The Resurrection Of The Body: Affirming The Integrity Of Our Creatureliness

By Cornelis P. Venema

One of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith is the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. This doctrine, which constitutes a significant feature of the believer’s expectation for the future, correlates with the basic Christian affirmation of the integrity and goodness of the creation. When the triune God redeems His people through Jesus Christ, this redemption issues in the restoration of the whole person—body and soul—in the new heavens and earth. It is, accordingly, fitting that we consider the doctrine of the resurrection of the body in this issue of Reformation & Revival Journal. For the doctrine of the resurrection is illustrative of many of the biblical principles that pertain to our understanding of the world as created by God.

The Resurrection Of The Body And Biblical Eschatology

The Bible’s teaching about the future may be divided into two broad areas, individual eschatology and general eschatology. Individual eschatology, as the language suggests, addresses the Bible’s teaching about what happens to individuals, particularly believers, in the state between death and resurrection at the end of the age. General eschatology addresses the Bible’s teaching on the future in general or in terms of the unfolding of the triune God’s purposes in history, leading up to the return of Christ at the end of the age.

Within the broader compass of general eschatology, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is usually treated as one of the concomitants of the second advent of Christ, to use the phrase chosen by Charles Hodge in his Systematic Theology to describe the events that will accompany the return of Christ at the end of the age. [1] Though this language is not the kind we might use over the counter at the coffee shop, it nicely captures the idea: we are looking at an event that, according to the Scriptures, will occur in the company of Christ’s return at the end of the age. When Christ returns, the Bible teaches that His reign as King will be consummated by means of a series of great acts of redemption and judgment. These events will draw this present age to a close and introduce the consummation of God’s purposes in the new heavens and earth. They will precede the final and enduring state of God’s kingdom.

The resurrection of the dead, including the just and the unjust, is the first of these great events or concomitants of Christ’s return at the end of the age. The biblical expectation for the future of believers is not exclusively or even primarily focused upon what is often called the intermediate state. Though the Bible teaches that the believer’s fellowship with Christ cannot be broken, even by death itself, and that at death the believer will begin to enjoy a more intimate and direct fellowship with Christ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:1–9), its teaching regarding the believer’s future focuses primarily upon the resurrection of the body at the last day. In the biblical view of the believer’s future, the emphasis falls not upon the “immortality of the soul,” but upon the restoration and renewal of the whole person, body and soul, in a renewed state of integrity within the context of a new heaven and earth. The biblical promise for the future directs the believer to the resurrection, when both body and soul will be granted immortality.

This is, in fact, one of the distinctive features of the biblical view of the future and of the salvation that is obtained for us in Christ. [2] The biblical view of the world begins with the conviction that the triune God created man as a “living soul,” taken from the dust of the earth (Gen. 2:7). Man’s creatureliness in its wholeness and integrity, therefore, always includes the body which was created originally good. Redemption from the curse of God against sin likewise addresses the whole of man’s need—body and soul. This is the reason the Heidelberg Catechism speaks, for example, of the believer’s comfort in terms of belonging to Christ “with body and soul.” Redemption does not deny the integrity and goodness of creation; it rather brings the healing and renewal of creation. The same Lord who forgives all our sins is the One who “heals all our diseases,” including that sickness of body and soul that leads to death (Ps. 103:3). For this reason, no biblical picture of the believer’s future may fail to include as a central part of it the promise of the resurrection of the body.

The Author Of The Resurrection

The most important and difficult questions relating to the Bible’s teaching regarding the resurrection have to do with its author and nature. Who will be responsible for raising the dead at the end of the age? And, when we read that the dead will be raised prior to the judgment, how are we to understand this event? In what sense will even the unjust be raised from the dead? What will be the nature of the resurrection body?

It needs to be admitted that the Bible does not provide a complete description and answer to all of these and other questions. [3] Some things are clearly taught for the encouragement and comfort of believers. Other things remain shrouded in mystery. Here the words of 1 Corinthians 2:9 (from Isa. 64:4 and 65:17) need to be borne in mind: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

Though the Old Testament includes explicit references to the resurrection of believers (Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2), and though the expectation of the resurrection follows from all that the Lord promises His covenant people in the way of life and blessing, [4] it is only in the New Testament that the full light of the gospel promise of the resurrection shines. This should not surprise us, since the biblical teaching and hope for the resurrection is securely founded upon the great redemptive accomplishments of Christ in His death, resurrection and ascension to the Father’s right hand. As believers are united with Christ, they come to enjoy Him and all His blessings, most notably victory over death and the sure confidence of the resurrection of the body.

In spite of this clear focus upon Christ’s resurrection and the believer’s share in it, the New Testament makes it clear that the Author of this resurrection is the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person of the trinity plays an integral part in granting resurrection life to those who belong to Christ. When Jesus responds to the Sadducean denial of the resurrection, He ascribes the power to grant resurrection life to God: “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures, or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:29–30). The apostle Paul describes believers as those who should not trust in themselves but “ in God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).

In other passages, the resurrection of the dead is ascribed especially to the power and work of Christ. In John 5, a passage we considered in the previous section, it is the Son of God who together with the Father calls the dead from their tombs and grants them life (vv. 21, 25, 28–29). This authority to raise the dead is, according to the teaching of Christ, a prerogative granted to Him by the Father and a fruit of His saving work (John 6:38–40, 44–45; 11:25–26). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit, who applies and communicates the benefits of Christ’s saving work, gives believers a foretaste and share in the power of Christ’s resurrection. The same Spirit “who raised Jesus from the dead” dwells in believers and grants life to their “mortal bodies” also (Rom. 8:11).

Thus, as believers share in the benefits which are theirs in fellowship with Christ, they are promised the gift of resurrection from the dead, a gift which the Father is pleased to grant through the Son and in the power of the life-giving Spirit.

The Nature Of The Resurrection Body

This, of course, leaves us with the crucial question yet to be answered: what is it to be raised from the dead?

What is the nature of the resurrection body, so far as this is disclosed to us in the Scriptures? If the return of Christ will be accompanied by the resurrection of the dead, the just and the unjust alike, and if the resurrection of believers in fellowship with Christ is a gracious work of the triune God, it remains to be seen what the Scriptures teach about the character of this event.

There are two ways by which we can arrive at an answer to this question. One way is to focus upon the accounts of Christ’s resurrection to see what they might tell us about the resurrection. Since the believer’s resurrection body will be fashioned after the pattern of Christ’s glorious body (Phil. 3:20–21), this is one legitimate way to proceed. Another way is to consider those passages that speak rather directly of the nature of the resurrection body. In what follows, I will follow both of these ways, though the second will receive greater attention.

Careful study of the accounts of Christ’s resurrection and subsequent appearances to His disciples allows us to draw some conclusions regarding the nature of the resurrection body. The accounts of the resurrection, for example, consistently witness to the fact that the tomb in which the Lord’s body was laid was, by virtue of His being raised from the dead, now empty (Matt. 28:6; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:3, 6; John 20: 1–10). The same body in which the Lord suffered and was crucified is now raised and glorified. The truth of the empty tomb authenticates the conviction that the resurrection was not a spiritual event separable from what happened to Jesus’ body in the tomb. There is a genuine continuity between Jesus’ preresurrection and postresurrection body (not bodies).

Consequently, when the risen Lord appeared to His disciples after the resurrection, they were able (despite their perplexity and initial unbelief at times) to recognize Him, identify the marks of His crucifixion, and even enjoy a meal with Him (cf. Matt. 28:9, 17; Mark 16:9–14; Luke 24:11, 16, 31; John 20:19–23, 27–29). In the account in the Gospel of Luke, all doubt as to the reality of the Lord’s resurrection body is removed, when we read the Lord’s words of rebuke to His startled and frightened disciples who “thought that they were seeing a spirit”: “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24: 38–39).

Though we need to beware the temptation to draw too many hard and fast conclusions from these accounts, it does seem clear that, whatever the differences between the glorified and preresurrection body of Christ, there is a substantial and real continuity/similarity. [5]

In addition to these accounts of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there are a few passages that speak more directly of the nature of the resurrection body. In 2 Timothy 2:18, there seems to be an allusion to false teachers in the early church who taught that the resurrection had “already taken place.” These teachers apparently spiritualized the resurrection and were confusing the faith of many. The apostle Paul makes an important comment on the resurrection: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:20–21).

This passage not only establishes the important principle that the believer’s resurrection body will be conformed to Christ’s, but it also contrasts the humble condition of our present bodies with the glorious condition that will be ours in the resurrection. Our present bodies exhibit all the marks of sin and God’s curse—they are weak, decaying, fragile, and temporary. Our resurrected bodies will exhibit all of the marks and benefits of Christ’s saving work—they will be strong, incorruptible, indestructible, and enduring.

A similar contrast is drawn in 2 Corinthians 5:1–9, where the believer’s present body is described as an “earthly tent” that, after it is dissolved or torn down, is replaced by a “building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (v. 1). This passage then goes on to utilize another metaphor for the difference between the present body and the resurrection body. Just as the present body compares to the resurrection body as an earthly tent compares to a heavenly building, so it compares to the resurrection body as a being-clothed-with-mortality compares to a putting-on-the-clothing-of-immortality.

However, the one passage which most extensively draws the contrasts between the present body and the resurrection body is 1 Corinthians 15:35–49. Because of the importance of this passage to our understanding of the nature of the resurrection body, I quote it in full, and then make some observations based upon it.

But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?” You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the earth, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

Without pretending to exhaust the complexity and richness of this passage, there are several themes that relate to the primary question with which the apostle Paul is concerned: “With what kind of body do they [those raised from the dead] come?”

First, the apostle uses the metaphor of the seed that is sown and its eventual germination and bringing forth of fruit to illustrate the connection between the present body and the resurrection body. However great the difference between the seed sown and the fruit that it eventually bears, the seed and the fruit are of one kind. Accordingly, the apostle elaborates at some length upon the obvious differences in the kinds of flesh that distinguish various creatures. The resurrection of the body is likened to the dying of a seed in order that it might thereby come to life in the form of its fruit. This means that the resurrection body is of a distinctively human kind. When God raises believers from the dead, their bodies, however new and changed, remain distinctively and peculiarly human, according to their kind.

Second, a series of contrasts are drawn between what the apostle terms this natural or earthly body and the spiritual or heavenly body. These terms are not used to draw a contrast between a body that is made up of “material stuff” with a body that is made up of “spiritual stuff,” as if to suggest that the resurrection body will be immaterial or non-fleshly. Rather, they are used to sharply distinguish the present body as one which belongs to the present age which is passing away and under the curse of God, and the resurrection body which belongs to the life of the Spirit in the age to come. The distinction is not between material and immaterial bodies, but between two kinds of bodies that answer to the present age and the age to come. Consequently, as we shall see in a third observation below, the apostle bases his description of these two bodies upon the two respective heads of humanity—the first man, Adam, and the Second Man, Christ.

What is especially important for our purpose is to note the kinds of contrasts that are drawn between the natural and the spiritual body. Four contrasts are drawn. The earthly body of this present age is sown perishable, the heavenly body of the age to come is raised imperishable. When death, the final enemy, has been defeated and the consequences of sin and God’s curse have been removed, the liability of the body to perishing, to decay and corruption, to dissolution, will be vanquished. The earthly body is sown in dishonor, the heavenly body will be raised in glory. By contrast to the tarnished and dimmed condition of the present body, the resurrection body will be splendid and striking. The earthly body is sown in weakness, the resurrection body will be raised in power. The fragility and vulnerability to destruction of the present body will be replaced by the enduring and indestructible power of the resurrection body. And finally, the present body is natural, the resurrection body is heavenly. All of these contrasts together combine to paint a striking picture of the glory of the resurrection body with which believers will be clothed at the last day. This body will be of a human kind, to be sure, but not like anything believers have seen or known in this life—a body no longer ravaged by sin and its consequences, a body that will be a fit and enduring building in which to dwell and enjoy unbroken (and unbreakable) fellowship with Christ and those who are His.

Third, in the closing section of this passage, the apostle bases his description of these respective bodies upon the contrast between the two original bearers of these bodies—the first man, Adam, and the Second Man Christ. There is an intimate and close correspondence between the first man, Adam, who is “from the earth,” and the earthly bodies of those who bear his image. Likewise, there is an intimate and close correspondence between the Second Man, Christ, who is “from heaven,” and the heavenly bodies of those who bear His image. Adam and Christ represent two humanities. The first humanity is under the dominion and liability of sin—meaning, it is subject to perishing, dishonor, weakness and death. The second humanity is under the dominion and blessing of salvation—meaning, it is the recipient of imperishability, glory, power and never-ending life.

This passage, though in a more extensive and detailed manner, confirms the teaching of the Scriptures on the nature of the resurrection. When Christ returns at the end of the age, the dead will be raised. Some, the unjust and unbelieving, will be raised unto judgment. Others, the just and believing, those who belong to Christ, will be raised unto glory. The nature of this resurrection will be like a seed that is sown and dies, and is raised, according to its kind, in newness of life. The resurrection body of believers will be conformed to the glory of Christ’s. This body will not be wholly dissimilar to the present body. There will be similarity and continuity. It will be the body as it has now been raised or glorified, not an altogether new and unrelated body. Furthermore, it will be a real body, material and fleshly, not immaterial and spiritual in a sense that denies the continuity between the present body and the resurrection body. However, it will be a body so conformed to the image and glory of Christ that no vestige of the power and destructive effects of sin will remain. As the apostle so eloquently puts it at the close of 1 Corinthians 15:

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (vv. 54–57).

The Resurrection/Renewal Of All Things

One of the concomitants of the second advent of Christ is the renewal of all things, the cleansing of this sin-cursed creation and the (re-)creation of a new heaven and earth. Though we will have occasion in a forthcoming article to consider this event, the relation of the resurrection of the body to this renewal of the creation merits brief attention here. The kind of continuity between the pre- and postresurrection body of the believer that we have discussed in the preceding finds its counterpart in the continuity between the present and the renewed creation.

In the biblical understanding of the future, the resurrection glory of the believer will coincide with what might be called the resurrection glory of the new creation. Not only do these realities coincide, but they are also closely linked in their significance. If the salvation of believers includes the restoration of body and soul to a state of integrity and wholeness, then it must also include the full restoration of the creation. Just as man was originally formed from the dust of the earth and placed within the creation-temple of God in which he was called to serve and glorify the Creator, so also will man in redemption be restored to a place of life and service, under the headship and dominion of the Second Adam, in a newly cleansed creation temple.

For this reason, Romans 8:18–23 describes the creation as being under the same “slavery of corruption” that afflicts believers in their present bodies of humiliation. The term used to describe the corruption of creation in Romans 8 is used in 1 Corinthians 15:42 and 50 to describe the corruption of the body. Accordingly, the creation’s present groaning under the power and curse of sin mirrors the groaning of the believer. The creation itself likewise waits eagerly for the revelation of the sons of God, because the redemption of God’s children is a redemption in which the creation itself participates! The future liberation of creation from its present corruption and bondage will occur only in conjunction with the believer’s liberation from corruption and death. The link between the resurrection of the believer and the renewal of the creation is an intimate one. The renewal of the creation is the only context or environment within which the resurrection glory of believers in fellowship with Christ can be appreciated and understood. Without the glorification of the creation, the glorification of the new humanity in Christ would be an isolated and strange event.

This intimate link between the believer’s resurrection and the renewal of the creation allows us to see the unity between what we have called individual and general eschatology. It also joins together the salvation of the church and her members with the great events of cosmic renewal that will accompany Christ’s return at the end of the age. Indeed, there is a legitimate sense in which the justification and sanctification of the believer find their parallels in the justification and sanctification of the heavens and earth in the new creation. Just as the Lord declared the first creation in its state of integrity very good (Gen. 1:31), so the renewed creation will be worthy of the same judgment. And just as the first creation was perfect and holy in its consecration to the Lord, so the renewed creation will be one “wherein dwells righteousness” (cf. 2 Peter 3:10–13). Justified and sanctified saints will dwell then in a justified and sanctified creation. A people holy unto the Lord, a royal priesthood, will enjoy fellowship with the Lord in the sanctuary of His renewed creation. [6]

A Recent Debate

There are two further matters that I will address regarding the resurrection of the body. The first matter concerns a recent debate within North American evangelicalism regarding the resurrection of the body, a debate provoked by the writings of Murray J. Harris, professor of New Testament exegesis and theology at Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois. This debate has raised afresh and is illustrative of a number of important questions regarding the resurrection of the body. The second matter has to do with some of the pastoral questions that often arise in connection with the biblical teaching regarding the resurrection.

Some of the issues relating to the subject of the resurrection of the body have been highlighted in the debate between Murray J. Harris and Norman Geisler, dean of Southern Evangelical Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina. Not only has Geisler charged that Harris’ doctrine is heretical, but he has also been joined by a number of cult-watching groups that have compared Harris’ views with those of the cults, particularly the Jehovah’s Witnesses. [7]

In a number of works on the subject of the resurrection, Harris has described the resurrection body of Jesus as being “immaterial,” “nonfleshly,” and “invisible.” [8] Though Harris maintains that Jesus’ resurrection body retains its essential humanity, even becoming visible and fleshly at will (for example, in the accounts of Jesus’ postresurrection appearances to the disciples), he insists that the glorified body of Christ is significantly different in kind than the preresurrection body. The personal identity of Jesus Christ, according to Harris, is not imperilled, but through the resurrection the body of Christ has undergone a significant change. To say that the body of the risen Christ is fleshly or comprised of “flesh and bone” strikes Harris as to diminish the significance of the glorification that occurred through His resurrection. [9] Furthermore, based upon his reading of 2 Corinthians 5, Harris argues that believers receive a “resurrection body” during the intermediate state, while their physical bodies remain in the grave. When Christ returns, all believers, whether living or dead, will undergo a resurrection of the body in which their physical bodies will be transformed or raised from the grave as spiritual bodies like that of Christ. [10]

In his criticisms of Harris’ position, Geisler objects both to Harris’ teaching that believers will receive a kind of interim resurrection body between death and resurrection at the last day and to his teaching that the resurrection body is nonfleshly or immaterial. [11]

With respect to Harris’ suggestion that believers receive a kind of interim resurrection body between the time of death and resurrection at the return of Christ, Geisler claims that this is inconsistent with the biblical testimony that the resurrection of the body occurs at the time of Christ’s return. Geisler also notes that, in the passage to which Harris appeals for his idea of an interim resurrection body, 2 Corinthians 5:1–9, the believer’s circumstance at death is one that is variously described as being “naked” (v. 3), “unclothed” (v. 4), or “absent from the body” (v. 8). These descriptions correspond to the common teaching of Scripture that, in the period between death and resurrection at the time of Christ’s return, the believer is in a provisional state of fellowship with the Lord awaiting the future resurrection of the body.

With respect to Harris’ view of the nature of the resurrection body, Geisler objects particularly to three distinct emphases: that the resurrection body of Christ is immaterial, that it is not numerically identical with his pre-resurrection body, [12] and that it is not a part of observable history.” [13] According to Geisler, the biblical testimony and the confessions of the historic Christian church require that we affirm the material—the flesh-and-blood-nature—of the resurrection body. The continuity between the present and resurrection body, furthermore, requires that we speak of the same body which dies being raised from dead. When, for example, in 1 Corinthians 15:35–44, we read of the seed which dies and subsequently bears fruit, then we can only conclude that there is a numerical identity between the body which is sown in dishonor and raised in glory. [14] Furthermore, though it may be true that we do not acknowledge the truth of the resurrection apart from faith—it is not observable to the naked eye in that sense—this does not mean that the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances of Christ are nonobservable features of some kind of trans- or nonhistorical reality.

Perhaps the most critical issue that emerges in the context of this debate between Harris and Geisler has to do with the confessions of the historic Christian church. Do these confessions tell us anything about the resurrection and the nature of the resurrection body that might help to clarify this debate and determine whose view lies closer to the truth? Since I have elsewhere dealt with the biblical witness regarding the resurrection of the body, I will restrict myself in evaluating this debate to an appeal to the historic creeds of the churches.

In my judgment, the confessions do provide us with considerable help at this point and generally tend to favor the position espoused by Geisler in this debate. Most of us are familiar with the article in the Apostles’ Creed that says, “I believe in... the resurrection of the body.” What we often do not know, however, is that the historic language of this creed was that of the resurrection of the flesh. [15] The language with which we are familiar, though unobjectionable and true in its own right, became the received text of the creed only in 1543. In the original language of this creed, the church deliberately sought to oppose any gnosticizing or spiritualizing tendency to minimize the reality of the resurrection. The Belgic Confession, one the great confessions of the Protestant Reformation, affirms that “all the dead shall be raised out of the earth, and their souls joined and united with their proper bodies in which they formerly lived” (Article 37, emphasis mine). In the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, Article 4, “Of the resurrection of Christ,” we read:

Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sits, until he returns to judge all men at the last day. [16]

Similarly, the Westminster Larger Catechism, in its exposition of the resurrection of Christ, declares the following:

Christ was exalted in his resurrection, in that, not having seen corruption in death... and having the very same body in which he suffered, with the essential properties thereof (but without mortality, and other common infirmities belonging to this life), really united to his soul, he rose again from the dead the third day by his own power (Q. & A. 52, emphasis mine).

A cursory reading of these classic confessional statements regarding the resurrection of the body, particularly the resurrection of Christ, clearly shows their teaching to be that the resurrection body is substantially the same as the present body, at least in so far as it is material, or flesh and blood. The properties belonging naturally to the body remain true of the resurrection body, though all of those features of the “body of our humiliation” (Phil. 3:21) that are owing to sin and God’s curse are utterly removed. The viewpoint espoused by Harris, in other words, can find little or no support in the language and viewpoint of the historic confessions of the church. Consequently, the evidence seems to support the argument of Geisler that Harris’ position deviates significantly from the orthodoxy of the historic church. To teach that the resurrection body is immaterial, that it is not comprised of flesh and blood, that it is not the same or proper body of the dead, now raised in glory, and that it is unobservable and invisible—to teach any one, let alone all, of these emphases, is to compromise in important ways the doctrine of Scripture and the church. [17]

Pastoral Questions Regarding The Resurrection Of The Body

When we consider the Bible’s teaching regarding the resurrection of the body, many pastoral questions arise. Most believers, when they face the reality of their own death or the death of fellow believers, confront questions of a pastoral character that are unavoidable. These questions, among others, are: What do the Reformed confessions say about the resurrection of the body?

What implications does the confession of the resurrection have for the way Christian believers should treat and regard the bodies of those who are deceased? Will the resurrection body be sufficiently similar to our present bodies that they will be recognizably ours? What about the resurrection of bodies which have been utterly destroyed through cremation or some other means? And what about the resurrection of those who die in infancy, or whose bodies (and minds) were deformed or handicapped through illness and disease?

Rather than ignore these questions, I would like to conclude our treatment of the resurrection of the body by identifying some of these questions and offering tentative answers. There is, of course, great risk that, in asking and answering these questions, we go beyond what is taught in the Scriptures. However, many of these questions may be answered in terms of the Bible’s teaching we have summarized and those “good and necessary” consequences that follow from its teaching.

How Should We Regard The Body Of Deceased Believers?

One question that often surfaces in the face of the death of believers is: How should we understand or regard the body of deceased believers? Sometimes this question arises in the context of considering cremation or other alternatives to burial. On other occasions this question is provoked by the way some comfort fellow believers at a funeral home viewing with such words as, “This is not your loved one, but only a body.” When this kind of comfort is extended to believers, it is prompted by a genuine desire to assure those who mourn that death does not disrupt the fellowship we have with Christ, but ushers believers into the presence of the Lord with whom they are now “at home.” However, it suggests something about the body of the person who has died that may not be altogether consistent with the hope for the resurrection of the body.

Upon the basis of our understanding of the Bible’s teaching regarding the resurrection, it seems to follow that Christians ought to treat the body of a deceased believer with the utmost respect and care. The way we view and handle, even the way in which we lovingly commit the body of a believer to the grave by way of a committal service, should testify to our convictions about the resurrection of the body. Though I do not wish here to go into the question of the legitimacy of cremation, it should not surprise us that this practice in modern times has its roots often in an unbelieving denial of the resurrection of the body. Furthermore, to say that the body of a believer is only a body, that it is in no respect to be identified with the one who has died, is perhaps misleading. Because our redemption includes the restoration and reintegration of soul and body, the body remains an essential part of our identity. The comfort which is ours in the face of death is not simply that we go to be with the Lord, but that we anticipate seeing God “in our flesh” (cf. job 19:26).

Support for this way of regarding the bodies of deceased believers is found in a remarkable statement in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. & A. 86). Speaking of the communion in glory of Christ and those who are united to Him, this catechism makes the following affirmation:

The communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death, is, in that their souls are then made perfect in holiness, and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ, and rest in their graves as in their beds, till at the last day they be again united to their souls.

Will The Resurrection Body Be Recognizably Our Own?

A question that sometimes arises in connection with the resurrection of the body and the final state is: Will the resurrection body be recognizable? Sometimes it is maintained that there will be no recognition of fellow believers in the new heavens and earth because this would be incompatible with the unimpaired joy of the final state. The recognition of one another, so it is argued, requires the sad remembrance of sins committed in this present life and call attention to the absence of some who were not saved. Furthermore, some appeal to Jesus’ teaching in the gospels that in the kingdom of heaven “they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). If there were such continuity between the present and resurrection body that believers would be recognizable to each other, then this would not only imply the remembrance of the sins and shortcomings of this life, but it would also distract from the kind of exclusive attachment to Christ, surpassing all earthly relationships (including marriage and family relationships) as we now experience them. Doesn’t the language of this passage—they “are like the angels”—require the conclusion that the resurrection body will be so unlike the present body as to be unrecognizable?

None of these arguments, however, can withstand careful scrutiny. When Jesus speaks, for example, of believers in the resurrection being “like the angels,” the point of comparison given in the context has to do with marriage and marriage relationships. Because there will be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, those who are raised in the resurrection will be in this sense like the angels. This should not be understood, however, to deny the continuing reality of the created difference between male and female. Nor does it require the conclusion that the personal identity of believers, including their bodily form and uniqueness, will be substantially altered. The biblical testimony regarding the resurrection appearances of our Lord Jesus Christ convincingly demonstrates that He was recognizable to the disciples. To maintain that the resurrection body would not be recognizably or identifiably our own militates against the biblical teaching of continuity between the present and resurrection body. Strictly speaking, were believers in the resurrection unrecognizable to one another in the wholeness of their persons, they would literally cease to be the persons they presently are! This would mean that, in the resurrection, our persons are not restored or healed, but replaced by persons whose identity and form is wholly different than our present identity and form. [18]

Undoubtedly, it is difficult for us to imagine how believers can enjoy fellowship with each other in the eternal state, recognizing each other in the state of glorification, without their joy being impaired by the remembrance of sin in this present life. It is also somewhat difficult to imagine a circumstance in which, though family and marriage relationships in this life are not forgotten or unknown in the life to come, the institutions of marriage and family do not continue as they now exist. But these difficulties notwithstanding, there are ample biblical and confessional reasons to insist that in the resurrection there will be a mutual recognition and fellowship among believers and with Christ that will be the perfection, not the denial, of this present life.

What About The Resurrection Of Bodies That Have Been Utterly Destroyed?

In the light of a number of my comments in the preceding, there may be some who are asking the question: What about the resurrection of bodies that have been utterly destroyed? If the resurrection body is in substantial continuity with the present body, if it is the “selfsame body,” to use the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, how can that be in the case of bodies that have been utterly destroyed through one or another means? Indeed, the decay of the body after death, its return to the dust whence it came, compels the conclusion that, in many cases, the resurrection of the body represents a kind of act on God’s part that is tantamount to a new creation out of nothing.

If I may be permitted the use of some rather abstract language at this juncture, the difficulty this question poses has to do with whether the material “particles” or constituents of the present body must be identical with those of the resurrection body. Nothing in the biblical doctrine of the resurrection of the body requires that this be the case. It may be the case—after all, it is certainly possible that God could form the resurrection body from the same, identical particles as the present body. But this need not be the case in order for there to be a substantial and personal identity between the resurrection body and the body of the present. If I may be permitted an analogy, we commonly regard our bodies as the selfsame bodies, even though they undergo considerable change because of age and infirmities, even being comprised of wholly new cells every number of years! If our present bodies are one and the same with our bodies many years ago, then there does not seem to be any problem with an affirmation of the resurrection of the proper bodies of those whose earthly bodies have been wholly destroyed.

What About The Bodies Of Unborn Children, Infants Or Those Who Die Prematurely?

Another question that can arise in a pastoral context among believers is: What about the bodies of unborn children, or of infants and others who die prematurely? This question is related to a more fundamental question, namely, are believers justified in being confident of their salvation? [19] However, I will restrict my comments to the issue of the resurrection of the bodies of such children. With respect to the resurrection of the body, the specific focus of this question is upon the kind of body with which such children will be raised. Though these children die in a state of immature development, physically and otherwise, will they be raised bodily in maturity?

If believers may be confident of the salvation of such children, then it follows that they too will share in the resurrection of the body. Furthermore, since the final state is one of complete perfection and glorification, it must be the case that all who share in this perfection, including that aspect of it known as the resurrection, will do so in a state of full maturity. There will not be anything, in the final state of God’s eternal kingdom, like the process of growth and maturation as we now know it. Just as they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, so there will be no distinction between adult and child, between mature and immature, at least not as we now know these distinctions. Hard as it may be for us to imagine or conceive, we should be confident as believers that we will enjoy fellowship with all the saints, including those children who die under the circumstances described, in the fullness of mature and perfected life.

What About The Bodies Of Those With Severe Physical And Mental Impairments?

One final question that is of a pastoral nature respecting the resurrection of the body is: What about the bodies of those with severe physical and mental impairments? Obviously, this is a question that many believers ask when they and fellow believers witness the ravages of sin and the curse upon these bodies of our humiliation.

To this question, we have an answer in the familiar words of Psalm 103:2–3, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases.” When the Lord wipes away every tear from our eyes, when He expels from His sanctified creation every remainder of sin and its curse, when He grants us bodies like unto the glorified body of the Lord Jesus Christ—then we may be confident that the resurrection body, raised in glory, will be beautiful in appearance and form, rid of every defect and impairment which sin and the curse have brought. Though it is unwise to speculate carelessly about all the features of the resurrection body, it seems to me to follow from the biblical testimony that these bodies will be altogether lovely in every appropriate sense. What that means precisely, no one knows. But that it will be so seems undeniable.

Conclusion

With these pastoral questions addressed, we come to the close of our consideration of the biblical teaching regarding the resurrection of the body. Without a doubt, we have not been able to do this teaching justice. The testimony of the Scriptures to the certainty of the resurrection is clear. However, many things are not told us that we might like to know. It may even be that, in addressing some of these pastoral questions, I have exceeded the boundaries of what is given to us to know in the Scriptures.

Perhaps enough has been said, however, to appreciate afresh the hope of which the apostle Peter speaks:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3–5).

One conclusion that cannot be denied is that the resurrection of the body strikingly confirms the Christian doctrine of the integrity and goodness of our creatureliness. When the triune God redeems His people, He redeems them body and soul. Redemption does not deny but rather restores our creatureliness.

About the Author

Dr. Cornelis P. Venema is the dean of faculty and professor of doctrinal studies at Mid America Reformed Seminary, Dyer, Indiana. He is the author of But For the Grace of God: An Exposition of the Canons of Dordt and What We Believe: An Exposition of the Apostle’s Creed. He is married and has four children. This is his first contribution to Reformation & Revival Journal. This article, which is part of a larger on-going work on the subject of eschatology, has been published in a different form in the magazine The Outlook.

Notes

1. Charles Hodge, “Concomitants of the Second Advent,” in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 3:837–80.
2. In many dualistic worldviews which sharply distinguish the spiritual and the material (Manichaeism, some forms of ancient Greek philosophy), and in many monistic worldviews that deny the ultimate reality of the material world (Gnosticism, Hinduism, Buddhism), the teaching of a resurrection of the body has no legitimate or proper place. The biblical teaching of the resurrection of the body has an appropriate home within the framework of the biblical understanding of creation and redemption as a restoration and renewal, and not a denial, of creation.
3. For example, the Bible says very little about the resurrection of unbelievers other than to affirm that it will occur. That unbelievers will be raised has already been shown from the passages cited above (e.g., John 5:28–29; Acts 24:15). This resurrection is not an act of Christ as Redeemer, but an act of Christ as Judge. Unbelievers are raised in order that they might be judged and consigned to punishment. Believers are raised in order that they might fully share in all the blessings of salvation that are theirs through fellowship with Christ, the Mediator.
4. See e.g.: Exodus 3:6 (cf. Matt. 22:29–32); Psalm 16:10; 17:15; 49:15; 73:24–25; Proverbs 23:14; Hosea 6:1–2; Ezekiel 37:1–13. Without denying the progressive disclosure of the truth regarding the resurrection, or the radical significance of Christ’s victory over death in His resurrection, it may be said that the great comfort of the covenant of grace, salvation and life in fellowship with the living Lord, could never be diminished or ultimately vanquished in death, the wages of sin. However dim and sketchy may have been their view of it, Old Testament saints are typified in the faith of Abraham who “was looking for the city, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10; cf. vv. 13–16, 19).
5. Some of these differences are suggested in the accounts in the Gospel of John. When Mary Magdalene first recognized the risen Lord and clung to Him, John records the Lord’s words to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Subsequently, when the disciples were gathered on the evening of the day of Christ’s resurrection and “the doors were shut... for fear of the Jews,” Jesus suddenly comes and stands in their midst. Similarly, in the other accounts of Jesus’ resurrection appearances, He comes and goes at will. Too much should not be made of these accounts, so far as the nature of Christ’s resurrection body is concerned. The circumstances are unique. Christ is in a transitional period between the time of His resurrection and ascension/glorification at the Father’s right hand. However, these accounts allow us to see that it is the same Jesus who died who is now alive. And yet, He is now existing in the glory and power of the resurrection.
6. Norman Shepherd, in his article “The Resurrections of Revelation 20” (Westminster Theological Journal, 37:1 [Fall, 1974], 34–43), links the first resurrection enjoyed by believers in fellowship with Christ with the implied second resurrection which he takes to be the creation of the new heavens and earth. This linking of two resurrections, one of the believer and the other of the creation itself, is warranted by the teaching of passages like Romans 8:18–23 (compare 2 Peter 3:13; Rev. 21:1; 1 Cor. 15:42, 50).
7. For a brief and popular account of the debate, see: “Trinity Prof Attacked for Resurrection Teaching,” Christianity Today 36:13 (November 9, 1992), 62; and “The Mother of All Muddles,” Christianity Today 37:4 (April 5, 1993), 62–66. It should be observed that Harris has been exonerated of the charge of heresy by his institution, denomination (Evangelical Free), and a committee of evangelical theologians. In this same issue of Christianity Today Harris adds: “But let me go on record as saying if I were starting over again, there are words that I would not use. One is the word immaterial, because it’s so open to misunderstanding; and another would certainly be that phrase essentially immaterial, because its like a red flag to a neo-Thomist.” A Reaffirmation statement was issued in 1996 by the Evangelical Free Church of America which basically resolved this long controversy. Norman Geisler has noted that the matter has been resolved, in his estimation, by the EFCA Reaffirmation Statement, cf. Christian Research Journal, Summer 1996, 45.
8. Harris has written extensively on the subject of the resurrection, the following sources being most important: Raised Immortal: Resurrection and Immortality in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985); Easter in Durham: Bishop Jenkins and the Resurrection (Exeter: Paternoster, 1985); and From Grave to Glory (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990).
9. The following statements from Harris’s Raised Immortal are fairly representative of his view: “An analysis of the Gospels suggests that the risen body of Jesus was unlike his pre-Easter body in some important respects. To begin with he was no longer bound by material or spatial limitations” (p. 53); “The Resurrection marked his entrance upon a spiritual mode of existence, or, to borrow Pauline terminology, his acquisition of a ‘spiritual body,’ which was both immaterial and invisible yet capable of interaction with the world of time and space” (57–58).
10. Raised Immortal, 44, 100.
11. I am summarizing Geisler’s criticism of Harris’ view from the following of his writings: The Battle for the Resurrection (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1989); and “In Defense of the Resurrection: A Reply to Criticisms, A Review Article,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 34:2 (June 1991),243–61.
12. Though this language tends to be rather abstract and obscure, the point Geisler is making is that the body of the risen Christ is not another body than the one in which He was crucified. Though through the resurrection, this body has been glorified, it remains the same (numerically identical) body.
13. “In Defense of the Resurrection,” 247–48.
14. This is what Geisler has in mind when he uses the awkward expression, “the numerical identity” of the pre- and postresurrection body. He is not insisting that the body in each instance be made up of the same material “particles,” though this is possible and held by some Christian theologians. He is only insisting that it is the same body, that there is an identity of person, also bodily, between the believer before and after he undergoes the resurrection of the body.
15. In the Latin versions of the creed, the term is carnis. In the Greek versions, the term is sarx. See: Phillip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House reprint, 1931), 2:45–46.
16. Mark A Noll, ed., Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 214.
17. This being the case, it is troubling to note that even so trustworthy an expositor of biblical truth as J. I. Packer maintains that Harris’ view is “orthodox” and in accord with “Scripture and with the consensus of the world church.” In this observation, Packer glosses over the language of the confessions that I have cited above, especially the language which speaks of the “proper” or “same” body, as well as of the “flesh and bones” of the risen Christ. This is the language of historic confessional orthodoxy, and it is precisely this language that Harris seems to repudiate.
18. See: William Hendriksen, The Bible on the Life Hereafter (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1959), 66–70; J. Aspinwall Hodge, Recognition after Death (New York: American Tract Society, 1889). In the second interesting little book, Hodge addresses this pastoral question and convincingly shows that communion with the Lord and with each other depends upon our unique identities as persons comprised of soul and body Some Bible passages seem to imply rather clearly that this is the case: Luke 16:19–31; Matthew 8:11; 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20; Isaiah 14:12.
19. For an affirmation of the salvation of the children of believing parents, see the Canons of Dort, 1:17. The Westminster Confession speaks differently (though not contradictorily) of the salvation of “elect infants” in Chapter X, iii.

Training Disciples For Discernment In The World

By Denis D. Haack

Essential to Christian discipleship in a fallen world is the need to be discerning—the ability as God’s people to faithfully apply the truth of His Word to the issues, challenges, truth-claims, and values that we meet in an increasingly pluralistic culture. “I want you to be wise in what is good,” Paul wrote in Romans 16:19, “and innocent in what is evil.” Earlier in the same epistle the apostle warned his readers of the danger of being squeezed into the world’s mold; if they were to live transformed lives which please God, their minds must be renewed (Rom. 12:1–2). The church is to be a discerning community within the pluralistic postmodern culture at the end of the twentieth century. Christian leaders have a responsibility to train the believers under their care to be discerning. In both church and home, discernment—like so many other spiritual disciplines—is a skill which can be modeled, taught, learned, and encouraged.

Jay Adams defines discernment as “the ability to distinguish God’s thoughts and ways from all others,” [1] and in our pluralistic world there are myriad “others” vying for acceptance. Discernment is important not simply because it identifies nontruth, though that is vital for the health of God’s people; discernment is important because Jesus Christ is Lord. Since He is King, and since the Scriptures speak to all of created reality, we must live intentionally under His authority, bringing every aspect of our life and culture into submission to Him. Our faithfulness to His Word witnesses to the reality of His reign as King.

Sometimes discernment is relatively easy. There is no need, for example, to pray about whether to rob a bank. Stealing is forbidden, and the commands are easily found in any concordance. The process seems so easy and the answer so immediate that we usually do not even think of this in terms of “exercising discernment,” but it is: We have applied the truth of God’s Word to an issue of life in a fallen world.

Sometimes, however, discernment is less easy. The issues involved are more difficult to sort out, and the concordance seems to be of less immediate help. Consider, for example, Christians whose vocation is in sales. They will likely receive training in sales techniques by which they can increase their effectiveness. Sales techniques, however, like every other part of life, are never neutral, and the training will be related to what the trainers believe about who people are, what life is about, and how success is measured. Such assumptions can be subtle, unspoken, and unacknowledged, and that is precisely the challenge. Techniques may be taught which may be effective, but which may also be based on consumerist values which turn out to be repugnant to the Christian worldview, blurring, perhaps, the line between sales and manipulation. The use of this illustration is not to single out those who are in sales—which can be a legitimate and honorable vocation—for every vocation in a fallen world poses similar challenges for believers. The point, rather, is that the issues to be discerned can be difficult, and require more skill than simply the ability to use a concordance.

As difficult as this might be at times, however, discernment is not an esoteric skill which can be mastered only by an elite few. It is, rather, an issue of stewardship. The goal is to be faithful in the ordinary and routine of our lives and calling before God. We do not have to sort out the medical ethics of genetic therapy, for example, unless—and this is the point—our calling is in medicine, or our lives somehow intersect this sphere of medical science. Though Christian discernment is the responsibility of each believer, it is a task which must be pursued in the midst of and as a community. Not only can we help sharpen one another’s thinking and identify blindspots, we can learn from one another. As each believer seeks to weave together belief and behavior, the community of God’s people is thinking and living Christianly together across a wide range of callings and issues. Further, the need to be discerning is not restricted to the more obvious and public issues such as abortion, physician-assisted suicide, or homosexual rights. In fact, these issues do not represent the real challenge since they are so obvious and so often addressed. The real challenge, rather, is to be discerning so that we can be faithful in the fulfillment of our calling, in the ordinary details of our lives that often seem so obvious we rarely reflect upon them. And finally, though the skill of discernment needs to be honed over a lifetime so we can be faithful even in the midst of complex issues, it is also, in its simplest form, a skill we can pass on to our children.

In a subjective and pluralistic culture, Christians who have not developed skill in discernment may become reactionary. Desiring to be holy but lacking the facility to think creatively in biblical categories, they often respond with little more than gut reactions to the challenges that confront them in an amoral society. Rather than anticipating and thinking Christianly about ideas, values, and scenarios which they are likely to confront, they are blindsided by the challenge of the moment, and feel pressured to give an instant response. They may not have good and sufficient reasons for their opinion, and they may be unable to relate their conclusions thoughtfully to the Scriptures, but often none of this makes them hesitate in asserting their opinion is “something they have peace about,” and is thus “God’s will.” Such subjectivity is an inadequate basis upon which to define Christian faithfulness. Their hearts are in the right place, but they need to be taught how to love God with their minds as well.

Teaching Christians To Be Discerning

One way to teach believers to be discerning is to help them learn to ask four simple but probing questions. These questions are simple enough to be used with young children, yet probing enough to tackle any issue, no matter how complex. The questions are easy to understand and remember, because they conform to how we naturally tend to learn and to think. Though simple, they involve skills which are not automatic, and so must be modeled, practiced, and learned. They can be asked in any setting: while reading a news magazine, watching a movie, sorting out a challenge to our faith raised by a colleague at work, listening to a lecture, noticing a billboard on the highway. As they are repeated and mastered, the four questions soon become habits of the heart, and act like signposts, a map, a guide to follow to be a discerning disciple. The four discernment questions are these: (1) What is being said? (What are the foundational issues? The secondary issues?) (2) What is a Christian response? (3) Why do we believe the Christian position? (4) How can we live and speak the truth winsomely in our pluralistic society?

Question #1: What is being said? Like the first step in inductive Bible study, the place to begin in Christian discernment is with careful observation. What is being communicated? What values are being assumed or expressed? What questions, ideas, or issues are at stake? What is the message of the movie? What view of sexuality is expressed in the editorial? What is my coworker asking me to affirm? Until we identify what is being said or communicated, we will not be in a position to respond biblically. And like that first skill in Bible study, just because it sounds simple does not mean we are good at it, nor that we cannot improve with practice. It is easy, for example, to go beyond the data at hand, assuming we know far more of the world and life view of the author, or film director, or whatever, than we actually do. Charity, however, demands we stick to the truth, to what ideas, assumptions, or values we actually observe are being communicated. If we need to know more, we can ask questions.

When we ask what is being said, we need to learn to distinguish between foundational and secondary issues. What are the vital ideas or values here, and what is of less importance? This is what Paul did in Athens. [2] Though he was careful, for example, to distinguish between what he meant by “God” and the “images” of the Athenians (a foundational issue), he was willing to quote a Greek poet and agree with him, even though the poet was speaking of Zeus, not the God of Scripture (a secondary issue). Likewise, Christians must learn to differentiate, when responding to an editorial, for example, between the assertion that human beings are products of chance (foundational), and an argument to expand the welfare state (secondary)—and the fact that they feel equally strongly about both issues is quite beside the point. If we fail to distinguish between foundational and secondary issues, not only can we be needlessly sidetracked by all sorts of tangents, we may give the impression the gospel teaches things that it, in fact, does not.

Question #2: What is a Christian response? Once we have identified what is being said or communicated, we can begin to respond Christianly. Here we move beyond observation to the question of truth. This involves, naturally enough, two further questions: Where do we agree? and Where do we disagree? Given the tendency to be reactionary, it seems wise to take them in this order. First, identify where there is agreement and only then begin to identify the points of disagreement. I always insist on this order when leading discussions, and participants often remark that doing so taught them not only a great deal about themselves but also reminded them that non-Christian worldviews contain elements of truth. After all, even if they do not acknowledge it, non-Christians are made in God’s image and live in God’s world.

What we are seeking is a Christian response, not necessarily the Christian response. On creedal or worldview issues of the first order (Is there a God? Who is Jesus? What is the nature of mankind’s dilemma? etc.) we can express the Christian position. On secondary policy issues, however (How should welfare be reformed? etc.), we are seeking to think Christianly about issues not specifically commanded in Scripture. There is room for honest disagreement, and a need for humility and charity. Just because we have been given truth in Scripture does not mean all our opinions are equally true, though hopefully all our opinions will flow from a mind and imagination steeped in the Scriptures.

It is often the case that as believers ask this second question they begin to realize they are not sure what a Christian response actually consists of. They may not be sure, or may disagree over what the Bible teaches or how the Christian worldview applies, or what the implications of God’s law are for the issue at hand. Bible study should then be scheduled. The thing to say when we do not know is, “Good question. I don’t know, but let’s find out.” Discernment, unlike gut reactions, is a process.

Question #3: Why do we believe the Christian position? If the Scriptures give us truth about life and reality, it will be possible to delineate reasons to believe it. The same God who spoke the universe into existence also speaks in the Bible. Since all truth is God’s truth, we should be able to identify good and sufficient reasons to believe it. Here discernment blends into apologetics, and both the glory and the practicality of truth become evident.

In raising three children, we found that this third question was often foremost in their minds. They often raised doubts, not primarily because they were doubting what they had been taught, but because they wanted reasons to believe—reasons which they could give when challenged. At stake, in other words, was not simply the question of truth (the basic issue in question #2) but of plausibility, both of which are essential to belief and increasingly under attack in a pluralistic culture.

Question #4: How can we live and speak the truth winsomely in our pluralistic society? It is not enough to think Christianly, we must also live Christianly. Here we have come full circle, since we began with some issue or value or question in a fallen world, and now, at the end, we are talking about living out and witnessing to the truth in a fallen world. Dealing with this question is crucial for several reasons. First, the culture is undergoing change from modernity to “postmodernity” and believers need to be challenged to think creatively about reaching their neighbors and colleagues in a postmodern culture. Second, it is easy to live simply as middle-class Americans, assuming that middle-class values, behaviors, and ideas partake of godliness, when our true standard must be God’s Word. Sometimes in the discernment process we discover we have been living or speaking less than faithfully. And third, the answer to this question is not always immediately obvious. It is relatively easy to discuss the Christian perspective on homosexual behavior in a Sunday school class, for example; it is far more difficult to discuss it over lunch at work. Helping one another bridge that gap, so we can speak without compromise, yet in a way that is carefully phrased so as to be thoughtful, winsome, and understood—whether agreed with or not—is a vital way to serve one another.

Developing Discerning Disciples

Since discernment involves applying the truth of God’s Word to daily life, we do not have to look far to find opportunities to teach and practice the skill. Each person, regardless of his vocation, will have issues confront him about which he needs to reflect biblically. The community of God’s people should be the place where such challenges can be brought so that through prayer, Bible study, and discussion some resolution can be sought.

Pastors, teachers, and parents should be sure that modeling discernment is a regular part of their discipling ministry. By raising such issues, and helping your people see how you are working through the four discernment questions—or why you will have to do more study before completing the process—is an exhibition of practical godliness that will both encourage believers to be faithful even as it illustrates how to work through difficult questions with integrity.

Opportunities can also be provided where Christians in community can practice developing skill in discernment by working through the four questions together. Using ordinary issues that are common to life in our pluralistic society, we can foster Bible study, prayer, and discussion which are centered on the application of the Scriptures to life. Such exercises can be especially helpful for training purposes when they are interactive in small group settings, so that people are involved in the process instead of simply passively watching others work through the four questions. If such settings are safe, where members can explore a wide variety of ideas and options—including ones that turn out to be mistaken—not only will the discussions be lively, but community will deepen as they seek to identify the truth and apply it. In such settings, when the group discovers it is unsure of what the Bible teaches that is applicable, the Bible study which results is often pursued with a refreshing level of energy and eagerness.

A few “ordinary issues from everyday life” that can provide exercises in discernment include:

Popular films. Many movies raise issues worth discussing, giving us a window of insight into the world and life view of those who do not share our deepest convictions. Though the choice of the film will depend on the group, the movies in this category could include Searching for Bobby Fischer, Dead Man Walking, Phenomenon, Quiz Show, A Man for All Seasons, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Howard’s End, Contact, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Amistad, Reality Bites, and Good Will Hunting.

Popular Music. Popular culture is of immense importance in our postmodern world, wielding enormous impact, especially on the younger generation. Listening to their music and asking them questions not only assures them we are taking them seriously, it helps us provide training in discernment in an area that is central to their world. [3]

Common scenarios. We can also provide case studies in discernment that arise from everyday life. As I have raised such scenarios over the past several years, the common response has been interest in working through such exercises, with numerous believers saying they have faced similar (or identical) situations in the past but are unhappy at the response they made at the time. Whether the source is the media, listening to the struggles of our people, or simply imagining situations which are likely to arise, the pluralism of the surrounding culture promises an unceasing supply.

Two simple but provocative examples would include: (1) An acquaintance from work requests your help in moving into a new apartment. After checking your calendar, you agree, pleased at the opportunity to build a closer relationship with an unbeliever. You then learn he is moving in with his girlfriend. What do you do?

(2) Mike Warnke, a popular “Christian comedian,” has told the story of his spiritual pilgrimage at youth rallies and on tape. Hundreds of young people claim to have come to faith as a result of his witness. Now it has been revealed that Warnke’s story is a hoax, an elaborate story of drugs and witchcraft which, though compelling, is simply a lie. Should Christians who own Warnke’s tapes be encouraged to destroy them? Since people continue to claim to be helped by the tape recordings of Warnke’s story, are there any conditions under which Warnke’s tapes can be used? What about the tapes which involve Warnke’s comedy routines, but do not include his now discredited story? [4]

Discernment is essential to Christian faithfulness in a fallen world, a skill to be modeled, taught, learned and practiced within the community of God’s people. Even if we think the Christian response should be obvious in some particular instance, helping our people work through the four discernment questions will allow us to, by God’s grace, develop discerning disciples.

About the Author

Denis D. Haack edits Critique, a newsletter designed to help Christians develop skill in discernment. He and his wife, Margie, live in Rochester, Minnesota, and work together in a writing and speaking ministry called Ransom Fellowship.

Notes

1. A Call to Discernment: Distinguishing Truth from Error in Today’s Church (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1987), 46.
2. Acts 17.
3. For a study of discernment specifically applied to pop music, including contemporary Christian music—an area desperately in need of discernment—see the author’s article “Having Ears to Hear: A Practical Guide to Discernment in Contemporary Music” in Reformation & Revival Journal (4:4, Fall 1995), 91–104.
4. Case studies in discernment appear regularly in Critique, a newsletter I edit which is designed to help Christians develop skill discernment. A free sample can be requested from Ransom Fellowship, 1150 West Center Street, Rochester, Minnesota 55902.

This World Is My Home

By Thomas N. Smith

It sure feels like home. From the air we breathe to the reassuring pull of the earth’s gravity, from the delight we take in the perfect harmony between the colors of nature to the pleasure given by the sound of rain on leaves or the sight of snowflakes the size of goose feathers, we feel at home here. This is our home, our place. Air, water, sunshine, breeze, the smell of flowers or leaf-rot, the touch of familiar skin or flannel sheets, the wonder of the rainbow’s transcience or the Rocky Mountains’ permanence—all of these, and much more like them, speak comfortingly to us, saying, “You belong here.”

In contrast, we fear and dread the nonearthly. From primeval times, the void, the abyss, the sea, death, and the afterlife have made us humans singularly uncomfortable. (And with the advent of extra-terrestrial exploration, we may now add deep space to the list.) They are so strange. Something of this can be felt even in this world. Anyone who has traveled for the first time to a foreign country knows what I mean. The very air and light are unfamiliar. The sun rises and sets in odd directions. Even familiar things like Coke taste different. All of this produces a sensation of unease, of not being “at home,” and when our stay in such places is prolonged beyond our wishes, the inevitable “homesickness” sets in.

None of this comes as a surprise to the Christian. After all, God created both the world and us. Indeed, He created each for the other. Creation is not just a “glorious theater” (Calvin) in which God displays His glory, but a home, well furnished and felicitous in every way, for His human sons and daughters. This understanding is at the heart of the Christian assertion, “the Redeemer is the Creator.” There is no radical disjunction between Christ, who redeemed the world, and Christ, who created it. Thus, there is none between the creation and man, the image of God. Early in Christian history this point was debated and established. Against Marcion and the Gnostics, who posited a radical chasm between God and creation, the Fathers maintained the biblical testimony to their essential unity and harmony, and this without making the creation an extension of the divine essence. Amen! God has created man and the world, so that “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God,” and “the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:19, 21). In both divine acts, creation and new creation, man and the world belong with each other.

The incarnation of the Son of God also bears witness to this oneness and harmony. While allowing fully for the amazing self-abnegation of the Son in coming into a fallen creation and assuming a human nature and body “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” there is a rightness, a naturalness to all this in that the Son who is the image of God should assume the nature that is itself, from the beginning of creation, this image. He thus became “like His brothers in all things,” living in their world, facing their temptations, experiencing their joys, dying their death—in short, a human being like them in every respect, with the exception of sin.

Another point may also be made (and the early Church Fathers got lots of mileage out of this). The elements of the sacraments are earthly things: water, bread, and wine. Perhaps the closest we get to heaven in this life is our participation in these mysteries. Yet, here, in the sacraments, heaven chooses to come to us in these earthy forms! Once more there is no radical disjunction, but, rather, a glorious union between heaven and earth, between the reality that is unseen and that which is seen, tasted, and touched.

All of which leads us to investigate further just what the relationship of the Christian, as a human being and as a saint, is to this present creation.

Fallen, But Still “Very Good”

Let me begin by saying: The creation, though under the curse of the Creator, is still “very good.” This is so because it is still God’s creation. He who pronounced it from the beginning “good” and “very good” (Gen. 1), still maintains it as His good creation. Even under the curse, the world is the subject of God’s love. “The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and kind in all His deeds” (Ps. 145:17).

Nowhere in the Bible is this more evident than in Psalm 104. This great Psalm displays God’s “tender mercies over all His works” in declaring His providential care and control over this world. This providence is rooted in the original act of creation (104:1–9). We can scarcely miss the delight which God Himself has in His incessant work with the various aspects of the world. From the rushing torrents of the mountain streams (104:10–11) to the frolicking whales in the seas (104:26), God is here in this world, working, providing, caring, delighting in His creation.

And the darker side is not absent either. The world of Psalm 104 is a fallen world. The dust of death is present (Ps. 104:29 with Gen. 3:19). The beast of prey sheds blood here (104:21). The “unclean” coney and stork (104:17–18 with Lev. 11:5–19) are mentioned. But, God the Creator of all things is busily caring for them all, delighting in them all (104:31–32). Man is here, too. Fallen man, laboring man (104:23). But, though fallen, he is the recipient of God’s tender care, being supplied not just with those things necessary for existence, but with that which enhances this existence with joy (104:14–15).

Psalm 104 is foundational for any view of life in the world that claims to be Christian. It demands the conclusion: “This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget that though the wrong seems oft’ so strong, God is the Ruler yet.”

I must look at this world as God’s world. I must look at nature, even in its crueler and darker manifestations as under His rule and care. I must see the world, not as totally alienated from God nor from myself. I must see myself as not entirely alienated from the creation. As God rejoices in this creation, I must through prayerful meditation join Him in His joy (Ps. 104:31, 34). Such a vision of the creation and my place in it with all its creatures, its wonders and its mysteries, calls forth praise and thanksgiving, worship and song! “Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord” (104:35). This is because this world, though fallen, is still good and under the care of the good Lord.

For Our Joyful Use

The very idea that we should enjoy ourselves in this world is alien to certain forms of Christian belief. Though often parodied as the inevitable conclusion of Christian orthodoxy, this kind of thinking has been evident enough in every age and in every quarter of the church as to require our attention. Parody or not, the fact is this: certain Christians and certain forms of Christian belief and practice have too often presented true Christianity as a “killjoy” thing. From the asceticism of Augustine to the monasticism of the medieval church, from the morbid self denial of a David Brainard to the endless self-doubts of a young Jim Elliott, the fear of a good time has too often distorted Christian self-denial and biblical mortification of sin into a denial of the good creation and of the pleasure principle which God has built into it.

Perhaps our own day is a dangerous time to make this point. A pleasure-driven religion seems to dominate many, if not most in our day, even among so-called evangelical Christians. But, even this mutation is likely to be an overreaction to a Gnostic asceticism of only a few decades ago. For example, if evangelicals seem to have discovered the pleasure principle in the sexual realm from the 1970s on, this may have been because this was considered taboo among the same subculture up until that time. My own father-in-law was a student at a Bible college in the late 1940s and was told along with the rest of the graduating class by the then dean of men that God had ordained the sexual union between a husband and wife for one purpose only—the procreation of children. Things had changed radically by the time I was a student at that same Bible college in the early ‘70s when the dean of men and the pastor of a leading evangelical church in Chicago openly discussed sexual things with the men. The fact that men by nature tend to become “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” does not negate the fact that pleasure is inherent in the world as God made it and that pleasure in many realms is His gift. Those who pervert the truth are not our teachers.

But, in fairness to all those I have just criticized, I appreciate the fact that sin inclines us human beings to “worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). Most of mankind are “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:4). How can those who are called “out of the world” in the sense of a change of spiritual and moral dimension, live in the world and use the world in a spirit of joyful thanks to God, the Creator? The answer to this question lies in part in the strange Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes has been called everything from “... reasonings about life ... the best (the natural man) can do ...” [1] to a book in which “wisdom with a capital W is impossible....” [2] I believe that Ecclesiastes is the sober reflection of a believer who has looked at life in general and his own life in particular from the standpoint of the world as having been made by the Creator but subjected by Him as judge to cruel vanity on account of man’s sin. As such, meaninglessness, vanity, enigma, injustice, repetitiveness, folly, and madness are woven into the whole of life; they are inescapable. “For who is able to straighten what He has bent?” (Eccl. 7:13). All of which is a commentary on Genesis 3:14–24. To put it bluntly: Life reminds us that God is still mad about Genesis 3. The author of Ecclesiastes has thought long and hard about this, and the book is the sum of his inspired cogitations. It is a jungle out there. Life is hard, unfair, and short. Death is impartial and inevitable. Judgment is certain.

So how shall we then live? We must, as the old people in the mountains of West Virginia say, “take it as it comes.” But, I quickly add, not with the fatalism that too often lurks behind that sentiment. We must accept life with its repetitive cycles (Eccl. 3:1–8), with its toil and sorrows (4:1–8), with its unfairness and injustice (6:1–12; 9:13–18), and its inevitable and cruel end (9:1–6). But because we are the people of God, we accept all these things in a spirit of faith, hope, and joy. Because “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” Ecclesiastes is full of “wisdom with a capital W” (cf. 3:4; 5:7; 8:12; 12:13). From this fear comes confidence in God, a confidence that enables Him to say, in the face of all the contingencies and vicissitudes of life, “Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and may lengthen his life, still I know that it will be well for those who fear God, who fear Him openly” (8:12). He can live in hope and even daring enterprise (11:11). And he can do all of this in the humility that comes from knowing that God’s ways are to him strange, and, often, incomprehensible (11:5; with 3:11).

It is because of this hard-headed faith and hope that the godly man can enjoy the gifts of God in this life “under the sun.” “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen, that it is from the hand of God” (Eccl. 2:24). The pleasures which remain despite the vanity of this present life are gifts of God. He gives them for us to richly enjoy. This is surely behind the apostle’s word in 1 Timothy 6:17. And this emphasis is repeated throughout the book of Ecclesiastes (cf. 3:12–13, 22; 5:18–20; 8:15; 9:7; 12:13).

Nor is this a heedless hedonism. This is not pleasure for pleasure’s sake. No, it is pleasure as received from the hand of God—the God we take utterly seriously in the enigmas of this life and in the judgment to come (Eccl. 3:14, 17; 11:9). Augustine, whom I criticized earlier, was very near to the truth of this book when he said, “Please God and do as you please.” And the anonymous medieval poet who wrote the following was even nearer:

Man:
Fear God,
And be merry.And give not for this world
A cherry

The man who fears the Lord, who lives in light of God’s final judgment, this man only is capable of living in this world, marred as it is by the Fall, subject as it is to God’s curse, and full as it is of God’s good gifts.

Let The User Beware

The Christian has by the Spirit entered into the New Creation; he is, himself, a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). Paul in particular is fond of using creation terminology to describe that amazing thing that has already happened in the lives of Christians (cf. 2 Cor. 4:6; Eph. 2:10; Phil. 1:6; Col. 3:9–10; et. al.). While the new creation is a “not yet” in respect to the present creation and even the Christian’s mortal body, the powers of the age to come have become apparent in the Christian’s moral life. There is a difference between a man who is a Christian and a man who is not. This new reality is an enviable one.

But the Christian finds himself in the unenviable position of living in two ages at the same time, and because of this he finds himself in conflict with himself and with the world he lives in. Body, death, and sin coexist with Spirit, life, and righteousness in the believer and shall do so until “the adoption, that is, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:10; 7:14–25; 8:23).

One of the results of this state of affairs is the fact that the Christian must deal with ever-present lusts. Now, “lusts” in the New Testament cover a much greater scope than our human sexuality. Indeed, to desire to have anything that God has forbidden is, from the standpoint of new covenant ethics, lust. Hence, the recurring warning against these things in our lives (cf. James 1:13–15; 1 Peter 1:13–15; 2 Peter 1:4; Gal. 5:16; 1 John 2:15–17; Rom. 6:12; 13:14; et. al.).

It is just here that we find ourselves at the heart of what makes life in this present creation dangerous for Christian life and perseverance. The Christian is in a world that is good, despite the ever-present reality of God’s curse and the resultant effects of it. But because sin in the form of various lusts is residual in him, the Christian is ever in danger of “fulfilling the lusts of the flesh” through his idolatrous, malicious, and covetous abuse of God’s good gifts. A ready illustration of this is money. Money and what it buys are the gifts of God (Deut. 8:18; Prov. 10:22; Eccl. 6:1). But because of the deceiving and corrupting power of lust, “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10a). Because of the presence of such lusts “some [people] by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang” (1 Tim. 6:10b). Hence Paul’s further warnings regarding this issue in verses 17–19. Yet all this is said in the presence of the truth of verse 17, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.” The problem does not lie in God’s gifts which here are all defined in terms of this world, this creation. Money has no inherent power to corrupt any more than the other things that God gives us. To suggest this, as has been done in recent years by Richard Foster and others, is to fall into the Gnostic heresy. The root of all kinds of evil is a false and malignant love, which is just another way of saying “lust.”

Because of this, the Christian must beware of living in this world and using the good gifts of God while making “no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Rom. 13:14). He must through the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body (Rom 8:13). He must “use the world as though [he] did not make full use of it” (1 Cor. 7:31). He must “guard [himself] from idols” (1 John 5:21).

With this caveat clearly in mind, the believer is ready to live in this world, God’s world, and, as God’s gift, his world. And, without denying the pilgrim nature of his life here, he is not “just passing through” the world. As God’s priesthood, the Christian community is engaged in something far grander and significant.

“Every Bush A Burning Bush And All Ground Holy Ground”

It was the Dutch theologian, preacher, politician, and cultural critic, Abraham Kuyper, who coined the above phrase. To Kuyper, this world is the Christian’s home—not ultimately, but really and presently. One could even say that Kuyper was consumed with this vision of life. Listen to him again: “There is not a single square inch of the whole of human existence over which the risen Christ, who alone is Sovereign, does not say, That is mine!’“ What a different perspective is this from the self-pitying doggerel that whines “This world is not my home, I’m just a-traveling through....” There is firm biblical support for Kuyper’s faith at this point.

Paul, in 1 Timothy 4:1–5, speaks clearly to this matter. In a warning concerning what seems to have been a kind of pre-Gnostic dualism, Paul affirms the goodness of the fallen creation (v. 4), the purpose of God in creating these things to be “received with gratitude” (v. 3), and the propriety of Christian believers using these gifts “by those who believe and know the truth” (v. 3). All of this confirms what I have been maintaining throughout this article.

But there is more to it than this. There is a priestly activity involved in the believer’s use of the everyday blessings of this creation. Because he receives these gifts of God with thanksgiving and in the knowledge that they have come from Him, even these common things become holy. It is consecrated (sanctified) by the Word of God and prayer. Just as the Levitical priesthood consecrated the various offerings and sacrifices by prayer and the command of God under the old covenant, so this new covenant priesthood does the same with “everything created by God” (v. 4). (Cf. 1 Peter 2:5; Heb. 13:15; Rom. 12:1–2; 14:6.) In this manner “every bush becomes a burning bush and every parcel of ground, holy ground.” The effect of this truth simultaneously destroys two impious dualisms in one sweep. First, it destroys the false dualism between the spiritual and the material that was at the base of heretical Gnosticism. Second, it kills the medieval and fundamentalist dualism between the sacred calling and the secular life. Under the call of grace, every Christian is a priest, a part of the larger Christian priesthood, and therefore he is engaged in the priestly activity of sanctifying the whole of life, even in its “common garden variety” aspects, to the Creator-Redeemer God. The only valid category which remains for the Christian is the lawful/unlawful one. If God has permitted it, it is lawful; if He has forbidden it, it is “off-limits.”

What a wonderful door to life is opened with this truth! I am now free to live, free to obey, free to use this world, free to give thanks to the Giver of every good and perfect gift. I am, in a word, free to be human in the fullest sense of the word! So, while we look for a new heaven and earth where righteousness dwells, we live out the days of our pilgrimage here in training and anticipation of this, and we live as priests, acknowledging God in the whole of our existence. This is life indeed! This is the promise that Paul speaks of when he says,” ... godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8).

Let us, then, replace “This World Is Not My Home” with something finer. Immersed in Scripture and in Reformation thought (which went a long way in recovering the thesis of this article) George Herbert wrote in 1633:

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee.

All may of Thee partake:
Nothing can be so mean
Which with this motive, “For Thy sake,”
Will not grow bright and clean.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.

About the Author

Thomas N. Smith is associate editor of Reformation & Revival Journal and pastor, Randolph Street Baptist Church, Charleston, West Virginia. He is a conference speaker, writer and artist who lives with his wife and three children in Charleston.

Notes

1. C. I. Scofield, editor, The Holy Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1909), 696.
2. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, eds., The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987), 281.

This Is My Father’s World

By John H. Armstrong

Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858–1901), pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Lockport, New York, had been an outstanding baseball player and a champion swimmer before he entered the ministry of the gospel. To keep his physical condition he ran virtually every morning. Early in the day he ran as much as eight miles—first to the brow of a hill overlooking Lake Ontario and then into a ravine where he observed as many as forty different species of birds in their native habitat. He sometimes told his staff, “I am going out to see my Father’s world.” Babcock also loved music. He played the organ, piano and violin. [1]

It is no surprise then that Maltbie Babcock, the New York Presbyterian minister, gave the church one of her greatest hymns:

This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.

This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas—
His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world,
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their maker’s praise.

This is my Father’s world:
He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father’s world,
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.

This is my Father’s world:
The battle is not done;
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and heav’n be one.

But is this really the Father’s world? Many, especially under the influence of modern charismatic faith teachers, speak as if God has given the world over to the Devil. They continually “bind the Devil” and try to reclaim the world for God, who somehow seems to have lost it in a cosmic battle in the Garden of Eden. [2]

Isn’t this world, cursed by the fall, something to be shunned as distinctly evil? Doesn’t the New Testament make it abundantly plain that this world is hostile to God and to Christ (cf. 1 Con 2:12, 3:19). And isn’t this world condemned by God (1 Cor. 11:32)? Furthermore, fellowship with this world is called “enmity with God” by James (4:4).

Evangelicals, as a direct result of nineteenth-century revivalism, reacted stridently against the culture around them. They found the world of the mind, of art, music and high culture, all opposed to the gospel they fervently preached. Historian Mark Noll has aptly concluded that “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” [3]

Where Do We Go Wrong?

First, we go wrong by misunderstanding the Bible itself. A careful reading of the text will help to rescue us from this strident oppositional stance toward the world.

The basic idea of the New Testament Greek word commonly translated world (kosmos) is “order” or “arrangement.” The related verb means “to arrange,” If to furnish,” or “to adorn.” This is why Matthew says the Pharisees “adorn the monuments of the righteous” (23:29, RSV), and Peter writes, “the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves. .. (1 Peter 3:5). The related adjective means “fitting” or “decent” (cf. 1 Tim. 2:9; 3:2).

The noun “world” occurs some 188 times in the Greek New Testament, of which 104 are in the gospel and letters of John. Another 46 occurrences of the word appear in Paul’s letters. One scholar-translator concludes:

The idea of order is always present in the meaning “universe” or “world,” which is the sense the Greek noun most often carries. In biblical thought, of course, this order is the result of God’s activity. God created the universe as an orderly, harmonious system (emphasis mine). [4]

Second, we go wrong in not putting the proper emphasis upon the doctrines of creation, incarnation and providence. Evangelicals, often known in this century for their preoccupation with certain doctrinal emphases at the boundaries of their own identity, have generally been defined by this oppositional character. (We are the Protestants who oppose liberalism on the left and fundamentalism on the right.) As a result of this oppositional nature we often give short shrift to important doctrinal concerns because they are not part of “our” struggle. Both fundamentalists and evangelicals waged a front line fight against modernism during the first half of this century, only to forget large areas of truth at other corners of the theological kingdom. Let me illustrate.

Creation

While contesting liberalism’s frontal attack upon the integrity of the Genesis account we virtually lost the value of the doctrine of creation for living life to the glory of God in this present world. And by stressing the effects of sin upon the human race, against the optimistic social gospel at the turn of the century, we lost the sheer order and glory of creation itself. This includes the inherent worth and goodness of all that God made, especially man. (The loss of the Psalter in our churches has had a great effect upon this as well. If evangelicals sang the Psalms, not just several selected verses in praise chorus form, they might actually maintain a more healthy view of man and creation!) This loss has profound effects within evangelicalism. We have reacted against everything from art to music because we have lost the doctrine of creation in this sense. And without a proper doctrine of man we have evangelical extremes that abound. For example, on the one hand evangelicals developed a seriously flawed notion of “self-esteem” that was clearly rooted in secular patterns of thought (cf. Robert Schuller, etc.), while at the same time we have a growing number of conservative Christians who react against these overtly secular notions with stridency and promote “biblical counseling,” so-called. This approach often observes mankind only from the standpoint of fallenness. There is little or nothing in the literature of this emphasis which glories in man as God’s special and unique creation, even though Scripture is filled with such doctrinal teaching (cf. Psalm 8, 139, etc.).

A Real Incarnation?

At the same time twentieth-century evangelicals have continued to flirt with a latent Docetism in regard to the incarnation. [5] Mark Noll clearly poses the proper question for evangelicals:

The questions with the greatest intellectual moment for those of us who are fundamentalists and evangelicals are the questions with the greatest moment—period. Does the cross show forth the death of an incarnate savior? Was the Son of God truly born of a virgin, truly incarnate in human nature? Did Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, really live on this earth? Did Jesus die a real death? Did he really rise bodily from the grave? And does the Holy Spirit really extend to repentant sinners the benefits of the incarnate Christ in this life (emphasis mine)? [6]

Noll concludes:

The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation tells us that God himself chose this world—a world defined by materiality as well as spirituality, a world of human institutions as well as divine realities—as the arena in which to accomplish the salvation of the elect. [7]

The physical bodies of believers in Christ “are members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6:15) and thus are to be offered to God in holy service and worship (cf. Rom. 12:1–2). Noll is right to add, “ ... the fact that the gospel goes out as a universal offer to all humanity suggests something about the dignity in this world of all human beings and the potential value in this world of all that they do.” [8]

Providence

Closely related to this proper emphasis upon materiality is the doctrine of divine providence. Isaac Watts (1674–1748), the innovative hymn writer of his era, understood this when he penned the words of another widely sung and immensely useful hymn:

I sing th’ almighty power of God
That made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad
And built the lofty skies.

I sing the wisdom that ordained
The sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at His command,
And all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord
That filled the earth with food;
He formed the creatures with His word
And then pronounced them good.

Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed
Where’er I turn mine eyes;
If I survey the ground I tread
Or gaze upon the skies!

There’s not a plant or flower below
But makes Thy glories known;
And clouds arise, and tempests blow
By order from Thy throne.

Creatures, as numerous as they be,
Are subject to Thy care;
There’s not a place where we can flee,
But God is present there.

Providence is all but forgotten by modem evangelicals. We live day-to-day as if God were not really involved in our lives, especially in the stuff of this world. God is sovereign, we say, but in actuality He is an “absentee” ruler who governs from afar, not willing to get too sullied.

One of the reasons modern evangelicals are presently so interested in “signs and wonders,” or supposedly miraculous phenomena, is found here. If God is not truly involved on a day-to-day basis with life, as we know it, then we very much desire Him to intervene in miraculous displays that will demonstrate He is personally interested in us and our very material struggles. A healthy doctrine of providence will go a long way in correcting these current waves of sign seeking.

The Old Testament Background

Though the Hebrew does not have a single term for the world or the universe, there are several phrases in the Old Testament that refer to the world. Even though the Old Testament does not have a single term, there is “a fully developed doctrine of creation (cf. Gen. 1:1). God made all things. They are all equally the works of His hand. One divine plan lies behind everything.” [9]

The earth, in the Old Testament, is important for several reasons. First, it is the place occupied by the nations and the peoples. God, the Creator of the entire universe, bears special relationship with man, and consequently to the whole inhabited earth. During his sojourn in this present world man experiences God’s acts in providence, judgment and grace.

The Greek Concept

The Creek philosophers had a highly developed sense of the universe as a single entity quite separate from the personal Creator. This can be seen in the word “cosmos”, as noted above. The Greeks generally thought in terms of order, structure, and adornment. In this thought the world is seen as an ordered, harmonious and beautiful structure. Even if the Greeks thought in terms of an origin for the universe they continued to think of matter as eternal.

Plato took these ideas and saw the world as a body with a soul, or a sensual reflection of the eternal. In this concept a demiourgos, or theos, made this world. God, in this thought, is the highest idea in the cosmos. The created world is thought of as god in this framework.

Aristotle rejected Plato’s simplistic thought regarding a genesis of the physical world and accepted the eternity of the world. He came to regard God, not as the world’s maker, but rather as pure mind or form.

Gnosticism, which had an immense effect upon the early church, developed a dualistic thought form which saw the material world as a prison for the soul while redemption was liberation from this prison. The desire was to return, through redemption, to the realm of pure mind, or true God. This philosophical heresy distressed the church immensely and most certainly was behind some of the error the apostle John addressed in his epistles.

The New Testament

Clearly the word cosmos is the most significant of all the words used in the New Testament for the world. In the New Testament the cosmos is “primarily the sum of all things, the universe (Acts 17:24) ... in the main it represents ... the totality of things.” [10]

Theologian Geoffrey Bromiley has correctly concluded:

The predominant concern of the NT, as of the OT, is not with the cosmos as a whole but with man in the cosmos. God made the whole world, but He made man in His image, and His main dealings are with man. Hence, in the familiar phrase, the cosmos is the theater of human history, and more specifically of the history of God and man. [11]

To conclude, we must say that in a very important sense worldliness, understood as concern for this world and the life we live in it, is a proper and noble response to both God and His creation. We must identify with this planet. As worshipers of the true and living God we must be concerned for all that affects this world, especially as it touches upon humanity—physically, socially and spiritually. A good God created a good world, and we, saved because of His goodness and kindness, must exercise our proper dominion in this world (Gen. 1:26). If culture is “the total pattern of human behavior and its products, a society’s way of life and thinking,” [12] then we who follow the true God must be, of all people, most interested in human culture and attempts to construct and preserve society.

This Present Evil World

But, you protest, doesn’t the Bible speak of this world as evil? Yes, for sure, but only in the sense that this world is alienated, or estranged, from the God who made it. God does not hate this world. He made it good in every way. He has not thrown away His creation. He is redeeming it through His Son (Rom. 8:20–22).

The present alienation of the world from the Creator is frequently the theme of the apostles John and Paul. In Romans the darkest picture is sketched. Sin entered this world, bringing chaos and rebellion. God sent His one and only Son into this world, and the rulers of this fallen world crucified the Lord of glory. The world now refuses to believe in Him and lies condemned, facing judgment. This present refusal to acknowledge the kingship of Christ, the Second Adam, condemns the world in its unbelief (John 3:36). This is why those who believe are not to be conformed to this world, but rather to be transforming it through the renewing of their minds (Rom. 12:2).

When the writers of Scripture use the term world in this sense it is quite obvious they are not rejecting this world, either as a physical entity or as a place in which men and women live lives that are good and pleasing to God. The term world, in this evil sense, speaks of the world as a place which is hostile to God and to His, Christ. The world, in this sense, is a source of moral corruption. The world, in this sense again, brings us into a dangerous place that threatens our spiritual health.

Paul speaks of “the spirit of the world” (1 Cor. 2:12), and of the world being condemned (1 Cor. 11:32). Perhaps the most descriptive text occurs in Ephesians 2:2 where Paul speaks of “the course of this world” (NASB, RSV), or “the ways of the world” (NIV). James uses this idea to say that “a friend of this world makes himself an enemy of God” (4:4).

And the apostle John makes it very clear that Jesus does not belong to this world either (cf. John 17:14, 16). Those who follow Jesus are in the world (John 13:1), but they do not belong to the world (15:19; 17:14, 16).

Thus Christian believers are commanded “not to love the world nor the things of the world” (1 John 2:15). It is with this biblical truth in mind that theologian David F. Wells has aptly defined worldliness, as an evil clearly opposed to Christ, in this way:

... worldliness is that system of values which in any culture has the fallen sinner at its center, which takes no account of God or His Word, and which therefore views sin as normal and righteousness as abnormal. [13]

Worldliness, then, has very little to do with what many twentieth-century Christians think of when this term comes to mind. Worldliness is not so much to be thought of in terms that are negative (“touch not, taste not, handle not”) but rather in terms which explain the ways in which we respond to this world, and our lives in it, “which take no account of God or His Word.” If this be true, and I believe it is, then I submit that most churches and church agencies, at the end of the twentieth century, are more “worldly” in the biblical sense than any of us has adequately imagined.

What the churches have lost is a proper theological understanding of both the world and the evil of true worldliness. This loss is the result of a century and a half of theological and biblical downgrade. We have lost our moorings and the future is uncertain, at least humanly speaking, for evangelical Christianity in North America. Modernity, our present worldliness, has “reshaped our sense of what is proper. As a result, confession has either lost its weight or disappeared entirely in academic theology.” [14] Wells adds that “once confession is lost, reflection is cut loose to find new pastures.” He adds:

Once it [i.e., academic theology] has lost its discipline in the Word of God, it finds its subject matter anywhere along a line that runs from Eastern spirituality to radical politics to feminist ideology to environmental concerns. [15]

Wells further concludes:

By a different route, the same thing has happened in the Church, the evangelical wing included. As the nostrums of the therapeutic age supplant confession, and as preaching is psychologized, the meaning of Christian faith becomes privatized. At a single stroke, confession is eviscerated and reflection reduced mainly to thought about one’s self.... In eviscerating theology this way, by substituting for its defining, confessional center a new set of principles (if they can appropriately be called that), evangelicals are moving ever closer to the point at which they will no longer meaningfully be able to speak of themselves as historic Protestants. [16]

Conclusion

If we are to recover the proper vision of the church, that vision which she knew at her best moments in history, we must properly embrace the truth of Scripture regarding the world. We must be “worldly Christians” who are profoundly concerned for this world. What is our part in this present age? Are we really the vice-regents of earth’s true sovereign, King Jesus, working for the advance of His truth on every front within our culture? Or are we part of a defeated minority that simply waits for the faithful remnant to be “snatched away” before the end of this age? Until the church answers this question properly it is doubtful if she will ever be strengthened to carry out her calling.

At the same time can we work “in the world” without being taken captive by its impressive methods and modern techniques? The church at the end of this present century seems increasingly unable to avoid the crippling evil of “worldliness” through the interrelated philosophies of modernity. God has been marginalized, not only in the culture of the West, but specifically within the churches. If you doubt this, ask yourself just one question: Is that which genuinely motivates and defines the life of your local church what is true and absolute or what is relevant and helpful? Have we not, as David Wells asks, substituted “our own private religious experience for truth that was once also public and universal in scope”? [17]

Embrace the world, love the world, live in the world? By all means. Trust the wisdom of the world, as it stands in opposition to Christ? Never!

We must be regularly reminded that it was our Lord who taught us: “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men” (Matt. 5:13).

Notes

1. 1 Robert K. Brown and Mark R. Norton, editors and compilers, The One Year Book of Hymns (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1995). See May 10 devotional reading.
2. Cf. John H. Armstrong, ed. The Coming Evangelical Crisis (Chicago: Moody, 1996), 227–41. See especially my chapter titled “How Shall We Wage Our Warfare?”
3. Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994). Cf. inside cover dust jacket for quote.
4. Robert G. Bratcher, The Bible Translator, Vol. 31, No. 4, 430. The Bible Translator is a publication of the United Bible Societies.
5. Docetism is the doctrine that the humanity of Jesus is not genuine, or real; He merely appeared to be real, or human.
6. Noll, 252.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid, 252-53.
9. Merrill C. Tenney, general editor, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 5: 963.
10. Ibid, 966.
11. Ibid., 966.
12. Millard J. Erickson, Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986), 40.
13. David F. Wells, No Place for Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 215.
14. Ibid., 101.
15. Ibid., 101.
16. Ibid., 101-102.
17. Ibid., 8.