From Eternity to Here: Baptism, Eschatologically Considered

Sometimes we Reformed paedobaptists spend so much time defending the confessional view of the status of covenant children that we forget that baptism is a way bigger topic than merely the mode or subjects of the sacrament. Sure, the sprinkling-water-on-the-baby’s-head part is integral to the baptism discussion, but to focus solely on the mechanics and beneficiaries of baptism is to exalt the trees over the forest, or to change the metaphor, it is to use the microscope to the exclusion of the telescope. To modify the words of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 3, there’s a time to zoom in, but also a time to break out the wide-angle lens.

Peter’s words to the crowd on the Day of Pentecost have a much broader significance than we often realize:

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself (Acts 2:38-39).

In a word, what the apostle is inviting his hearers to do is something every bit as cataclysmic and profound as what happened to Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy when they dared to venture through the back of that magical wardrobe into the strange, new world of Narnia. Baptism represents an intrusion of the age to come into this present world, a breaking-in of the dynamic of heaven to the here and now. As the waters are applied, the sky is split and the pavement cracks, and all that we once were is forever changed. William Willimon writes:

In baptism, we are subsumed into a story of water and the word. A story of creation formed out of dark waters. A story of a God so righteous that he was willing to make war on the world he created.... A story of a people, created out of nothing, by a God determined to be worshiped rightly, led through waters into the desert as imperial chariots foundered. A story of a Jewish woman visited by God in a way that confounded her fiancé but caused her to sing. A story of a crazy man out in the desert proclaiming a new kingdom coming in water and fire. A story of One who saved by an issue of water and blood.[1]

The first thing that baptism accomplishes, claims Peter, is giving us a new past: “Be baptized... for the forgiveness of your sins.” The connection between baptism and forgiveness of sins is also made by Ananias in his instruction to the newly-converted Saul of Tarsus: “Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins” (Acts 22:16), and is echoed in the Nicene Creed’s statement that “We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” “Do you not know,” Paul asks the Romans, “that as many of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” In the same way that Christ “died to sin,” so we who have been united to him participate in that death to all that once defined us.

In addition to giving us a new past, baptism gives us a new family in the present. As Peter’s words in v. 39 indicate, our earthly, familial ties are transcended—and in some cases trumped—by our baptismal union with “all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” Despite our modern and gnostic desire to maintain our personal relationship with Jesus apart from the awkward and inconvenient tie to the church (filled as it is with actual—and often annoying—people), the fact is that we can’t have the Head without the Body. Through baptism we are ushered into the middle of a tale quite long in the telling, a saga having been spun for thousands of years. This redemptive drama began with a married couple, then grew into a family of eight, then a tribe under the leadership of a chieftain, then twelve tribes that grew into a nation ruled by a king, until it eventually expanded into a truly worldwide and catholic Church with members from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation. Paul tells the Galatians that “As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus... are all one in Christ” (3:27, 28). And furthermore, whenever God’s people worship, we do so in the presence of this great “cloud of witnesses” together with whom we are summoned into God’s heavenly presence. Patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, bishops and fathers, sinners and saints—all of them gather with us as we, together with innumerable angels in festal array, get a glimpse (albeit brief) of the glorious banquet at which we will sit with the Mediator of the New Covenant whose bloods speaks a more comforting word than that of Abel (Heb. 12:1, 22-24).

Lastly, baptism bestows upon us a new future. “Be baptized,” Peter insists, “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (v. 38). The Spirit is always spoken of in the New Testament in terms that hearken us forward to the new age, the age to come that began to dawn on Easter Sunday and will be finally consummated when Jesus returns. “You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,” Paul writes to the Ephesians, “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (1:13-14). The Greek word that is translated “guarantee” (arrabōn, used in modern Greek for engagement ring) denotes a down payment toward something that will be fully acquired in the future. Through baptism God the Father marks us off as his own, bestowing upon us the Spirit of the age to come whose role is to bring the dynamic of the “not yet” to bear upon the “already.” David Dark writes:

Whether it’s trees clapping their hands, stars falling from the sky, bloody red moons, or crystal seas—it’s as if the new world on the way requires constant re-articulation to best bear witness of its freshness and new-every-morningness, perpetually straining forward to what lies ahead.[2]

One of the ways this “new world on the way” is “re-articulated” in the here and now is through the sacrament of baptism. Living the Christian life, therefore, is tantamount to living the baptized life, for this ancient ritual serves to pull the future into the present, effectively bringing the believer from eternity to here.

[1] William Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 5.
[2] David Dark, Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, The Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2002), 12-13.

Which Came Last, the Chicken or the Egg?

More from Pilgrim Theology....

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A second qualification that must be made before we admit to the charge of escapism concerns whether or not our “being too heavenly-minded makes us no earthly good.” If we spend all our time hoping for harps and halos, it is asked, when will we ever find the time to work toward earthly happiness and humanitarianism?

As Kreeft points out, the charge that heavenly-mindedness diminishes earthly goodness is not necessarily true (though in some cases it might be). Let us answer the question with a question: Who is more likely to quit smoking during pregnancy, the mother who plans for an abortion or the one who plans to give birth? The answer should be obvious. Roads that actually lead somewhere are usually better maintained than dead-end ones, and likewise, when our earthly sojourn is seen as just that—a sojourn on the way to our heavenly home—then it is reasonable to assume that this pilgrimage will be taken with great seriousness and care. If death is not the end of the road, but actually ushers us into the presence of the God who gave us life and demands an account of how we lived it, then is it not to be expected that the pilgrim with an eye on his destination will live more purposefully than will the tourist, the goal of whose trip is to get as much bang for his buck? [1]

In short, we must realize that if we long to live like the divine image-bearers that we are rather than like the animals that the Darwinists want us to be, then the first thing we must do is dwell less upon our past and more upon our future. The chicken is indeed produced by the egg, and, likewise, we are the product of our ancestry in some sense. But all of that pales to the deeper question of what the chicken is for. Sure, the “origin of the species” is important, but not nearly as important as its final destination.

[1] See http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/heaven.htm

Will the Real Escapist Please Stand Up?

I'm a bit uninspired of late, so until I think up something new to talk about (suggestions welcome), enjoy this excerpt from my book, Pilgrim Theology....

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“Ah,” says the skeptic, “isn’t all this talk of ‘heaven’ and ‘eternity’ just escapism, a desire for ‘pie in the sky when you die’?” It would be quite tempting (and truthful) to answer “yes” to this question. After all, the fact that heaven is ultimate while earth is only penultimate necessarily demands the conclusion that a willingness to settle for the latter is foolish at best, and masochistic at worst. Who wouldn’t hope to graduate from the temporal and attain the eternal, to “escape” the provisional and arrive at the permanent?

Still, the negative connotations inherent in the charge of escapism demand that we only admit to it if we are allowed to make some qualifications. First, heaven is to earth what the outside world is to the womb. If there is such a thing as birth, then it follows that the womb is only temporary. Likewise, if there is such a thing as the new birth, then earth must be temporary as well. Is it “escapist” for a fetus to want to emerge from the womb? As Peter Kreeft says, “‘There is a tunnel under this prison’ may be an escapist idea, but it may also be true.”[1] In other words, whether or not a hope is escapist is incidental to whether that hope is grounded in fact. If it is factual, then its being escapist is beside the point. Consider Kreeft’s parable:

There was a rumor among the caterpillars that they were destined to become butterflies. Some caterpillars believed it; others disbelieved; and still others doubted. Now what would be the reasonable attitude of each of the three groups of caterpillars toward this rumor? Which could reasonably call it escapist? Would not even the uncertain want to explore it further? For if it is true… it is not escapism. The charge of escapism therefore logically boils down to the charge of falsehood; only those who are certain the rumor is false can reasonably call it escapist. Otherworldliness is escapism only if there is no other world. If there is, it is worldliness that is escapism.[2]

We mustn’t miss Kreeft’s point here. The label “escapist” really only applies to the desire for heaven when the one applying it is certain that heaven does not exist. But once we recognize that such certainty is impossible, then the charge becomes mere wishful thinking. And if the unbeliever is merely skeptical about heaven’s existence rather than certain of its non-existence, then is it not he, rather than the believer, who is the real escapist? After all, sometimes heaven is that which we desire to escape from rather than to. Avoiding God is easier than embracing him. Before the prodigal can come home, he first must run away.

[1] Peter Kreeft, Heaven: The Heart’s Greatest Longing (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989) 164, emphasis added.
[2] Ibid., 168.

You Want Bread and Wine With That Eschatology?

In chapter 2 of his Recovering the Reformed Confession, R. Scott Clark sets his sights on what he call the “Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty” (hereafter QIRC). Clark writes:

QIRC is the pursuit to know God in ways he has not revealed himself and to achieve epistemic and moral certainty on questions where such certainty is neither possible nor desirable.

Clark lists three examples of the QIRC that rear their heads in Reformed churches today: six-day, 24-hour creationism, theonomy, and covenant moralism as exemplified in movements such as the Federal Vision. In each of these cases there is an epistemological tension—whether between Scripture and science, the civil and the spiritual, or justification and sanctification—that the Reformed believer simply cannot endure. Hence his quest.

Instead of turning to the Reformed confession, however, many Reformed folk have turned to a kind of rationalism in an attempt to find certainty by elevating a particular interpretation, application, or use of Scripture above the Reformed faith itself. These folk then use their interpretation of Scripture as a mark of orthodoxy and/or sort of prophylaxis against enemies foreign and domestic, real and perceived.

For my own part, I can’t help but wonder why anyone who can’t abide a little tension now and then would ever bother to become Reformed. It is rather ironic that we are often chided by our evangelical friends for wanting our theology airtight and pristine, only to be yelled at ten minutes later for our unwillingness to open the Bible and declare with certainty how long it took God to make the earth or whether Jesus hates Barack Obama as much as James Dobson does.

The Reformed often receive the same tsk tsk-ing from our Catholic friends. Our ecclesiology is anything but tidy (heck, half the time we wouldn’t even have one if there weren’t an evil and corrupt Roman edifice to throw eggs at). But notwithstanding the Reformed refusal to make epistemological certitude the summum bonum of our existence, let it never be said that we walk by sight or lose too much sleep over not knowing everything.

All that thinking gives us a headache anyway, so just let us enjoy our eschatology semi-realized with an appetizer of bread and wine to tide us over until the real meal arrives.

All We Need is Just a Little Patience

As the previous thread of comments aptly demonstrates, Reformed theology is all about faith now and sight later (or to employ Luther’s famous distinction, our present theology is one “of the cross,” while a “theology of glory” is relegated to the future).

Michael Horton applies this eschatological tension between the already and the not yet to ecclesiology, and to the church’s unity and catholicity in particular. “No ecclesiology is adequate,” he writes in People and Place, “that fails to acknowledge the mystery and reality of ongoing sin in the believer and also in the church.”

… our confession of “one holy catholic and apostolic church” remains significantly an article of faith that, like our justification, is not always experienced. [Quoting Oswald Bayer]: “Our age is not short on experiences, but on faith. But only faith creates a genuine experience of the church.”

The church, like the individual, is simultaneously justified and sinful and constantly stands in need of being constituted the people of God by means of covenant renewal. Thus “the visible church is always put in the position of having to receive its identity from outside of itself.”

… the church as it is in this age already participates in the eschatological kingdom. Despite the church’s compromised, ambiguous, schismatic, and sinful character, the covenant of redemption ensures that our unfaithfulness will not have the last word…. In the resurrection of the dead, the so-called invisible church—the communion known only to God—will become fully visible. The totus Christus is affirmed, therefore, but in covenantal rather than Platonic terms. Its frame of reference is treaties of peace rather than ladders of being.

The real question for the Reformed believer (and the amillennialist in particular) is how much we are willing to presently forego. Can we patiently endure the seemingly inglorious and ignoble failure of the church to look to our eyes the way Jesus says she looks to his? Can we walk by faith instead of by sight?

Semi-Eschatological Porter

In his chapter on apostolicity in People and Place, Michael S. Horton argues that the church's mission is defined by its marks. Concerning the former, Horton echoes the Reformed confessions in stating that the mission of the church can be essentially likened to a porter's opening and shutting doors. The doors in question are those of God's kingdom, and the means of their opening and shutting are the preaching of the Word of God, the administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of church discipline.

"The triumphant indicative ('all authority in heaven and earth is given to me') is the basis for the imperative ('go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing... and teaching,' Matt. 28:18-20)."

The way church discipline is exercised is by means of the keys of the kingdom being entrusted to its ordained officers. By commissioning his disciples with this authority, Horton argues, Jesus "explicitly announced a union of the sign (ministerial binding and loosing 'on earth') and the thing signified (magisterial binding and loosing 'in heaven')." This means that though churchly authority is ministerial and not magisterial, it is more than mere witness.

Now the question could arise about how, given the fractured nature of Protestantism, a particular church's binding and loosing can be taken seriously. I mean, with no visible church but only visible churches, who's to say whose earthly binding and loosing is in fact reflective of the heavenly reality?

Horton answers this question with an appeal to eschatology, one which I find quite interesting. After speaking of the "binding and loosing" nature of all preaching, absolution, baptism, and Communion, he writes:

"On all of these occasions, the age to come is breaking into this present age: both the last judgment and the final vindication of God's elect occur in a semirealized manner, ministerially rather than magisterially. The church's acts are not final--they do not coincide univocally with the eschatological realities, but they are signs and seals. Christ's performative speech is mediated through appointed officers."

Some questions to further discussion: (1) Does Rome's magisterial view of ecclesiastical authority betray an overrealized and romanticized eschatology? (2) Can Protestantism's insistence that there is no necessary coincidence between earthly and heavenly binding and loosing bear the weight of the Scriptural evidence, e.g. Matt. 16:19? and (3) By their respective self-authenticating definitions of the church as either the assembly that gathers around the bishop (Catholicism) or the assembly that gathers around the Word and sacraments (Protestantism), has either side effectively rigged the game?

On False Gods, False Devils, and the Fear of Two-Timing Jesus

No one appreciates a two-timer, least of all God. I mean, if all those passages about idolatry and spiritual harlotry are any indication, Yahweh does not appreciate being cheated on.

Now when it comes to the Christian’s relationship to culture, it would seem that many feel the typical guilt occasioned by a love triangle of sorts in which God is sometimes snubbed so we can read War and Peace, see a rock show, or engage in political debate. In a word, cultural material is often looked upon by the believer as the kind of stuff you hide under your mattress and pray no one finds.

Enter two-kingdoms theology. One of the greatest strengths of this model is that it protects earth from being either demonized by the fundamentalist or divinized by the liberal. The civil kingdom can be seen by two-kingdoms proponents as a perfectly legitimate occasion for rejoicing, frustration, prayer, marching, or protest, all the while refusing to force earth to bear the burden of becoming anything other than it is.

If man’s fall taught us anything, it is that the cultural work of the sons of Adam, while still worthwhile, can never issue forth in eternal, heavenly blessing. That gig is up, and we lost. Now, the best we can expect of our carnal weaponry such as wrenches, violins, and tennis rackets is that they help build a more just and pleasurable society for us to enjoy.

But at the end of the earthly day will come the great and terrible Day of the Lord, on which “the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” When “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,” there will be no rebuke for the church over the fact that Babylon is still there and hasn’t been transformed into Jerusalem. Rather, the civil kingdom will simply have served its purpose and will be destroyed as God’s people “come out from among her,” rejoicing over her destruction while the earthlings throw dust in the air and lament Babylon's fall.

So by all means, enjoy earth, lament earth, love earth, and hate it. But what we must not do is turn the civil kingdom into a false god on the one hand, or into a false devil on the other.

What Would Mary Magdalene Do?

"Ascension and Pentecost work together," writes Michael Horton, "to keep us attentive both to the differences and similarities between Christ and his church." He continues:

Apart from Pentecost, ecclesial performance of this script could only be on the order of imitatio Christi, a hopeless series of attempts to re-create the original work or translate it into a contemporary idiom. Holding on to a few scraps of "sayings" (always ethical), we might focus all of our energies on answering the question, "What would Jesus do?" but then we would have no connection to what Jesus has done, is doing, and will do for the ungodly.

I would concur with Horton that Pentecost ushered in a truly new era of redemptive history of which the previous generations of saints knew nothing other than by way of yet-unfulfilled promise (this is why Horton remarks that "the 'distance' between Peter-the-Disciple and Peter-the-Apostle is greater than that between Peter and us."). Because of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost,

... the church's performance here and now is not "based on a true story," but is part of it: a living liturgy of covenantal action and response. It originates in the heart of the Father, unfolds in the life of the Son, and is brought to fruition by the graciously disruptive power of the Spirit.

But none of this would be possible without the "real absence of Christ" occasioned by his bodily Ascension. If it is the immediate presence of Christ in the flesh that we desire, then we must await his bodily return in like manner as he left us. It is precisely because of Jesus' bodily absence that the church militant must be content not to be triumphant just yet. Instead, we know him not after the flesh like the disciples did, but by the Spirit, who makes Christ more present to us than he was even to those whose hands handled him. "It is the Spirit who causes us to recognize the Jesus of history as the Christ of faith (II Cor. 5:16-17)."

This Spirit bridges the eschatological distance between the already-consummated Jesus history (the age to come) and our existence in the last days of this present age. Nevertheless, the church is part of that story always at a different place than its lead character. He is ahead of us, in the last act, yet is keeping our history moving toward him by his intercession and work of his Spirit.

Though Horton does not make this connection, one may legitimately wonder if the evangelical-slash-emergent fixation upon the earthly Jesus, and concomitant discomfort with Christ's real absence, is a subtle form of the Maglanenean grip that hopes to prevent the Ascension altogether?

Coping with the Real Absence of Christ

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the more headway I make into Michael Horton's People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, the more I hope to blog about it. It's dense and only readable in bite-size chunks, so my posts on it will be somewhat scattered.

Horton's argument in Chapter One ("Real Absence, Real Presence") is that the church's tendency to treat Jesus' bodily ascension merely as an exclamation point tagged on to the resurrection results in a discomfort with what he calls "the real absence of Christ." The way many evangelical churches cope with Jesus' absence is by attempting to be "incarnational" while forgetting, apparently, that the incarnation already happened. Ironically, Horton argues, the Catholic Church fails to reckon with Christ's absence as well with an "incarnationalism" of its own, only not missional but Eucharistic, with a parousia of a sacramental rather than historical variety.

"The space between the ascended Christ and his ecclesial body," Horton says, "was increasingly filled by ecclesiastical accessories." He quotes Farrow's Ascension and Ecclesia: "Indeed, [the miracle of transubstantiation] meant that the church now controlled the parousia. At the ringing of a bell the Christus absens became the Christus praesens." Not only is this "ecclesial substitution" occasioned by the bodily absence of Christ, but, Horton argues quoting Farrow, "Western ecclesiology requires a completely absent Christ if it is to provide instead that miraculous eucharistic one who will underwrite the programme of the church."

It was Calvin, following Irenaeus, who directed our attention to the eschatological and economical, forcing us to deal with the problem of Christ's absence. Rather than moving from Eucharist to ascension, Calvin moved in the opposite direction, seeking a Pneumatological rather than ecclesial solution. Horton writes:

When we refuse to collapse the resurrection, ascension, and Parousia into one event, a pneumatological space appears for the time between the times. The Spirit is the mediator of, not the surrogate for, Christ's person and work.... The Spirit's work both measures and mediates the eschatological difference between the head and his members.

Contrariwise, an "overrealized eschatology of the Eucharist... actually undermines the eschatological tension that this event highlights rather than resolves." He continues:

When the Spirit is appealed to as merely the solution to the problem of Christ's absence, and not also as the one whose very presence constantly provokes our sense of the "more" of the Parousia, we are no longer speaking of the Spirit's mediation so much as the Spirit's replacement of Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit, Horton insists, should not be treated as a substitute for the absent Christ but as the one who negotiates the eschatological tension between this passing age and the one to come. The ironic result, therefore, is that a supposedly anti-Gnostic focus upon the incarnation may in fact be a refusal to deal with Christ's real absence and instead seek for a false presence. Such replacement, Horton insists, is an idolatrous substitution of a golden calf on the part of those who are bored waiting for Moses to come down the mountain and lead them to the promised land.

Oh, and it's also rather Gnostic....

Does the Church Have a Messianic Complex?

In his article entitled "Transforming Culture with a Messiah Complex," Michael Horton argues that an overemphasis on Christ's incarnation, coupled with an underemphasis on his ascension, causes the church much confusion with respect to her mission in this world. Because the ascension resulted in what Horton calls "the real absence of Christ," many in our day have attempted to fill that void by an "incarnational" approach to ministry that forgets, apparently, that the incarnation already happened.

In fact, "incarnational" is becoming a dominant adjective in evangelical circles, often depriving Christ’s person and work of its specificity and uniqueness. Christ’s person and work easily becomes a "model" or "vision" for ecclesial action (imitatio Christi), rather than a completed event to which the church offers its witness. We increasingly hear about "incarn-ational ministry," as if Christ's unique personal history could be repeated or imitated. The church, whether conceived in "high church" or "low church" terms, rushes in to fill the void, as the substitute for its ascended Lord.

Perhaps it's because we're fidgety or antsy, but it certainly seems to be the case that the American church is way more confortable when it is busy doing stuff. In the same way that the attention span of a high-schooler is such that she cannot sit still for three minutes without whipping out her cell to text a friend, so the church cringes when made to "stay put" (to use Horton's phrase) and think upon Christ's present ansence and future return.

It is this recurring temptation to look away from Christ’s absence—toward a false presence, often substituting itself as an extension of Christ’s incarnation and reconciling work—that distracts it from directing the world’s attention to Christ’s parousia in the future. Yet a church that does not acknowledge Christ’s absence is no longer focused on Christ; instead, it’s tempted to idolatrous substitutions in the attempt to seize Canaan prematurely.

As Horton points out, this is all just deja vu all over again:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him" (Ex 32:1).

Could it be that ignoring the ascension results in our also ignoring that which the ascension made possible, namely Pentecost? Does our clinging to the flesh of Christ betray a kind of Magdalenean discomfort with Jesus' presence through his Spirit in Word and sacrament?

In short, is our preference of the second Person of the Godhead over the third a bizarre kind of eschatology that is over- and under-realized at the same time?

The Real Absence of Christ

Michael Horton begins People and Place, the fourth and final volume of his project to integrate systematic and biblical theology around the locus of covenant, with a description of what he calls the "eucharistic tension" that results from Christ's real absence and real presence.

The key, Horton argues, is a proper doctrine of the ascension. If, as the angel insisted, Jesus will descend from heaven in like manner as he ascended to heaven, then our view of the age to come is bound up in our understanding of what happened 40 days after Easter Sunday.

"One problem in the history of interpretation," Horton argues, "has been to treat the ascension as little more than a dazzling exclammation point for the resurrection rather than as a new event iin its own right." When we do this, Horton argues (citing Maddox), "resurrection comes to mean 'going to heaven,' which in some theologies makes it rather hard to distinguish from dying!" But when we realize that there is a direct correlation between Jesus' going and coming, we will avoid any Gnostic ideas about what the age to come will be like.

"Thus the 'earthiness' of the redeemed creation in the consummation depends entirely on whether the ascension was a historical, bodily, and pneumatologically constituted event. If Jesus is the firstfruits, a docetic ascension requires a docetic consummation."

Horton concludes by saying that the church emerges in the context of Jesus' absence after his ascension. Still, our Lord is not fully absent, nor is he fully present with us. This in-between time that obtains in this present age is defined by the eucharistic tension between this age and the age to come.

It seems to me that evangelicalism's lack of appreciation for the church stems from a faulty notion of the presence of Christ, and correspondingly, a failure to truly recognize his absence. Simply put, Jesus isn't here anymore, at least not in the way he once was. The fact of the matter is, the way we know him is through his church, the way we hear him is through his preached Word, and the way we "taste and see that the Lord is good" is by receiving the bread and cup of Communion.

If this won't cut it, then maybe you're more of a Gnostic than you care to admit....

Which Came Last, the Chicken or the Egg?

Since the dawn of Puritanism (at least) we have heard that in order to prescribe a cure for man's spiritual ills, you must first diagnose his disease.

Rubbish, says G.K. Chesterton.

In his little book What's Wrong with the World, Chesterton decries what he calls the "medical mistake":

"The first great blunder of sociology... is stating the disease before we find the cure. But it is the whole definition and dignity of man that in social matters we must actually find the cure before we find the disease."

Though Chesterton was a contemporary of Geerhardus Vos, the former spent his life in England and, as a Roman Catholic, was probably unfamiliar with the Princeton divine. Nevertheless they both seemed to agree on at least one thing: Man can only be understood if we contemplate his telos or end.

Chesterton uses the famous "Chicken or Egg" quandary to illustrate his point. He says that the real question is not which came first, but which comes last. One is a means, he argues, and the other is an end.

"Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist."

The fixation upon eggs rather than chickens (or upon present conditions rather than the divine object), Chesterton concludes, is as morbid and poisonous as insisting on asking what is wrong while forgetting to ask what is right.

Returning to Vos, we may safely conclude, therefore, that though all divine image-bearers share in the collective ache of Romans 8:22-23, for the believer life is a pilgrimage with a destination, while for the unbeliever it feels more like a hamster-wheel.

Hence his burden, hence his frustration... and hence his art.

Do Pagans Make the Best Vosians?

I just preached from Romans 8:18-25 where Paul gives, in the words of John Murray, his commentary on Genesis 3:17-18. The creation has fallen under curse and, therefore, groans under the weight of its bondage to decay, longing for the liberty that will accompany the glorification of the seed of the woman.

Yes, this relates to the way the believer should think about popular culture.

If the sub-human created order can recognize that something is amiss, then, to argue from the lesser to the greater, it would follow that the same insight can be found among non-believing humans as well. After all, if Ecclesiastes is an account of life "under the sun," then all who behold this age from that vantage point can reasonably conclude that it is but an unmerry merry-go-round, a wild goose chase without the wild goose.

What is pagan art if not a commentary on Ecclesiastes? What is Edvard Munch's The Scream, or The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," or the Wachowskis' Matrix trilogy if not a commentary on the inexplicable longing on the part of the human soul for something it has never seen but knows is out there?

Paul's point in the passage cited is that the cosmos groans, but "we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit" ache with an even greater frustration. Or at least we should. But if the unbelieving world displays, through its art and other media, an even greater frustration with earth than many believers exhibit, what does that say about where our true devotion lies?

This is why eschatology is so crucial. If Vos's dictum that "eschatology precedes soteriology" is true, then this means that this groaning for glory is part and parcel not of redemption, but of the created order itself. Simply put, you're supposed to feel like a fish out of water (or to correct the simile a bit, you're supposed to feel like a fish in water who longs to be free from it and to enter a new element that it knows, somehow and for some reason, is better).

Could it be that when Christians place their hopes in a transformed culture or a nation recaptured for Christ while their pagan neighbors listen to Bright Eyes while longing for escape, that the latter, rather than the former, are doing a better job at being divine image-bearers?

On Babylon, Beasts, and White Picket Fences

I just preached from Revelation 13, where we are introduced to the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth (sometimes called "the antichrist" and the "false prophet" respectively). When we discover these beasts' project, we see that their aim is to combine military might and lofty religious rhetoric in order to bring about conformity to their sinister agenda of destroying the church by means of lies and deceit.

I can't help but wonder if, in our little parcel of earth, we haven't to some degree bought in to the lie that there's a protective force field around our nation that precludes our complicity in an agenda that is anything but godly and divinely-favored.

I recently heard a well-known Christian talk-show host (yes, he is Reformed) attempting to explain the difference between providence and redemption. He said, "You see, just because America has been the source of tremendous good in the world doesn't mean we hold a 'Most Favored Nation' status in God's redemptive plan. God uses us to providentially bless the world, but not to redeem it."

Indeed, for we wouldn't want to think too highly of ourselves, now would we?

As I heard that, I couldn't help but wonder if we see our heavenly citizenship as profound enough to help us handle the fact that our little corner of the kingdom of man is itself a suburb of Babylon, and no imagined myth of nobility or manifest destiny can change the earthly, fallen, and selfish motives that drive us "further up, and further in" to this Dream which we have been told we are blessed to enjoy.

Last time I checked, a dragon-empowered beast with ten horns, seven heads, and the authority to make war upon and conquer God's people is not likely to be stopped by stars, stripes, and white picket fences.

Who Tramples Whom Underfoot?

I recently preached from Revelation 11, and as is the case all over that prophecy, this chapter offered a powerfully vivid metaphor to describe the church:

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, "Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months" (vv. 1-2).

Some points of note: (1) The command to "measure the temple" involves measuring people, meaning the temple is not a literal structure; (2) The outer court is to be left unmeasured, and therefore unprotected; (3) The unprotected outer court is called "the holy city," a designation that elsewhere in Revelation refers to the Lamb's wife, the New Jerusalem (21:2; 22:19).

So according to this picture, the church is portrayed as partly measured and invincible, and partly unmeasured and vulnerable. As with the two witnesses in this chapter, who are hated by all and yet protected by God until their mission is complete, at which time their martyred bodies are raised and ascend to heaven, so the church is illustrated in an ironic and paradoxical fashion in order to demonstrate the bittersweetness of her earthly existence.

Now in continuing our Babylonian theme of late, I find it interesting that the divine description of the church, in the thinking of many sincere believers today, fits better when applied to the good ol' U.S. of A.

Our God-fearing nation, we are assured, is hated by infidels, A-rabs, the French, and other unsavory types because our light on the hill is shining brightly upon their culturally backward societies, exposing their lack of megachurches and WalMarts (which are one and the same, really).

Well, I would humbly suggest that "the Gentiles" who "trample the holy city" are not Muslims who fly planes into our skyscrapers, but the very aspects of our society (yes, ours) that turn our churches into strip malls, our worshipers into consumers, and our God into a commodity beholden to the ebb and flow of the Market.

Amillennialism's Pitfalls?

This evening we took a break from our study of Revelation and I gave the first of two lectures on "Amillennialism and the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms." One of the questions that was asked took me a bit off guard, and I'd like to out it out there for your consideration and input.

If pre- and postmillennial theology have their own problems, what about amillennialism? What are its possible pitfalls?

My answer was that a strong amillennial view of life in this age as consisting of suffering now and glory later (which I regard as the amill position in a nutshell) can potentially lead to individual apathy if it is not coupled with a healthy and robust appreciation of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the New Covenant saint.

The problem with transformationism, as I see it, is its insistance that the individual, redemptive transformation experienced by the believer by virtue of the indwelling Spirit of the age to come must be replicated outside the believer, in the culture. I would argue, on the other hand, that while the believer presently experiences elements of both already and not yet, the cosmos still must wait patiently for the full manifestation of the children of God and the redemption that will follow.

In short, when we allow the un-realized nature of cosmic eschatology to swallow the semi-realized nature of personal eschatology, we inevitably end up with an under-realized and anemic doctrine of sanctification.

Thoughts?

On Overlap and Eschatology

I mentioned earlier this month that on one level it is impossible for anyone to hermetically seal off her theology from her views on matters civil and earthly. This is not due, however, to the line separating the kingdoms being blurred or erased, but to the fact that the believer herself straddles that line.

The overlap, then, exists not within the earthly and heavenly kingdoms themselves, but within us as we attempt to navigate them in this age.

For my own part, the overlap is probably most evident in my thoughts being drawn to the identity of the underdog, the powerless, and the oppressed. I recently re-read the words of black writer Langston Hughes in his 1930s poem "Lenox Avenue Mural":

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet?

Or maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

There seems (to me at least) to be an affinity between the status of the civil and spiritual underdog. I'm not saying that to be powerless in one sphere is to be the same in the other (the two kingdoms remain distinct), but I am saying that it is not without significance that Jesus described the blessed man as the one who is spiritually poor, mournful, thirsty, and persecuted.

Since my theological convictions—particularly my amillennial eschatology, which I regard as simply code for "suffering now, glory later"—are such that I have come to consider the church's underdog status to be normative and even conducive to her health, it is only natural that my thoughts are also drawn to the powerless in the civil kingdom as well. In a word, I tend to side with the weaker of the two sides in most disputes.

And the flipside of this is that I can't help but wonder how those whose earthly affinities lie with the wealthy and powerful cannot necessarily be uncomfortable with a poor and powerless church?

Maybe others can be more "regally schizophrenic" than I can, but I would have a much easier time with the War on Terror if I were a postmillennialist.

Egypt's Unworthiness, Part VII

This is the last segment of Egypt's Unworthiness, enjoy....

“Eschatology Precedes Soteriology”

Princeton theologian Geerhardus Vos famously stated that “eschatology precedes soteriology.” What he meant by this was that man’s desire for eternal life was resident within him even before his need to be saved from his sin. The implications of this insight are legion, but what is especially germane to our discussion is how this relates to the idea, so common in the context of modern evangelism, that before a person can be expected to repent and trust in Christ he must be convinced of his dissatisfaction with life as he presently knows it.

Many of us have encountered what I refer to as the “Jesus Is Better Than Drugs” method of evangelism. Aside from the fact that, if what is being compared here is the feeling one derives from Jesus on the one hand and drugs on the other, this statement is probably false, this approach also fails the test of eschatology. If Vos is correct, then the need that we often feel to invalidate all earthly pleasure in order to make Jesus appear the most pleasing option is wrongheaded to begin with.

All people—even the ones with nice houses and expensive cars—are equally plagued with a longing to escape the fleeting and temporal confines of this age. This is not due to their worldly happiness being a farce, which allows us to concede the point rather than secretly wishing we could slash their tires in order to prepare them to hear about “the happiness that only Jesus can give.” Rather, the angst that all people inwardly experience is due to their being created for eternity and hardwired for frustration with anything less. In fact, the apostle Paul even extends this sense of longing past the human heart into the very universe itself.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Rom. 8:20-22).

Our two malcontents, therefore, were not alone in their shared sense of burden. Even with the pleasures of the world’s most powerful kingdom at their beck and call, Joseph and Moses had a faith that penetrated the here and now and glimpsed the One who has entered the age to come as a “forerunner” for all who take up crosses and follow (Heb. 6:20). What the cosmos knows, and what the saints of Hebrews 11 understood, is precisely what many believers in our own day forget: It is the height of vanity to identify our lasting treasure with the stuff of earth. Our heavenly pedigree is set aside when we, like “that profane man Esau” (Heb. 12:16), forfeit our noble birthright because we are charmed by the trifles of time.

Egypt's Unworthiness, Part VI

Egypt’s True Alternative

Returning to Joseph’s and Moses’ refusal to identify their true treasure with the wealth of Egypt, we must ask ourselves what the alternative was. At first glance, of course, it looks like these men forfeited Egypt for Canaan, the “land flowing with milk and honey.” But Egypt’s boast of being the greatest kingdom in the ancient world would have been pretty empty if “milk and honey” were not among its bounty of delicacies. Moses would not have abandoned his royal status in Egypt in order to traverse a harsh wilderness to a land that promised nothing beyond what was already at his disposal, would he?

No, Moses was more than a national reformer and patriot, and his hope lay not a piece of real estate, no matter how lush and well-watered. Like the patriarchs before him, Moses “looked to the reward,” to “a homeland,” a “heavenly country” whose surpassing splendor made the pomp and pleasure of the kingdoms of this fleeting age appear as mere trifles in comparison (Heb. 11:26, 14, 16). Paul wrote to the Corinthians that those whose hope is in this life only “are of all people most to be pitied” (I Cor. 15:19). Moses was a lot of things, but pitiful was not one of them.

This is the point of Hebrews 11—a point often missed by much of what passes as “evangelism” in the contemporary church. For example, we often hear that if we give our hearts to Jesus we will experience love, joy, peace, and immediate fulfillment. The harsh reality, however, is that the Bible makes no such promise. In fact, evangelist and author Ray Comfort has often quipped that Christianity promises four things: trial, tribulation, persecution, and everlasting life. Moses did not give up earthly misery for earthly joy, he gave up earthly joy for earthly misery. Why would he do this? Because his faith provided him with “an assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1). In other words, the only reason anyone would trade present comfort for present pain is because both of these are just that—present and passing, and will soon give way to a joy that is eternal, and that transcends the successes or failures of this age.

While it is true that the earthly lot of many believers does not necessarily improve the moment they look to Jesus, this is not the point. In verses 33-38 of Hebrews 11 we read:

[These saints] through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

Notice how the writer moves seamlessly from his description of those whose faith resulted in their conquering kingdoms and stopping the mouths of lions to those whose faith resulted in their being imprisoned or sawn in two. The point of presenting so stark a contrast with such seeming indifference is stated smack dab in the middle of this section—neither the triumphs associated with the victorious saints of verses 33-35, nor the defeats of those described in verses 36-39, are “worthy” of drawing their subjects’ attention away from the enduring blessing that comes from “receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (12:28).

Egypt's Unworthiness, Part V

The Pointlessness of Piety

The Preacher’s sphere of reference—life “under the sun”—does not even offer meaning in spirituality, religion, or the search for God. Paul told the Romans that the study of nature (all things under the sun) is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient deity, but his conclusion is far from comforting. There is an almost palpable lack of joy in the closing words of Ecclesiastes:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil (12:13-14).

Though the Enlightenment promised us a god we could discover through unaided reason, the deity we found was anything but a comfort to those wrestling with the vanity of their own existence. This deus nudus – or “naked god” – as he has been called, seems more like an it than a who, a piece of celestial machinery that allows 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Malcolm in the Middle, and countless other atrocities. Though the god we uncover by the efforts of our own rational deduction may inspire awe or fear, he certainly doesn’t make a very good case for why we should love or trust him. This God, the apostle explained to the Romans, does not save anyone, for the Book of Nature reveals a naked God of law, of justice, and of seeming indifference to human pain (1:18ff).

The existence of an x, a First Cause, or an Unmoved Mover who is more like “the Force” than like a Father may cause men and women to begrudgingly assent to his existence with their heads, but they will never trust him with their hearts. This generic deity does not invite trust in the truth but suppression of it, for the observation of brute facts and the “invisible hand” of Providence indicates that he cares no more for the good guys than for the bad or the ugly. Kreeft points out that “innocent little bunny rabbits and human babies do not fare well against predatory coyotes or leukemia…. The good die young, and the better you are, the more likely it is that you will be martyred.” It is for this reason that Solomon offered this advice:

Do not be overly righteous, nor be overly wise: Why should you destroy yourself? Do not be overly wicked, nor be foolish: Why should you die before your time? (Ecc. 7:16-17).

Nature’s God appears as an absentee landlord, an insignificant Other who may be there, but who is certainly not here. A god who, like “the Truth” in The X-Files, is “out there” is far from being “a present help in time of trouble” (Psa. 46:1). And even if he is out there, he appears to be too indifferent to listen, too holy to help, too transcendent to touch, and too vengeful to invoke. This also is vanity.

The “time-ishness” of time, therefore, serves to rob even the most noble of earth’s pursuits of any ultimate value, for the bigger the barns we build to store our bounty, or the more abundant our moral bank account appears, the more damning will be the “Thou fool!” that we will hear from God’s lips on that final Day (Luke 12:16-21; Matt. 7:21-23).