Identity: When (Part 2)

Two weeks ago I shared some reflections from Trevin Wax’s book Eschatological Discipleship and our identity (read here, the biblical theology is foundation to the application below). Here we continue! But if you missed last week and only have a chance to read one blog, skip this one and read the prior. The prior speaks of God’s story, Jesus’s wisdom. They are the ones to look to, and will form us more than the little thoughts on living it out this week.

~ Stepping In: Us Today ~

As the first crocuses spring forth and the tiny hepatica peep violet heads out underneath the fallen rust oak leaves, we live as children of the spring Resurrected King. We are a people of the future kingdom now. Who am I? I am eschatological. I know my time in history, and I know my future, personally, collectively, and cosmically.

If I knew that I knew that I knew when I was, that I am eschatological, what would that look like on a Saturday morning?

Priorities and values—daily, I arrange my priorities and values differently. We value our body as a recognition of a bodily resurrection; but we don’t idolize it. We enjoy material goods as a gift from the Lord; but we can sacrifice for storing up treasure in heaven. Washing dishes is a sign that we are living in a decaying world, and it is a groaning reminder of the coming hope. Yet, we steward it as we know it is his world he cares so much about he will redeem.

We view our time and priorities like Moses. We know that God is from everlasting to everlasting (Ps. 90:2), but humans not in union with Christ are but dust, swept away (vv. 3-6). Thus, we number our days with wisdom (v. 12). We know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain, for we are united to the Eternal One, and what we do as we abide in him bears fruit for eternity. Thus, we know the Everlasting One will establish the work of our hands! (v. 17; 1 Cor. 15:58; John 15:5). Thus we heed Paul:

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:15-17).

Knowing our time, we also know our culture’s time and destiny—this keeps us holy, distinct, not absorbed into the culture (1). Not of the culture, but in the culture and for the culture (John 17), we are able to offer a countercultural hope, a different ending. Instead of winter, they too can know spring (1).

Knowing our destiny affects our ethics and moral choices. Morality is not just to be good people (for even good people can be part of the old age that is passing away), but our morality is a sign of a new order. We act in justice, love, mercy because that is who we are already in Christ, as part of the new age. That is who we will be completely. So we live it now. As I read somewhere, we “practice resurrection.” We embody King Jesus’s future and model it to a watching world (2).

When I know I am eschatological, I know I am part of a larger story (3). Jesus died for a cosmic redemption. It is a new heavens and a new earth, not just souls in heaven he has died for. Paul writes that the entire creation is groaning for our redemption, for his return (Rom. 8:21-25). Jesus died for a people eager to do good works (Titus 2:11-14), for a kingdom of priests (Rev. 1:6). We are zealous to present ourselves as one pure bride before Christ (2 Cor. 11:2), and know that our collective salvation is incomplete without each other. Spiritual growth together is imperative.

As eschatological people, now is part of the future. I close with two quotes:

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”(4)

“What you do in the present – by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself – will last into God’s future… They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom….Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter for one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the Gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrection power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make…I have no idea what precisely this will mean in practice. I am putting up a signpost, not offering a photograph of what we will find once we get to where the signpost is pointing” (5).

NOTES
(1) Trevin Wax, Eschatological Discipleship: Leading Christians to Understand Their Historical and Cultural Context (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 199, 210.

(2) Ibid., 200.

(3) Ibid., 209.

(4) C. S. Lewis, I think from the “Weight of Glory,” but had it stashed in my favorite quotes.

(5) N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 193, 208, 209.