JAC Online

"...when an old world is redeemed"
by Captain Marcus Andersson

I love singing the low key version of “When The Saints Go Marching In”, by Bruce Springsteen. Yeah – OK – I am getting old.

But in that song, we meet the lyrics

“Some say this world of trouble
is the only one we’ll ever see.
But I’m waiting on that morning
when a new world is revealed.”

I love the imagery of the New World as much as the next guy. I love to preach and sing about how God will, eventually, put a final full stop in the story of this world, and His Kingdom will break in. A new reality so great, that our very language breaks when we try to describe it. (Don’t believe me? Check out Revelations chapter 21 and see what you can make of John’s language there…)

However, I wish we could sing “when an old world is redeemed”. Finally. When God’s kingdom is come on Earth. When His will actually will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. The answer to the prayer Jesus himself taught us how to pray.

This is a theology in stark contrast to the “we shall be raptured away, the left behind will perish” that have become too common in late modern western evangelical and charismatic Christianity. However, a theology of restoration and redemption is a theology that is supported by both Scripture and Tradition. Not least Salvation Army tradition.[1]


What does Hope look like?

The ultimate goal of Theology is to breathe Hope into the Church. The Gospel is Good News. Period. Full stop. Any distortion of that – any preaching of those good news, that leads to a knot in the stomach or a foul taste in the mouth to its hearers – is simply not Christian. And preaching about the Future, or even “The Last Things” (Eschatology), without a focus on our Hope in the ultimate Salvation, is simply not the Gospel truth.

A teaching such as “The world is getting darker and darker, until eventually when Jesus will rapture us away to heaven” is, simply, wrong.

Sure – it is dark around us. It would be foolish for anyone to deny that. Only in the last week’s news, we have heard terrible examples. (This particular week there was a terrorist attack in New Zealand, a new large outbreak of the measles in Europe, several news stories of large scale corruption and money laundering, vast numbers of young girls exploited sexually in a human trafficking case, and so on, and so on.)

But as Christians, we have an opportunity and a duty to teach about another reality, as well; The Creation groans for its liberation and completion. (Rom 8:22) God will restore His Creation into a state where all is good. All.

Our hope is not that Jesus will save us from this world, but that Jesus will return and save this whole world. From terrorism. From measles. From the effects of greed. From sexual exploitation.

The Biblical message of Hope is what Isaiah talks about, when he talks about how the nations “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks”.[2] It is how Jesus gives body to His faith in God. The best way we can understand the reign of God, His Kingdom, is by looking at Jesus’ life. And Jesus sure didn’t “rapture” anyone, to some magic place outside their world, in order to heal or bring deliverance, or forgiveness for their sins to them. Instead Jesus established the Kingdom in the midst of a hostile world.

He teaches His disciples to pray “Your Kingdom come”, not “let us leave this earth and go to you”.[3]

Hope as portrayed in Revelations, chapter 21, is a world of peace, of health, where no one will want, where evil will no longer be. Where every tear is wiped from our cheeks. Where we will live together with our Lord, forever without end. But it comes down from Heaven, onto the Earth. God will dwell among us, we will not be raptured away.

The dangers of thinking wrong about the future

Daniel Migliore writes, in his “Faith Seeking Understanding” [4]

contemporary neo-apocalypticism, as I will call it, marginalizes or ignores the saving activity of Christ and sometimes weds a gruesome portrayal of final cosmic warfare with terrorist political action. Dividing the world into the good and the evil, neo-apocalypticism demonizes all who are considered enemies, is absolutely convinced of the righteousness of its own cause, and in some cases calls for holy warfare

As salvationists (or Christians in general, really, but…), any theological movement or doctrine that moves our focus from the “saving activity of Christ”, must be deemed unbiblical. We are supposed to have exactly the saving work of Christ before our very eyes, the very lens through which we read the whole Bible. They don’t call us “salvationists” for nothing. We are not “God’s Army“ – we are The Salvation Army.

We believe that we are invited into this plan of God to save the whole world. In fact, more than that – we have responded to that invitation by entering into covenant with God to do that very thing. A faith that makes us sit and wait, idly, while the Darkness inevitably grows darker, until Christ brings us “home” to Heaven, is not ours. We are saved to save!

So the first danger of a doctrine of the Rapture, is inactivity. Pacifism in the war.

But the second, and even more destructive risk, is the possibility of getting the enemy wrong.

In the letter to the Ephesians, as a prelude to the instruction to put on the Armor of God, Paul writes[5]

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Not against flesh and blood. Not. Never.

You will never meet a person that God doesn’t love, or that God does not look upon with grace and mercy. God is not the enemy of anyone you meet. And neither are you. You are covenanted to fight for, not against, them. The enemies – the powers of this dark world – are not people, but the spiritual forces of greed, of lust, of status and so on. Forces that, indeed, rule our societies and nations.

Getting this wrong will not only result in pacifying us, it will instead be helping the enemy, in destroying, slaughter and stealing from people that God loves.

The third danger is the deterministic faith that this results in. The world is, according to this faith, on a more or less set time table. Not much can be done about it. Worse – any attempt to interfere with the events in this time table is an attack against God.

But this also means that Christians who think that they will be raptured, are not encouraged in any meaningful way to take responsibility for the future of God’s creation. In their mind, this is a disposable world, and God will save them from it, regardless. Any overconsumption of the world’s resources will be without consequence for them, they think.

This goes against our own soldierīs covenant, that vows us to a life of simplicity and in solidarity with the poor and marginalized.

No – this neo-apocalyptical view of the future must be abandoned and be put aside, for a hopeful eschatology, instead. A story about the Future, that does not miss the most important parts.

A future of “and”

When we tell our story of the future that awaits us, we have to use the word “and”. A lot.

We know what we hope for, because the Kingdom is both come, as demonstrated in the life of Christ and it will come, as an answer to our prayers. We have tasted it. God has poured His love into our hearts already and will restore our hearts to eternal love. God will save the world and He calls us to partake in that endeavour.

Our hope of a world redeemed must acknowledge that there will come a day, when God puts a final end to injustice, to unhealth, to death.

But our hope also calls us to be His hands in this world. A “body of Christ” to usher in His kingdom.

Put like that, the story of the future might even become an adventure story, that we get to act out. We get to be involved in the largest story ever – The World for Christ.

 



[1] Booth, William. (1890). ”The Millenium – or The Ultimate Triumph of Salvation Army Principles”. Downloaded March 18th, 2019, from http://www.armybarmy.com/JAC/article12-83.html

[2] Isa. 2:4

[3] Matt. 6:10

[4] Migliore, Daniel (2014 (1991, 2004)). Faith Seeking Understanding – an introduction to Christian theology, Third edition. Cambridge : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. p. 352

[5] Eph. 6:12

 

  

 

 

   

 

 

your shopping is guaranteed safe using SSL

eStore account - Sign Up Now! Contact Us - General. Technical Support. Sales Jesus is amazing!  If you see this image tag you should know that He is THE way... not a way!  Grace!
Home Terms of Use Privacy Policy Sitemap Contact Us
copyright ARMYBARMY
armybarmy