On Christian Hope
Is there any reason to believe that the world is not going to hell? I have recently realised that I have been swimming in streams all of my life that have this central idea underpinning everything else. The foundation that all else is built upon: the world is dying. Things are getting worse. More and more people are turning away from God and the Lord Jesus and towards the evil one.
What will come of all of this? Things will eventually get so bad - including the persecution of the handful of faithful Christians still left upon the earth - and so apostate that eventually Christ will return, slay all of his enemies (which means, presumably, almost everyone) and then take all of his faithful to be with him in heaven. Or perhaps (in a slightly more positive version) he will restore the earth and live upon the earth with them.
We can see signs of this great apostasy and coming tribulation now. And the looming one-world order which is gathering apace is evidence of the very same infernal trajectory. Whenever something happens that does not fit into this reading of history, it is reinterpreted to mean the exact opposite of what it actually mean so that it coheres with it.
I’ve got some questions about this dramatically pessimistic view of world history. I have to be honest and say that it was initially the pharisaic and acid-tinged bitterness and negativity of so many who hold something like this view that caused me to question it. And I am now in full-blown alert mode. I am by no means saying that everybody who holds to a view like this answers to that description. But I have come across it a lot and…well, I just wonder whether it speaks of the theological virtues of faith, hope and love or if it indicates an alternative pathology.
I read Douglas Wilson’s Heaven Misplaced: Christ’s Kingdom on Earth this past week and I have to say that I find it pretty convincing. Where has the story I sketched out above actually come from? There may be parts of Scripture that indicate something like it, but it seems to me that the overall teaching of Scripture, and particularly Christ’s teaching on the Kingdom of God, indicates precisely the opposite trajectory: namely, that the Gospel will be successful, that the vast majority of the world’s population will eventually bow the knee to Christ, that the plans of the evil one will be thwarted and that the Great Commission will be completed. At that point or thereabouts Christ will return.
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
1 Corinthians 15:24-26
Do those verses fit better with the decline narrative or with (let’s call it) the kingdom narrative? The decline narrative seems to imply that the cross of Jesus, his glorious resurrection and ascension into heaven did very little in terms of the progress of this world. Okay, many people might be saved by the Gospel, but the world in general is not saved and is still under the sway of the evil one. Additionally, most people who have ever lived and will ever live are not saved except for a narrow few. But how does that square with the fact of Christ’s reigning over all creation now? What does it mean that Christ will reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet? In the decline narrative, the last enemy to be destroyed is not death, but death alongside rampant and out of control commandment-shattering sin and the vast majority of humans alive on the planet at the time.
When you start reading Scripture in the way that Wilson suggests, so much of it makes more sense than before. You don’t have to do violence to the text in order to make it say what you need it to in order to support your narrative:
And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all the shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Mark 4:30-32
Okay, so the decline narrative has to try and make that mean something like: the kingdom of God is people who becomes Christians. There were not many Christians at first but now there are billions. This has happened gradually over two-thousand years. But the vast majority of people are not Christians (including much or most of the Church) and also the amount of Christians will diminish until there are only a handful left. Satan will essentially be in control of the earth. Only after the Christian Church and its faithful adherents are near destroyed, decimated and wiped out will Christ return and restore order.
What we’ve done there is to make Christ’s teaching mean almost the opposite of what he actually meant. We might give a slight concession to the fact that Christianity has been the most potent force for good in the history of the world and that billions of people have put their trust in this obscure Galilean peasant, and that they continue to do so in vast swathes all across the continents. But, sorry, generally speaking, the Church will fail, Christianity will fail, and Satan will triumph in this age. The Great Commission will be a total dud.
But Christ’s teaching here is really eschatological. Christ is revealing to us what is really going to happen: the kingdom of God will grow and grow until it becomes the greatest and most potent force in the universe. Notice here also: the kingdom, not only the Church. The reign of God will be reflected in every human institution, every family home, every member’s club and little platoon. All people, nations and powers will bow the knee to Jesus Christ prior to his return.
Now, we might not see this right now. But Douglas Wilson helps us here by using the image of a cyclist moving up the side of a mountain. A mountain path has steep inclines and sharp declines. But, generally speaking, the cyclist is still moving up. In the West, it very much seems like things are moving in the wrong direction. And I think they are. But what about in Africa or in China or in South America. What about, in fact, the tens of millions of Christians still in the USA? If we ignore this and only focus on the rampant secularism here in our country, we are guilty of parochialism - thinking that only our part of the world and our time is reflective of world history. Newsflash: it’s not. We need to get over ourselves and have some faith.
What is more powerful: the Kingdom of God or the World Economic Forum? Who is more likely to triumph: a frail octogenarian globalist with fanatical aspirations of world domination or Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and ascended in glory?
A final thought: maybe this is all wrong. Maybe the decline narrative or something like it really is true. But does your reading of Scripture cultivate spiritual virtue - faith, hope, love, peace, joy, goodness, kindness and so on - or does it aid the work of the true enemy in your life and produce fear, foreboding, hatred for those who disagree, misery, pride, suspicion, rivalry and dissension? If it produces the latter, I would suggest that your hermeneutic needs looking at. No offence intended. As I say above, I am seriously examining my own.
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