Contrary to some of my critics, the question of the Kingdom of God and Christendom today is not about partisan politics. It’s not a question of whether to vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate. The question today is about the power of the gospel to change nations so that they will be ruled by the law of God.
Is the church’s mission to become a holy nation that consists of a few elect Christians from the nations of the world, or is the church’s mission to capture the nations of the world (and all their institutions) under the Lordship of Christ through the preaching of the gospel? This is a crucial question in our modern day. It is both a question about the nature of the church and the future of the nations of the world. It determines what and how preachers preach. It governs the modern pulpit.
In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter speaks of the people of God as being “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…” This text has become the controlling text in the modern church to define the nature and future of the church. In the most popular interpretation of this text, the church is often viewed as a small, outcast group of people from the various nations of the world. It is either a small mixture of the nations in one place (red and yellow, black and white), or a band of a holy ethnic community persecuted in the context of a particular pagan nation itself. In this view, the future of the church is to gather a few more elect into the church and wait for either persecution, death, or Christ’s second coming. We are a small band of aliens whose citizenship is in heaven. Our future on this earth is ultimately defeatism because that is what God has ordained for us. The Bible has nothing to do with civil government, education, economics, or science.
However, 1 Peter 2:9 was written to Jewish Christians, the elect of God who still belonged to the Hebrew nation. Peter was not nullifying the Old Testament definition of a nation as a large body of people with a common language, a common border, and a common religion. Peter was the Apostle to the Jews. Peter’s letter was written to the Christian Jews who were part of the Diaspora scattered throughout the areas of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (1 Peter 1:1). The holy nation he speaks about was the beginnings of a particularly new Jewish nation that was now identified with Christ.
Peter was not creating a new definition of a nation that supplanted the old biblical sense of a nation. Jesus assumed the traditional biblical attributes of a nation when he gave the Great Commission. “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them… teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…” (Mt. 28:19). The goal of the church is to capture the nations of the world (red and yellow, black and white) under the Lordship of Christ. It is not to change their language, their color, their borders, but to change their dominate religion (and thus their civil laws, their education, their economics, and their science) from paganism to Christianity. We are not to view ourselves as a band of persecuted exiles waiting on the end of the world. We are more than conquerors in Christ (Rm 8:37).
The New Testament was a period of Christian persecution, and most modern Bible-readers normalize the condition of the New Testament Church for every generation. They can’t grasp the idea of the power of the gospel not only changing individual hearts, but also changing corporate nations. They can’t perceive of a Christian nation. They don’t understand the nature of Christendom. The idea of national Christendom is dead. No, in their view, the church will always be a persecuted small body of outcasts that will be a defeated people until the end of the world. There is no inkling that the church is an instrument of spreading the Kingdom of God until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).
There is a sense in which prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. If you believe that the future of the Kingdom of God as proclaimed by the church is doomed for defeat on this earth, then your preaching will focus on pietism and escape. You will teach your covenant children that they have no future on this earth but a predestined failure. If you believe that the gospel is powerful indeed, that it has the capacity to capture the nations of the earth (as defined by borders, culture, and religion), then you will hear sermons on how the Kingdom of God will grow from a small seed into a large tree in which the birds of the field nest (Luke 13:19). The Kingdom is visible and not merely spiritual. Your children will believe they have a future on this earth as long as God gives them life.
Contrary to some of my critics, the question of the Kingdom of God and Christendom today is not about partisan politics. It’s not a question of whether to vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate. The question today is about the power of the gospel to change nations so that they will be ruled by the law of God.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tennessee.
