Introduction
A few years back I had my mind blown out watching a video of the relative sizes of stars in our universe. Zooming out from the Earth, the Sun quickly diminished our tiny blue marble, but itself was dwarfed by incomprehensibly massive hyper-giants in the far reaches of the heavens, which are only the known largest starts. And it’s a big universe. But even though these bodies are drastically different they are all spherical, brilliantly hot, and dancing to the laws of physics; they differ only in scale.
Scale implies that the principles at work in the micro apply to the macro and it is the emerging principle, not the size of the objects, that is of interest. Newton didn’t particularly care much for falling apples as the invisible force that was also seemed to tug on the moon. So we can use local observable phenomena and get curious if it applies to similar systems that are several orders of magnitude larger.
There seems to me a scale of sanctification emerging from the gospels which is most evident of and encouraged in individuals, but certainly applies on the larger scale of nations. Can we apply the same principle of sanctification to the largest scale- the whole world?
Individual Sanctification
When a person believes in Jesus Christ and is saved from the wrath of God by the grace of God, this marks the beginning of a process. Because God loves us he immediately begins a work of sanctification where we progressively learn to walk by faith, toss out the hoarded sins and cleanse our temples from areas of moldy unbelief or self-righteousness. For this task, God gives us the Holy Spirit, without whom the work would be impossible. The process is…a process; it takes time. Sometimes you get those sopping alcoholics who repent and never tough the cough. medicine again, and praise God for that, but more often it is a day in and day out slog of learning to prefer another Master to the old sinful one. Some sins are dug in like a tick, others are dropped like a bad habit because that is exactly what they are. But the principle here is one of slow and steady progress.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (ESV)
Gazing upon the Lord increases a man’s internal spiritual temperature measured in degrees of glory – the more we look, the more we are changed into the likeness of Christ. And it goes without saying that this internal change is accompanied by external works as the individual interacts with others in his environment.
Seeing how God is a planner, there is an end goal for this process of individual sanctification, which is that we should be holy and blameless before him (Ephesians 4:1) and we are actively engaged in this process by shuffling off the old man and aiding God in bringing our holiness to completion (2 Corinthians 7:1). This process is one that is carried out over the lifetime of working out salvation, choosing this and not that, applying gratitude where before was rotten whining, and growing up our spiritual molars to chew meat instead of suckling milk.
That we may have a workable definition of sanctification, here is the Westminster Catechism:
Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.
Westminster Shorter Catechism Q35
Sanctification is the trajectory of the Christian’s life. Not breaking any new ground here. Pretty basic stuff. But when you have a bunch of Christians in the same place, the external consequences of this internal change have a synergistic effect on their surroundings.
National Sanctification
Ask your neighbor what a nation is and you will probably get something synonymous with a country, defined by geographical borders, maybe have a rep in the United Nations, or a smorgasbord of cultures bound by a common philosophy like America. And nations can certainly be these. But we can also think of them as much smaller people groups who share a common culture, like the Navajo. Just after Pentecost, Peter goes out and preaches to a grip of people from all kinds of nations and each heard him speak in their own native tongue.
Lest any biblical scholar amongst you shoot up a quick hand in objection, let me say that, to my knowledge, there is no verse in the Bible explicitly describing sanctification on any scale larger than the individual. Before sanctification can occur there must be salvific action and a wiping clean of guilt and sin, and there is no process by which this happens on a national scale. However, the track of corporate improvement and an increasing of godly principles certainly is present, and comports with solid historical record. And if God holds nations accountable for the wickedness that happens therein, even though not each single individual may have partook, it follows that the same principle would apply for blessing a nation for its rightness, even though it has sour saps within. So lets choose a different phrase just so we don’t get confused – how about a rising of the lump, since Jesus described the Kingdom of God as a pinch of yeast causing three measures of flour to rise.
Before ascending into heaven to receive His kingdom, Jesus commissioned his followers to go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing them and teaching them to obey his commands. This is an extension of an earlier, lesser commission when the disciples were sent out in pairs only to the lost sheep of Israel, but were given explicit instructions to ignore the Gentile world (Matt 10:5-6). In the Jewish conception, there were two kinds of people walking the earth: the Jews and then everybody else. The heathen, Gentile world was subdivided into a plethora of nations – ethnos, in Greek – which were people joined in common culture or practice. After being given all authority over all of these nations, Jesus say it’s now open season bringing salvation to these people who previously were cut off from the commonwealth of Israel and the promises of God (Ephesians 2:12), and happy hunting. And so we see Paul branching out, making is way up to the Thessalonians, the Bereans, Ephesians, etc. Thomas makes his way out East, landing in India. Legend has it Matthew went south to Ethiopia and Andrew north up Russia way.
When the gospel enters a culture certain aspects of it assimilate; they grow into one another. This means some traditions are amended to comport with the gospel, some are kept as natural expression of the culture and some are nixed because they run in direct contradiction to it. We see examples of this in Paul’s letter to Philemon amending the cultural approach to slavery among the Christians in Colossae to reflect the deeper affiliation of Christian brotherhood he shared with his slave Onesimus. To Peter, Jesus completely blew out the cultural taboo of avoiding dining with the Gentiles, while Paul commends the thoughtful investigation of truth already found among the Bereans. As the gospel spreads within a nation from person to person, the emendations or elimination of customs naturally change to harmonize with the Lord’s teaching causing the entire cultural dough to rise starting with just a few yeast buds.
This means that there will be a slow and steady progress on a national scale as the individuals that make up the families of the nation are sanctified. Cultural sins will be blotted out by a paucity of sinful desire. This happened in Rome when Christianity has so infiltrated the culture the gladiator games ceased due to lack of interest. The eradication of slavery in the West is another example of national discipleship weeding out sins and the slow sanctification of nations stretched out over generations. Or to step back even further, the trajectory of increasing limitations on state governments and freedom of its citizenry are marks of gospel movements on a grander scale. Which leads me to the last, highest scale.
Global Sanctification
Can we apply this principle of the rising lump to the scale of the world whose lifetime is the entirety of history since Christ’s ascension? With the same caveats for sanctification noted above applied, the question seems to be why would it not? This principle of progression of successive change from worse to better is evident in history. Could we not back up and see the progressive sanctification on this largest scale? If not, why? Does the Bible veto this from happening?
And if your answer to this last question is, “Yeah, the Bible does veto this in Matthew, Luke, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Peter and the entire book of Revelation,” I might suggest there is another way to read these passages that has some very sound footing in Church history and sponsored by some heavy hitter theologians. Ways that do not involve God saving a small mouthful of Christians while the rest of the world is shaken, burnt, boiled, spoiled, poisoned, blinded, starved, and rolled up for the dust bin of eternity.
No Christian denies that individual sanctification happens; indeed, this is why we go to church and disciple our children, coworkers and neighbors. Even on the national scale the progressive godliness of nations is fairly obvious when viewed at on a timeline of centuries, and our history books have given us ample evidence of this arc. But when it comes to the world, this is as far as we go; we conclude with there is no way the whole world will be sanctified – its too bad. I mean, just look at it!
You would find no Christian who would speak with such discouragement and despair of a new Christian’s walk with God as the instant damnation you hear talked about the world. The prevailing sentiment among evangelicals is that the world is doomed, hasn’t a snowballs chance in hell, which is ironic because that is exactly where the world is heading. There is a pessimism regarding this earth that severs the nerve of all efforts towards its redemption and actually seems to assume the destruction of billions of wicked with only a pocket size remnant of righteous saved. Doesn’t seem to comport with Jesus possessing everything, having all authority, and or the hockey stick curve of Kingdom growth in a mere two thousands years.
Now, I am not insinuating any kind of universalism here where everyone gets a green card to Heaven. Neither and I implying that there will be a progressive utopia where God brings peace just because we are fantastic company, or where all the nukes are beaten into ploughshares and the lion and lay down with the lesbian, and God declares amnesty on all sexual wackiness. And neither and I talking about one hundred percent of humans being Christians. Global sanctification would come through national sanctification which is rooted in the changed life of a saved individual. But if we are adamant that this process cannot scale, then someone would need to explain why God tells us to release the bonds of the oppressed, disciple the nations, and destroy any argument that raises itself up against the knowledge of God, if it won’t stick and in the end Christians enter heaven with a black eye and our milk money in the world’s pocket. The world generally being much better to be alive in today than it was five hundred years ago would also beg to be explained.
Conclusion
We have no problem with the idea of evil corrupting good. I don’t want you kids hanging out with Butch from down the street. He tried to steal my gumball machine once and he shops at Walmart. Bad company corrupts good character, and this is clearly true. But we tend to be less confident in the expansive power of good amongst a wicked and depraved generation, despite Jesus’s yeast pep talk.
At the very least, I think we ought to be suspicious of a world view that anticipates the most powerful Being in the universe, who can change the hearts of kings and peasants according to His pleasure, who defeated sin and bound the Strong man, who holds the keys to the Gates of Hades, and who bathes His children with the dripping ladlefuls of Holy Spirit, losing to a bunch of wicked weenies bumbling about on earth, whom He created.
God to His Son:
The LORD said to me, “You are my Son;
Psalm 2:7-8 (ESV)
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
Question: Do you think Jesus forgot to ask?
Thought Butter 