Of Babylon
This post is long. The first two-thirds are more of the theological backing for the last little bit. If that doesn't really interest you, or if you don't have the time, you can skip straight to ----THE POINT--- and still get enough for some contemplation, discussion, and argument (all of which are highly encouraged) Now...
There are two points that I must clarify, to the best of my ability, before diving into the first phase of my deconstruction of the prevalent political polemic (forgive the shameless alliteration) of our day. They are as follows:
1) I am decidedly NOT dispensational. That is to say, I believe that God has interacted, interacts, and will continue to interact with his people under the same covenant. This covenant is mediated throughout three different epochs, namely, creation (or commission), fall, and redemption. While there may be slight differences in appearance, that means that God related to Israel and the Church in much the same way. That is an admittedly overly simplistic explanation, but I'll come back to it later.
2) I believe that in order to truly understand Christianity and what it is to live as a Christ-follower, you must have a proper understanding of the Exile. (Not to say that my understanding of either is perfect) This is directly related to the first point, but still distinctive enough within itself to be mentioned.
When the Israelites returned from exile, they returned to a Kingdom that was barely a shadow the one they left. Those who survived the exile and were back in the province were in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem was broken down, and its gates burned with fire. (Nehemiah 1:3) Moreover, they were living in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem had become merely a province of another kingdom, whether it be Persia, Babylon, or Rome. He we are presented with the first motif of the redemptive epoch of the covenant. (For those of you who are familiar with the already, but not yet... the already) We have God's people returned from exile, but to a Kingdom that is not yet fully restored. This motif is picked up with the arrival of Jesus and the announcement of the nearness of the Kingdom. In Jesus, we see the theological and, for our purposes, more importantly ecclesiological importance and relevance of the exile and return therefrom.
Hebrews tells us that the priestly system of the Old Testament was insufficient and in its insufficiency pointed to Jesus. Not merely that, by pointing to Christ as the ultimate, it immediately declared itself penultimate and therefore, essentially obsolete. Historical Israel, the physical people of God, enter into a similar category. Physical Israel, as a people and a kingdom, pointed to the ultimate Kingdom and people, namely the catholic, apostolic Church. (note: this is where most classical dispensationalists will disagree. I believe that in the same manner that pointing to Jesus as ultimate made the priestly system of the OT penultimate, the pointing to spiritual Israel as ultimate made--makes--physical Israel penultimate. It's probably easier just to say that Israel, spiritual Israel, has always and will always only be the faithful covenant community. There is only one tree... see Romans 8-11) All this to say that we now, through Christ, identify ourselves with Israel. We are grafted onto the tree; naturalized into the Kingdom of God.
Now up until now, most would agree with the concept of Israel as pointing to the Church and the priestly system and pointing to Christ. There is, however, a third major thread prevalent through Scripture. Since the fall, God's people have found themselves exiled in a foreign land. This is a major theme in the narrative of historical Israel. Time and time again, they find themselves in another kingdom. In Egypt, Babylon, and Rome (as well as a number of other kingdoms) they find themselves in the predicament of being a Kingdom, God's people, living in another kingdom. The third arrow is pointing to the other kingdom, the kingdom at enmity with God's kingdom. Sometimes they appear to be at war, other times they appear to coexist. Throughout the prophets, this other kingdom is know simply as Babylon. However, as we can see using the same system of ultimate-penultimate, Babylon is not merely physical, historical Babylon, but rather spiritual Babylon, the entire second Kingdom. This, I believe, is a fair assessment because we see John refer to the spiritual enemy of the Kingdom of God as Babylon. I don't want to get too much into Revelation but when John talks about Babylon he's referring to Rome and the entire kingdom against God. He's talking about the same "kings" who conspire to rise up against God in Psalms, the kings/kingdom of the world. We are Israel in Babylon, a Kingdom already, but a Kingdom not yet.
-------------------THE POINT-----------------
So, if Israel is the Church, who is Babylon? I think Paul makes this clear when he reminds us who our battle is with. It's not with flesh and blood, he says, but with the powers of the earth, the principalities of darkness. It is a spiritual foe, but it controls the physical rulers, the kings of the earth. That means that believers in China are living in Babylon just as much as believers in Africa, or Europe, or the United States. Since, I assume, everyone who reads this is American, I will make this as specific as possible. We, as Christ-followers, find ourselves citizens of the Kingdom living in Babylon, America. America is under the control of the enemy. It was never and can never be a Christian nation. (if you live or move to another country, substitute America with that country's name) The secularization of any nation is simply the fleshing out of the greater spiritual reality; that all worldly kingdoms are under the control of spiritual Babylon. So then the greater question becomes how are we to act as citizens of the Kingdom of God living in Babylon. That is something we will continue to wrestle with and explore on this blog.
There are two points that I must clarify, to the best of my ability, before diving into the first phase of my deconstruction of the prevalent political polemic (forgive the shameless alliteration) of our day. They are as follows:
1) I am decidedly NOT dispensational. That is to say, I believe that God has interacted, interacts, and will continue to interact with his people under the same covenant. This covenant is mediated throughout three different epochs, namely, creation (or commission), fall, and redemption. While there may be slight differences in appearance, that means that God related to Israel and the Church in much the same way. That is an admittedly overly simplistic explanation, but I'll come back to it later.
2) I believe that in order to truly understand Christianity and what it is to live as a Christ-follower, you must have a proper understanding of the Exile. (Not to say that my understanding of either is perfect) This is directly related to the first point, but still distinctive enough within itself to be mentioned.
When the Israelites returned from exile, they returned to a Kingdom that was barely a shadow the one they left. Those who survived the exile and were back in the province were in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem was broken down, and its gates burned with fire. (Nehemiah 1:3) Moreover, they were living in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem had become merely a province of another kingdom, whether it be Persia, Babylon, or Rome. He we are presented with the first motif of the redemptive epoch of the covenant. (For those of you who are familiar with the already, but not yet... the already) We have God's people returned from exile, but to a Kingdom that is not yet fully restored. This motif is picked up with the arrival of Jesus and the announcement of the nearness of the Kingdom. In Jesus, we see the theological and, for our purposes, more importantly ecclesiological importance and relevance of the exile and return therefrom.
Hebrews tells us that the priestly system of the Old Testament was insufficient and in its insufficiency pointed to Jesus. Not merely that, by pointing to Christ as the ultimate, it immediately declared itself penultimate and therefore, essentially obsolete. Historical Israel, the physical people of God, enter into a similar category. Physical Israel, as a people and a kingdom, pointed to the ultimate Kingdom and people, namely the catholic, apostolic Church. (note: this is where most classical dispensationalists will disagree. I believe that in the same manner that pointing to Jesus as ultimate made the priestly system of the OT penultimate, the pointing to spiritual Israel as ultimate made--makes--physical Israel penultimate. It's probably easier just to say that Israel, spiritual Israel, has always and will always only be the faithful covenant community. There is only one tree... see Romans 8-11) All this to say that we now, through Christ, identify ourselves with Israel. We are grafted onto the tree; naturalized into the Kingdom of God.
Now up until now, most would agree with the concept of Israel as pointing to the Church and the priestly system and pointing to Christ. There is, however, a third major thread prevalent through Scripture. Since the fall, God's people have found themselves exiled in a foreign land. This is a major theme in the narrative of historical Israel. Time and time again, they find themselves in another kingdom. In Egypt, Babylon, and Rome (as well as a number of other kingdoms) they find themselves in the predicament of being a Kingdom, God's people, living in another kingdom. The third arrow is pointing to the other kingdom, the kingdom at enmity with God's kingdom. Sometimes they appear to be at war, other times they appear to coexist. Throughout the prophets, this other kingdom is know simply as Babylon. However, as we can see using the same system of ultimate-penultimate, Babylon is not merely physical, historical Babylon, but rather spiritual Babylon, the entire second Kingdom. This, I believe, is a fair assessment because we see John refer to the spiritual enemy of the Kingdom of God as Babylon. I don't want to get too much into Revelation but when John talks about Babylon he's referring to Rome and the entire kingdom against God. He's talking about the same "kings" who conspire to rise up against God in Psalms, the kings/kingdom of the world. We are Israel in Babylon, a Kingdom already, but a Kingdom not yet.
-------------------THE POINT-----------------
So, if Israel is the Church, who is Babylon? I think Paul makes this clear when he reminds us who our battle is with. It's not with flesh and blood, he says, but with the powers of the earth, the principalities of darkness. It is a spiritual foe, but it controls the physical rulers, the kings of the earth. That means that believers in China are living in Babylon just as much as believers in Africa, or Europe, or the United States. Since, I assume, everyone who reads this is American, I will make this as specific as possible. We, as Christ-followers, find ourselves citizens of the Kingdom living in Babylon, America. America is under the control of the enemy. It was never and can never be a Christian nation. (if you live or move to another country, substitute America with that country's name) The secularization of any nation is simply the fleshing out of the greater spiritual reality; that all worldly kingdoms are under the control of spiritual Babylon. So then the greater question becomes how are we to act as citizens of the Kingdom of God living in Babylon. That is something we will continue to wrestle with and explore on this blog.
Labels: Babylon, Biblical Theology, Kingdom of God, Politic, Typology
posted by Shaun Cross at 11:11
4 Comments:
"That means that believers in China are living in Babylon just as much as believers in Africa, or Europe, or the United States."
This says to me that the World is Babylon and makes me wonder why there was ever a distinction between the two.
The distinction should never have been made. But there has, for sometime now, in mainline Christian evangelicalism been the idea that America is a "Christian" nation or that a democratic-captialst state is more Christian than facist or communist one. The point I was hoping to make that all fall under the catergory of "Babylon" or the second kingdom. How that should then play out I hope to flesh out in later posts.
I'm glad you wrote about this, Shaun. In India, one of the things i constantly (to the point of madness) tried to explain was that America was NOT a "Christian" nation. This is especially hard for Muslim minds, who by default connect government inherently with religion: there should be no separation of church and state, and there isn't even any category for such an idea. Allah's kingdom is here and now and there and then.
Thus it was nearly impossible for me to get a fair hearing for the Good News when they simply thought that i was an ambassador of a physical Christian nation that was rich, immoral, and belligerent.
So i think a large part of the problem is just that within most cultures there is still no framework for truly distancing ourselves from the "Divine Right" mandate.
I would be interested in discussing what kind of political action we then ought to have at all. Should we vote? Should we protest? Should we lobby? Should we serve in the military? Should we work in government positions? Should we replace the ears we've removed with our swords?
i don't know, Shaun. i just don't know.
No to all but the last.
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