire-wide control had to cede to local control.  Even where local government was a help (such as in Electoral Saxony), it bred a dependence that Luther didn't like.
8)  In the Reformed areas, the governmentally-based city reforms still left the question of religion more open outside the city limits.  So, even there, there were limits on the influence of government on the church.

9)  For our part, it is not simply the "American" experience that Church and State need be separated.  This was also the experience of the Magisterial Reformation, when carried to its final point.  You can't have freedom in your church, even the freedom for discipline, much less theological reformation, when you have to tangle with the civil government or civil society about it.

Therefore, we have lessons to learn about the concept of "Christendom."  Yes, we need to recognize the fruits of the first one.  And, yes we also need not turn up our noses at every fruit of the "separation of church and state," whatever that is.  History moves on, and we need to continue to develop our understanding of what this means.  The experiment is not over.  We need to be open to the hand of God as worldwide Christendom still evolves, under the lessons of Scripture and experience.

And, these are just the practical arguments and lessons of history.  There are theological reasons why the first Christendom could not endure, and why the subsequent Christendom will look different.  That discussion appears in other posts in this blog!

Jesus Kingship -- Over this world, but not Of it

Jesus before Pilate (John 18:33-37)

Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" 

Jesus answered him, "Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?" 

Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?" 

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here." 

Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?"

Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."

In this passage Jesus sets the tone for the nature of today's manifestation of his Kingdom, which he then carries out on the cross!  He has previously revealed the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven to his disciples (while hiding this revelation from the spiritually non-discerning by means of parables), and he has shown that this new and glorious form of his Kingdom, not previously revealed, and oriented to the gospel, is a form of the Kingdom which paradoxically appears weak in the eyes of the world or to the carnally minded, while it is yet strong with spiritual power to demolish all strongholds against Christ.

It is well-known that the Jews expected the Messiah to expel the Romans when he came.  They understood the victory-motif in the prophets, and expected that the Great Prophet prophesied by Moses would carry this out.  Their assumptions were clearly that the politico-economic realm would simply be ruled according to the same laws (physical, moral and political) as it always had been, but that the law would be enforced by the political and military power of the Messiah.  This is why something like the Beatitudes would be so unintelligible, or even repugnant to them -- or why a Suffering Servant could not be King.  The fact that Jesus seemed to show no promise along the lines of temporal deliverance was one carnal reason for his rejection by the Pharisees, Zealots, and similar persons.

The use of the term "mysteries of the Kingdom" means that there were as yet unrevealed aspects of the promised Kingdom that were not known in the Old Covenant Scriptures.  Part of Jesus preaching ministry was to prepare his disciples, and ultimately his church, to understand these previously unrevealed aspects of the Messianic Kingdom, so that we can see the new glory in it, not be disappointed in our tribulations (which are our glory), have hope, and know what to expect and how to behave, as we wait for the manifestation of Christ at his Coming. 

Christ is the King.  He doesn't look like a King to the world, but he rules it.  We shall judge angels -- but we look like slaves to the world.  The gospel is powerful and converts the world, but appears foolish to the world.  God doesn't have a special love for worldly elites, or worldly manifestations of power, or man-made philosophy, or mighty man-pleasing rhetoric.  These are the weak things in his eyes.

It is the weak ones in the eyes of the world who are actually the strong.  Those who give up their lives for Christ keep the world running and receive the eternal rewards.  Luther thought that the sun rose because the Christians prayed.  Everything is upside down compared to the world's view, and we must see this.  The servant life, as slaves of Christ, is the powerful and effective life.  The quiet life, working with our own hands, is the foundation of culture.  The foolishness of the gospel is what converts the culture, in spite of its opposition.

This is very serious.  "Kingdom work" is God's work.  How he rules and increases the spread and power of the gospel is a mystery, but he does.  We do our little parts, tending and watering the Divine Project, as we live a quiet life of mutual love, and offer Christ to a lost world.  All our might that could be worldly, all our money that could be great, all our personal powers and education that could be impressive in the world, all our worldly status, all our personal gifts, must be put to use in this way.  All our ways of promoting the knowledge of Christ must partake of the lowliness exemplified in the life of Christ, because these means are the means empowered by God for victory!

Corporate Separation

 

We're all familiar -- or think we are -- with the concept of individual, spiritual "separation" from the world.  We think of it as holding to the Christian worldview, to the Gospel, and to practicing Christian ethics -- individually.  Even when we think of the believers as a group, we continue to think of our group as composed of individuals practicing the views, teaching, and ethics just mentioned.  However, if we move on to viewing the church, the Body of Christ, in more corporate terms, as we should, then we have to ask what the look and feel of this corporate "separation" really is.  Does it appear to be a sub-culture within the general culture?  Are we ready for it to look this way?

Now some bodies of believers are strong on corporate separation.  Some of us from those backgrounds may be quite familiar with the look and feel of such environments.  In fact, the overthrow of that kind, type, or degree of "separation" may have been important for us, since that old "separation" really could have been overly restrictive, legalistic, or introverted, performing little outreach to the unbelieving world, and also was likely not aware of improvements in doctrine and devotion that could be learned from other Christian environments.  "Separation" can definitely go wrong.

But, I suggest that however much we seek to jump out of those kinds of environments, the need for Scriptural separation will always come back, simply because the corporate nature of Christianity requires it.  The wheat and the tares remain visibly distinct throughout this age.

The question in my own mind really is this:  Will losing our corporate, and to a degree "separate," Christian culture result in frittering away our patrimony?  Is losing our corporate culture (rather than our doctrinal profession) the first step in group apostasy?  I mean by this, not necessarily individual apostasy, but the disintegration of our corporate being and testimony.

Preserving cultural "separation" from the world can preserve a Christian profession, whether it's dead or alive.  We know this can happen and therefore we may object to attaching significance to "separation," because we don't want our sub-culture to preserve something dead, or to restrict legitimate Christian freedom.  But, I strongly suggest, even the best Christian sub-cultures that are alive require separation, too!

Once this is seen, it's also not hard to realize that maintaining a corporate testimony that by nature must in some manner be "separate," may, at certain times and in certain points, set certain limits on our liberty.  This is a delicate subject requiring great discrimination, but is clearly a subject addressed in Scripture.  See Paul's discussions about eating meat dedicated to idols (Rom 14-15).  This teaching, as to its inner principles, applies to more than just food and drink, and must even apply as much to our external testimony to the world as it does to our inward behavior in the church.

The Gospel and Cultural Transformation

A magazine article on this subject ends with the statement:

"In both testaments, believers extend God's kingdom both to spiritual and earthly realms.  We are to teach the gospel of Christ to all nations so that people may be transformed spiritually, but this spiritual renewal is for the sake of extending the lordship of Christ to every facet of culture around the world."

I'm sorry to say it, but this has the cart before the horse.

It is true that the impact of Christ on culture is the consequence of the transformation brought about by the gospel.  But, the gospel, and spiritual conversion by the gospel, is the truly great thing.  Souls by this are brought into the family of God, the new, redeemed race, and this way they experience the life of Christ in fellowship with each other and with the Holy Trinity.  The impact on culture is a wonderful consequence.  But, we dare not make the cultural impact the higher purpose, and the gospel merely an instrument to that end.

Putting cultural impact as the purpose (the "telos") is a lower vision.

Preterism, Conquest and the Theology of Glory?

 

Part 1 of this question is found here:
http://christocentry.blogspot.com/2010/04/church-life-and-eschatology.html

Martin Luther got the ball rolling, as he synthesized the contrasting conceptions of The Theology of Glory and The Theology of the Cross.  His most famous theses about this are numbers 19 and 20 from the record of the Heidelberg Disputation.  They need explaining more than can be done in this post.  But, to start your thinking, late me transcribe them here (follow the links for more information):

19)  That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the »invisible« things of God as though they were clearly »perceptible in those things which have actually happened« (Rom. 1:20; cf. 1 Cor 1:21-25),

20)  He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

The effect of these theses is to turn the usual vision of the world and the flesh upside down. What appears "great" to the world is small to God.  What is great with God is "small" to the world.  For God is determined that the world only know him through the foolishness of what is preached, and not by any wisdom of its own whatsoever.  Therefore, the true divine assessment of greatness is often the inverse of what the world sees.  It is the weak, powerless, unranking, who receive the gospel, not usually the powerful and mighty (in worldly terms).  The meek shall inherit the earth.

In personal terms, the way up (closer to God), is down, through repentance, the cross, and peace with God.  The way down (away from God) is up, through human wisdom, power and greatness.

So, in the relationship between eschatology and church life, or eschatology and personal spirituality, can an undigested "preterism," or a naively actuated vision of cultural conquest, lead toward a "theology of glory," with the consequent negative effects on visions of individual calling and of church life?