Where Do We Go From Here?

Thoughts on the Modern Fundamentalist Movement
I would like to say in preface to this article that it is based largely off my experience and observations with several different circles of Fundamentalism and in my research on the movement as a whole. 

I consider myself to be a Reforming Fundamentalist. By Reforming, I mean much more than those doctrines associated with the Protestant Reformation. For me, the idea of reforming is essentially a radical return to the Bible and using it practically as our final source for faith and practice. It is one matter to have the phrase “final source of faith and practice” in our creeds and quite another to experience it in our own lives. In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul assures his readers that he is quite convinced that they are elect, “chosen of God.” In what does he ground his assurance? In that the Word of God came not in word only, but in “power and in the Holy Spirit in full conviction.” He also states that the Thessalonians became “imitators of us and of the Lord.” If we are to have any hope of our faith being tested and proven to be true faith, we must look in part to the sanctifying work of the Word and Spirit in our lives.

            My observation has been that the Reformed Resurgence is affecting the Fundamentalist Movement in a perceivable way. Popular Reformed figures such as John Piper, John MacArthur, Mark Dever, R.C. Sproul, and Mark Driscoll are affecting the movement in a very noticeable way. In my experience, the influence of these and others are splitting the movement into mainly three groups. On the far right, you have the diehard conservatives. In their mind, orthodoxy is synonymous with what they have been taught. There are no gray areas or “nonessential doctrines.” Every doctrine- from the virgin birth to music preference to premillennial dispensationalism- is considered essential. To deny one is to give way to “liberalism” and puts one in danger of espousing heresy. The group resists the influence of popular evangelical and Reformed leaders out of a misplaced pursuit of doctrinal holiness and to walk to “narrow path” of sanctification. Popular non-Fundamentalist leaders are consistently misquoted, demonized, and caricatured to assure loyalty to the movement and prevent any sort of fellowship or association. Many would rather associate with an unbeliever than a Reformed Christian or pastor.

            A second group that has formed is one that I would call the rebel group. It is composed mainly of younger Fundamentalists that have grown tired of Fundamentalist inconsistencies and novelty doctrines and act largely in reaction to it. The biggest danger with this group is that it is by and large a reactionary movement and not necessarily a theological movement. In trying to distance themselves from the traditional Fundamentalist group, many lose the familiar pietistic flavor of Fundamentalism. Very often among these people, the major issues have nothing to do with theology, but much of the teaching and preaching have to do with justifying participation in vices and social taboos such as smoking, drinking, going to movies and the like. The mantra of this group is “freedom in Christ,” but very often it results in judgment and condemnation of even loving conservative people. If the first group is the older brother in Luke 15, this group could certainly be associated with the prodigal.

            A third group, and one with whom I hope to associate, is what I would term the Reforming branch, and which is perhaps the smallest. The Reforming branch is the theologically driven portion of the movement (whereas I would say the first is tradition-driven and the second is largely reactionary). This portion of the movement is driven by people who have truly Biblical concerns with the direction of the Fundamentalist movement and are trying to return to a functional reality of sola Scriptura in the local church. Many in this branch are rediscovering the precious truths of the Reformation and are finding great theological help from the Reformed Resurgence, even while rejecting certain aspects of practice. It is with this third group that I have my main concern and my brightest hopes for truly reforming Fundamentalism.

            Along with the hopeful signs from Fundamentalism, there are many dangers and pitfalls for those who would try to reform. The most obvious pitfall to me is the danger of it slowly degenerating into reactionary theology. Closely tied into that danger is that of intellectual snobbery. Fundamentalism has long been accused (and rightly so) of anti-intellectualism so as to create a stigma on the vast majority of Fundamentalist preachers and teacher. This makes it very easy to simply write off any Fundamentalists as intellectually crippled and disregard anything that they may have to say. If I may be allowed another observation, many of the most loving and godly men and women that I have known have been conservative Fundamentalists Christians. Although I believe some of them may be wrong in certain areas of Biblical teaching, God does not promise to sanctify us based solely on our theological knowledge. That is the strange and wonderful thing about grace. Especially among young Fundamentalists who claim to hold to the doctrines of grace, my prayer is that those same doctrines would humble us and make us more loving.

            I suppose, however, that one of my greatest concerns, and the main cause for this article, is that many young Fundamentalists see no cause for reformation at all. The growing consensus among many Reformed Fundamentalists is to join other denominations, especially Southern Baptists and Presbyterians. There are many reasons for people who do so, including a growing disbelief that successful reformation is possible. Despite the difficulties I see with reforming the movement, I believe that it is the hard work that we must do in order to be faithful to God. I also think in doing so we prevent ourselves from falling into the same snare that traditional Fundamentalists fall into. As I said earlier, one of the ironies of tradition-driven Fundamentalists is that they are often more loving to unbelievers than they are to those whom they view as “liberal” Christians, or more broadstream evangelicals. On the same hand, many coming out of the Fundamentalist ranks are more loving and friendly to non-Christians than they are to traditional Fundamentalists. I think there are several factors in this relationship that we must balance. On one side of the coin, the popular thing in Christianity today is to minister to the younger brother. We go and search for the wretched, sin-torn heathen that has been long enslaved to his sin and provides us with a remarkable example of God’s grace. Far less remarkable to us is ministering to the older brother, who has lived his life in self-righteous trust and needs to be rescued from his own righteousness and brought to faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So one the one hand, many do not consider reaching out to the older brother as an attractive part of ministry. We want the dramatic conversion stories, not the boring churchy ones.

            On the other side of the spectrum, there is a certain kind of separation we must have from radical traditionalists. Kevin Bauder, one of the leading voices of Reforming Fundamentalism, has said in his chapter in Four Views of Evangelicalism is that while many recognize the need to separate from those too far to the left, many do not recognize the need to separate from those too far to the right. If there is a conservative who holds views that may be detrimental to the cause of Christ, such as extreme King James Onlyism or manipulative easy-believism, it is our responsibility in being faithful to Christ to limit our fellowship with them. Just as many people will be kept from entering through the narrow gate to radicals on the right as radicals on the left, to which the Pharisees provide testimony.

            So what is left? Where are we supposed to go from here to reach out to the world and our Fundamentalist brothers? My proposition is that thoughtful, loving engagement is what is needed in trying to reform Fundamentalism. The answer is not trying to “sneak into the ranks” or pretend that we are just alike except for one little area. In most cases, although it is most easily seen in one area of theology or another, the difference is more in worldview and theological orientation. What is needed is a radical rediscovery of the Gospel! In many cases, the situation is complicated by those who hold radical views of secondary separation and thus are unfavorable towards engaging or being engaged. The Protestant Reformation created a huge rift within the Catholic Church with the lynchpin teaching of justification by faith alone. In other words, the Gospel was the centerpiece of the message. So also in our efforts to reach out and seek reformation within the Fundamentalist movement, our central message must be the Gospel. We cannot preach and teach peripheral things and hope for any sort of transformation. If we hope to find change in the peripheral issues, we must start with the heart of the matter and hammer home the Gospel.

            OF all the things that we can do and of all the solutions we can offer, however, I would say the biggest way that we can effectively change and reform is by being faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ. Many of the caricatures of evangelicals, especially Reformed evangelicals, construe them to be conceited, intellectually-driven men motivated more to promote their Reformed theology than to reach out to a lost and dying world. One of the greatest ways that we can speak to Fundamentalists is to simply be faithful to Christ, to grow in holiness, and grow in love for the world and other believers. 

Mediocrity for the Glory of God

"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."
-1 Corinthians 10:31

One of the taboo words of American Christianity has become mediocrity. No one wants to be labeled mediocre. We devote entire television programs to individuals that we categorized as "extraordinary." After all, mediocre means that you're average. Average people are all right, but they just lack a certain coolness. At the heart of it, most of us would probably be considered "average." We may have a special skill or some quirks or play a really mean trombone, but at the heart of it we all have the same basic needs, wants, and limitations. That's why our culture has created superheros and "extraordinary" people in order to escape the reality of our ordinarity. As a culture, we have made not being average into an idol.

In many ways, the church has bought into the lie that we must be "extraordinary" and break the evil fetters of mediocrity. Some times there are abuses and things against which these Christians are reacting, such as a lack of excellence and a disdain of putting forth good and diligent effort in what we do. To a large extent, however, it seems that we have bought into the lie of legalism that says God is pleased by our excelling. Although it may not be verbalized, the message put forth by many Christians and churches is "God hates second place." Giving glory to God is equated with giving a hundred and ten percent and being the best at whatever we do. In this construct, the glory of God is really focused on our performance. God is given glory when we do. When we break out of our mediocrity and graduate valedictorian of our school, man is God getting the glory. When a Christian athlete makes it big and is suddenly the shining star in the sports media and the new face of Jesus for sports fans everywhere, God is really beaming! When there is a struggling athlete bouncing between the major and minors maintaining a godly, Christian testimony- maybe not so much. Not only will he not make a splash in the news media, but many Christians will cringe and pretend not to notice him.

Giving glory to God is an issue of the heart. We give God glory in all things when we treasure Him and enjoy all things in life in relation to Him- whether the sweet or the bitter things in life. What we need to be careful of is making mediocrity into an embarrassment and a vice. God is just as glorified with the worship pastor at a small church with modest musical skills as he is with the professional-rock-star-turned-worship-leader at the mega church in the big city. The issue is not so much what we do as it is the manner in which we do it. When we talk about glorifying God, the question we must ask is this- do you make Jesus look beautiful in your mediocrity? When the old country pastor preaches, is he filled with love for Jesus and a faithfulness to the God who called him and the people to whom he ministers? God does not necessarily call us to excel. It is the Spirit who gives gifts to the church "as He wills." We must not allow culture to define us and influence our theology. As Paul exhorts believers in Romans 12, we must not conform to the world by be transformed by the Word of God. God's desire is not that we come at life at a hundred and ten-percent, but that we encounter everything in our lives as a God-worshiper.

Renewing Your Mind

“But be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” -Romans 12:2

Many of the truths that are taught in Scripture are truths balanced in a delicate tension. For instance, we have been redeemed from the curse of sin and death through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet when we read what Paul says in Romans 8, we learn that the entire creation is still eagerly awaiting the consummation of that redemption. So there is a sense in which we have already been redeemed and yet we are still waiting for it. Scripture is filled with this kind of already/not yet tensions. For that reason, we must be careful in the way that we approach the subject of sanctification in the life of believers. The temptation is to do away with the tension and overemphasize some aspect of sanctification to the neglect of other aspects. In Romans 12:2, Paul tells us that we are not to conform to this world. Does that mean that we have to be peculiar, a novelty of some sort? Some people seem to think that not being conformed to this world means we become a freak side-show. What Paul has in mind, however, is the transformation of our values and goals. This idea is brought out by the imperative for us to be transformed by “the renewal of your mind.” We do not seek transformation by sitting around and waiting to suddenly be hit with renewed, godly desires. We renew our minds with truth and our affections follow.

One of the tensions is that we are constantly being renewed but are not yet renewed. It can be a difficult thing to understand how we are brought from darkness into light and still sometimes act as though we were still in darkness. In Romans 7, Paul describes his inner conflict of not doing what he really wants to do (in his spiritual desires) and doing what he does not want to do (in obeying the desires of the flesh). And this where we find the tension. Although we have been delivered from sin and are free not to obey it, we still live in a body that is totally depraved and affected by sin. This does not just mean that we still sin and do bad things. Total depravity means that sin has affected and continues to affect every aspect of our lives. Our minds, our emotions, our will all have been scarred by sin. In Ephesians 2, Paul says that prior to conversion, we all lived “carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath.” It’s true that God has saved us and filled us with new desires to serve Him and to please Him with our lives. If you do not have those desires, chances are you were never converted. It is equally true, however, that we are still plagued with worldly desires and emotions. That’s why Paul tells us to renew our minds.

The awful truth that we come to realize is that we can never trust ourselves. Even in our holiest moments, we are scarred and afflicted with sin. In Romans 10:2, Paul says of the Jews that they have “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” Although they seem to have emotions and zeal that we would usually define as good and right, Paul says that it is useless because it is not after knowledge. Our emotions can never be fully trusted. Sin has affected us in such a way that it becomes almost impossible to feel right about things in life. It is not only our actions that are affected by sin, but our desires. The problem of sin is that it produces an unholy heart with unholy emotions. The only hope that we have is to change the way that we think about things, measuring all of our thoughts and emotions by the Word of God. Psalm 119 is a beautiful chapter in which the Psalmist praises the value and worth of the Word of God. His only hope for living in a way pleasing to God is in God’s Word. There is an unmistakable connection throughout the chapter between knowing God’s Word and delighting in it.

Although our solution to the transformation of our desires is to think Biblically, the opposite is true of how we naturally think. There is a deep tie between our desires and how we choose to think. In Romans 1, Paul tells us that men knew God as God. The problem was not in their knowledge, the problem was in their desires. Verse 21 says, “For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him.” They saw God for who He was, but they did not delight in His being God. We were not thankful for His goodness and splendor. So what happened? We exchanged the glory of God for other things. We knew the truth, but we did not like it. So we adopted another version of reality we liked better. Man can never be rid of his affections or his need to worship things. We are made to enjoy and to worship things. Sin distorts our worship, and we set our affections on idols, which were never meant to bear the weight of deity. Sin operates in such a way that it works through our unholy affections to make us willing to believe a lie rather than the truth. It’s not that we did not know God. We just didn’t want to recognize Him as God. So we made a dark exchange. Our minds follow and justify what our hearts desire.

This is why Paul talks about our transformation in this way. Sin has affected us all in such a deep way that we can no longer really fully on our emotions, because our emotions will often cloud our thinking. Our minds become slaves to our desires, working feverishly to construct any version of truth that will justify our desires to our conscience. Paul’s command for us is to seek renewal in God’s Word. We are to think and meditate on God’s truth, not to be slaves to our hearts. And what we find as we come to understand and accept God’s truth is that our emotions follow. That is part of conversion. God changes our hearts so that things previously unpalatable to our hearts become the source of our delight. That is how we are to transform our lives and not be conformed to the values and ways of this world. It is not outwardly through behavior modification and sheer will-power. It is through changing us at the fundamental heart level. We think rightly about God and find that we begin to feel rightly.

Blogging for Glory?

Maybe it is a weird personality quirk, but whenever someone starts up a blog or revamps an old one, I always think, "Hmm..what massive truth to they plan to unearth for us now?" Perhaps it's because it a secret thought in my own heart. Or perhaps it's because I typically hate trying to read materials published by my peers. And something about free web publishing smacks of amateur..
At any rate, I find my own self trying to return to blogging, which in turn causes me to question my motives. I had constructed a mental list of the pros and cons of messing with my blog again. The pros looking something like:

1. I need to do what I can to try to share encouraging thoughts with others
2. I need to try to "fan into flame" any gift God has given me (no matter how humble or in how small a portion)
3. I need to look like I am doing something important when I am sitting Starbucks with all the hotshots toting their macs..
4. All good evangelical pastors (or evangelical pastor wannabe's) have a blog to share all their massive theological discoveries with the thirsty flock.

My list of cons was much easier to construct. It went something like:

1. I hate reading people's blogs. It's not like any of them have anything to say that I don't know anyway.
2. The internet is flooded with mediocre literature. Why be a part of the problem?
3. I am so lazy. There is no way in the world I can keep it up.
4. All the cool people on macs seem to be editing photos. Maybe I just need to get into photography instead...

At the end of the day, I decided to try to revamp it. Not because I think any of my ideas are particularly profound or insightful, but because it helps me personally to try to express ideas and thoughts in writing. And God is gracious, so somewhere along the line it may prove helpful to somebody. God calls us in all things to love Him and bring Him glory, including in our minds and strength. My hope is that if nothing else, some of the thoughts can stimulate helpful thought or study and would be a genuine help. And all my super-spiritual friends have blogs so I needed to catch up. It makes me feel less guilty for not reading theirs if I think that they probably aren't reading mine. It's a very complicated mind game..

My prayer is that God would be glorified with everything, and that it might all be done to and through Him to show His goodness and His glory. Even in a poorly formatted, super-free amateur blogspot. Soli Deo Gloria

The Fight for Joy

The Westminster Catechism begins with the famous phrase, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The men who constructed the Westminster Confession and the accompanying catechism were not merely beginning with an abstract theological ideal which would be followed by more applicable doctrinal statements. Their goal in placing this phrase first was to construct a radically God-centered worldview. We have a tendency to make life primarily about us, either directly or indirectly. Whether we say our purpose in life is to find our purpose, to do good things for others, to be a good man, or to find our own happiness, our natural tendency is to make life primarily about us. That’s called sin, and these theologians were not blind to the effects of sin. Despite whatever other ends or goals we may have in this life, the chief end is for the glory of God. Ultimately, everything goes back to Him.

It is not a stretch of logic to state that the creation was made for the purpose of the Creator. God created everything that exists to reflect His goodness, glory, and His perfections. That is what the Psalmist means when he states that the “heavens are telling the glory of God.” Behind the reality that we see lies a “real reality.” God created man to be “in His image” and “after His likeness.” Man was to fill the earth and subdue it, bringing glory to God through exercising dominion and rule over it. Everything in our lives is to be lived out as an act of worship to God, reflecting His goodness and order. All things are to be done to the glory of God. Paul says that “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” Our main problem is sin. It changes the natural orientation of things and makes the creation a chief end in and of itself. We need a radical re-orientation in order to have any lasting purpose or any lasting significance. The paradox is that in order to have significance, we must realize that we have no intrinsic significance. We have all things as we find our identity in Christ.

The second half of the phrase, however, is primarily what concerns us here. Not only do we need to know that the glory is the chief end of all things, but that we are called to enjoy Him forever. John Piper has suggested a modification to the answer given in the catechism, making it read, “the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” The two are not distinct and separated, but woven together in one chief purpose. Piper has summarized it in this way- “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” It is not enough that we simply know about God. All the truths about God that we can gather, even if we spend a lifetime carefully sifting through them and throwing out the false, do us no good if they are not treasured in our hearts. God did not create us so we could analyze and quantify Him and make neat, orderly charts describing His specific attributes. God Himself is a relational and communal being, and He created us to be in relationship with Him. We were made to know and experience God, and in Him find the ultimate and only lasting satisfaction for our hearts.

So having tried to lay this foundation, I want to ask the question, “What does this look like?” What does it look like everyday to glorify God and enjoy Him? And how is that look when I am in the midst of suffering or hardship? To answer this question, I would like to take a look at 2 Corinthians 4, which I believe gives us some answers about what it looks like to enjoy God and glorify Him in the midst of trials.

My answer to the question is that we enjoy and treasure Christ primarily through faith, or "the fight for joy is a fight for faith;" and I believe that is the answer that Paul gives us in 2 Corinthians 4. In this passage, Paul is giving his readers a foundation for the way that he conducts his ministry, refusing to practice cunning or tamper with God’s Word. He wants His ministry to be sincere and founded on open statement of the truth, not by gimmicks or manipulation or any fleshly methods. Then Paul begins an explanation of why he chooses to preach and teach in this way. Beginning in verse 3, he says:

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Paul says that the reason people do not believe the Gospel is because they cannot see glory. The ministry of Satan is to blind people from seeing the “light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ.” In an earlier letter, Paul had told the Corinthians that the natural man cannot receive the truths of God because they are spiritual truths. In this passage, he portrays that as blindness. The glory of God is here. It is not hidden; rather it is all around us for us to see. All of creation is pointing to the majesty and splendor of the One who created. So the problem is not that there is no glory or that it cannot be seen. The problem is with us. The problem is not just that we sin, but that we are in fact sinners. We don’t just do bad things, but we have a heart that desires and delights to do bad things. We have no spiritual taste. We are dead in our sin.

So what is Paul’s resolution? If all of this is true, how are we possibly supposed to fulfill our purpose of glorifying God? If we have no delight or satisfaction in God naturally, how are we even supposed to come to Him? Paul gives the answer in the next verses:

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Paul’s answer? In contrast to the unbelief of those who cannot see God’s glory, God shines the overpowering light of His glory into our hearts to create faith. He gives spiritual light to our eyes, spiritual taste to our tongues, and true spiritual knowledge to our minds. It is not simply a knowledge that is dry and statistical. It is a relational and experiential knowledge. We see the glory of God in the Gospel with eyes of faith and treasure Him in our hearts. We are no longer blind and led astray by the passions and lust that ruled our hearts before, but we are captured by a greater good. We see God’s glory and are captivated by it.

So how does this all tie in? I think the answer is found a little later in the same chapter. After establishing the way in which we are brought to faith in Christ, by having our eyes opened to see God’s glory, Paul hits a more practical note. In verse 16 he states:

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

Paul’s answer is not that we don’t experience hardships in our lives. Paul’s answer is that our hardships are “light” and “momentary.” It’s the same theme that he develops in Romans 8. We enjoy God and find our satisfaction in Him through faith. If we believe God’s promises, that He is working for us an eternal weight of glory, which Paul contrasts with a light momentary affliction, then we are enabled to stand strong and be satisfied with God regardless of our circumstances. It’s hard to simplify Paul’s logic in this passage simply because there is not much simplification that you can do. The key is to trust God and His promises and be satisfied in Him. There is really no way to measure the vast, cavernous difference between the transient and the eternal. In Romans 8, Paul states this same truth in slightly different words: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul grounds this statement in verse 28 in saying that God is working all things for good for His people. And that isn’t just all the neutral/good things that happen in our lives. It is our hardships as well. Hardships are among God’s gracious gift to His people, because they are working for us an “eternal weight of glory.”

God is constantly plotting for our good in all of the struggles and hardships in life. The fight that we have to be satisfied in God is a fight for faith. We need to rely fully on God’s grace and on His promises. As Christians, we have been chosen by God, not because of anything good or evil that we have done, but according to His good pleasure and for His glory. He opened our blinded eyes, showed us His glory, and brought us to faith. More than all that, as Paul says in Romans 8:32, He did not stop at the point of sacrificing His own Son. God has given us every reason to trust His promises and find our satisfaction in Him, regardless of our circumstances.

Dispensationalism and the Cultural Mandate

Despite the influence of secularism and the increasing distaste for Christianity in our culture, eschatology is one area that still seems to be in vogue in popular culture. Perhaps it is because no matter how autonomous and self-sufficient we may be able to make ourselves feel with our advancements and our rigorous assaults against the bane of religion, all it takes is a bad diagnosis to make us deeply feel the frailty of our own existence. One need only look at the latest lineup of apocalyptic thrillers to get a sense of how ingrained our culture is with the idea of a catastrophic end of our existence. No matter how secularized we seem to become, mankind can never shake the feeling that this is all building up to something. The stories may become more elaborate and more secularized, but the theme remains the same.

Even within evangelicalism there seems to be a preoccupation with the when’s and how’s of the end time. After the first fifty or so books in the Left Behind series, many Christians feel like they have a pretty good idea of how this whole thing is going to end. Probably a one world government, an antichrist who tricks everyone into a world tyranny, and something about barcodes and being scanned like grocery items. And guillotines. Definitely guillotines. My fear is that the dominance of certain forms of dispensationalism may have had a detrimental effect on how we as Christians relate to culture, which I will try to summarize briefly.

A Hunker-down Mentality

The idea that many Christians have is that at the end of this world, God’s going to wipe out everyone, burn everything up, and just start over. He is going to create a new world and a new heaven and we’re just going to have a fresh start. So why worry about this world? It’s just going to burn one day. I think because of this mentality, many Christians have abandoned our responsibility to subdue the earth and to be good stewards of God’s creation. We often do not fight in fights for culture, we just abandon them. “It’s all going to burn anyway” is the idea behind it.

I believe that the Bible speaks very differently of how we are to think about the end of this world. And the picture that we are given is not one of abandonment, but one of renewal. So let’s take a look at what Paul says in Romans 8.

The Redemption of Creation

In Romans 8:20, Paul states:

“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.”

So Paul starts out by saying that the creation was subjected to futility, that is being allowed to fall into disorder and slowly die, not of its own accord. It was not the will of creation, so to speak, to be subjected to futility. Someone subjected creation. The question then becomes “who was it?” Did Satan subject creation to futility? Was it man? Or was it someone else?

The answer is found in the end of the verse- “because of him who subjected it, in hope.” God is the only one who could subject the creation to futility in hope. It is part of God’s order to constantly overcome evil in this world. Sometimes evil seems as though it has free reign and acts wildly and unexplainably. We do not always see the plan and order behind it. So why did God subject the creation futility? We read on that it was in order that the creation will one day be set free from its bondage to corruption and will share in the freedom of the sons of God. Verse 22 explains it further for us:

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies.”

The parallel that Paul draws is one between the redemption of the creation and the redemption of the sons of God. We live in “these last days,” as the author of Hebrews states. We live in the “already/not yet” dimension of eschatology. Our redemption has been accomplished in Christ and it will be consummated at His return when the sons of God are revealed. That is what we are Christians are groaning for. We know that our bodies are dying. We groan for a glorified body, one that is renewed and redeemed through God’s eternal purpose. It is by use of this parallel that Paul describes the end of this world. It ends not in destruction, but in renewal and recreation. God does not throw away what has been marred by sin, but He redeems and restores it.

So What?

We are not called as God’s people to simply hide and wait for Jesus to come back and open a big can of whoop in the end. Too many Christians are preoccupied with the what’s and how’s of the end times to the diminishing of God’s purpose for their life. We are not called to sit around and wait for God to take us up and unleash all hell on the world. Unlike the ministry of Jesus, the hunker down mentality is not very incarnational. We are to work towards renewal and redemption of the world through the preaching of the Gospel, not to try to grab as many as we can out of the world to wait in the proverbial lifeboat. God’s purpose has always been to redeem and restore His creation, never to abandon it and start over. I think instead of worrying about all the details of it, maybe we should spend more time to see the big picture. As fascinating as it may be to decipher the precise implications of the number “666,” God’s purpose is far more important than our fascination.

The Glory of Grace

It is one of the strange truths of life that those who are most immediately affected by a supernatural event are the least likely to recognize it as such. To put it another way, we all have a hard time seeing glory. As a matter of fact, it is not just difficult for us to see glory, but apart from the Father opening our eyes it is impossible. Glory is one of the major emphases of the book of John, and the point we see him making over and over again is that the people of Jesus' day were unable to see and rejoice in His glory. Jesus would repeatedly work miracles and do signs and wonders, all to make His glory manifest, and the people would miss it. The five thousand did not want to follow Him because they saw His power and glory but because they were fed. We know that because Jesus said at much. Jesus would do miracles and the people would say, "Don't we know His father and mother? There's no way that He could have God as His Father."

The point is that as fallen human beings we miss glory when it passes by us. Sometimes we have to stop, meditate, and by God's grace see the glorious truths of Scripture. It is amazing how we will fail to see and appreciate glorious truths and yet our hearts will be amazed by a dazzling play in a football game. Our depravity has killed our capacity to rejoice in spiritual things for spiritual reasons. Most Christians would say that our salvation is a supernatural thing, but sometimes we fail to see how much of it is beyond our ability to perform. Conversion is a paradoxical thing. Salvation is filled with tensions and paradoxes that sometimes we often miss. The one that struck me as I read this morning in Romans was our freedom in Jesus Christ.

In the early chapters of Romans, Paul begins his most thorough examination of God's work of justification found anywhere in his writings. He follows the pattern that has been picked up by most Protestant explanations of the Gospel. Beginning with guilt, he continues on from guilt to grace and from grace to gratitude. In Romans 6, we pick up Paul's argument with some implications that will naturally follow. And some that his critics assume will come. The answer that Paul has given for how a sinner is seen as righteous before a holy God is simply to be found in Jesus Christ. We have been joined to Him, united by faith, and are given His righteousness as He has taken the punishment of our sin, satisfying God's wrath by His death. Paul's critics pick up an inevitable objection to this teaching; or Paul, as it were, cutting off their argument before they get to it. In verse 1, Paul asks, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" If we are no longer guilty before God because of grace and it has nothing to do with our law-keeping, what's to keep us from sinning? The question is one of a heart untouched by grace. In response, Paul picks up his argument in saying that we are dead. If we have been united to Christ by faith, we have been partakers in His death. Therefore, Paul's answer is that we are dead to sin. We have been raised with Christ to live unto righteousness. So Paul's response is simply that dead men do not sin.

The verse that really struck me as I read was verse 14. Paul says to his listeners, "Sin will have no dominion over you." This is a massive promise. Sin will never have absolute domination over the believer. Although through neglect and unwariness he may for a season fall into sin, sin will never conquer him. How does Paul support this massive claim? How can Paul guarantee that Christians will not fall victim to the domination of their sin and fall away? First of all, Paul does not say "because you are expected to follow the law." In contrast, Paul says "since you are not under law but under grace." The very thing that the Judaizers criticized is the foundation of Paul's argument. In contrast to those who saw grace as an excuse to continue in sin, Paul's theology views grace as the very foundation to obedience. This is one of the many paradoxes of Christianity. To Paul, grace was not simply forgiveness. It has been said by some that mercy is God's withholding of judgment and grace is God's giving of undeserved blessing. Paul uses grace to signify both. It is by grace that our sins are not counted against us (cf. 3:24), but Paul sees grace as doing something more. The problem of the Jews is that they saw grace as simply the forgiveness of sin. If that is solely what Paul means by grace, then certainly it would be reasonable to see grace as aiding human sin. We can go on sinning and never be punished for it, because God is gracious. And sadly that is how many people, Christians and non-Christians, live their lives. But more than that, Paul sees grace as something more. Grace changes our affections. God changes our hearts, makes us alive in Christ to see glory and to delight in it. Our hearts are captivated by a greater desire than the desires of our sin, that is a desire to know and delight in Jesus Christ. Grace is glorious. And grace is paradoxical. Grace alone is the foundation for true obedience, because only grace transforms our obedience from the root- the heart. That is how, in the words of Paul, we "become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you have been committed."