Chattel slavery. Suttee, the practice of burning widows at their husband’s funeral. Racism. Sex trafficking. Child exposure. Hunger. Disease. Abortion.
It’s a woefully partial list. These are just a few of the social evils that Christians have fought against over the centuries, driven by their Christian faith. There are some that even left-leaning unbelievers have been co-belligerents against, and others where they have been on the other side. Others that might be on the list, income inequality, property rights, affirmative action, racial color-blindness sadly have Christians fighting on differing sides. When that happens, rest assured that soon enough some Christians will complain that those on the other side have forgotten the gospel, and gotten political.
I know of one fellow who was speaking at a local gathering of professing believers who suggested that Jesus had come to bring good news to the poor. He said Jesus wanted to see captives set free and the oppressed enjoying liberty. That fellow, of course, was Jesus. He announced this as He first began His public ministry (Luke 4:18). He did not see such ministry as a distraction to His ministry but as its nature. Now we can spiritualize these conditions. We were the poor in spirit who are enriched by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We were captive to our sin who have been set at liberty. Oui and amen as the French are wont to say.
We can also denude the spiritual emphasis and become full time social gospel evangelists, thinking the point of Jesus coming is to establish the gospel according to Marx. We can think we’re doing the work of the ministry when we make the poor poorer and tighten the captives chains. Mais non, as I wish the French would say.
Or we can understand that Jesus is Lord over all things. That His gospel is not just about the redeeming of our souls but the remaking of His world. That He came to bring good news to the poor, and to set captives free. Just as there is no square inch of reality that He does not declare as His own, so there is no discussion, no realm, no sphere, no political debate that He will allow Himself to be excluded from. No, that He will allow Himself to not be the center of. “All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Col. 1:17). Every unborn child, every tax-payer, every citizen of every nation, every institution, every political structure is created through Him and for Him.
Any honorable effort to make visible the reign of Jesus over all things is not a distraction from the gospel but a manifestation of the gospel. Those who would argue otherwise at best have an anemic and truncated gospel, at worst seek to deny His rightful authority.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. History is littered with professing believers who wrapped up their own ambitions in the name of Jesus and fought with sword and spear. The problem, each time, was the ambitions and the sword and spear, not the name of Jesus, nor His ambitions. Jesus is Lord.
Numerous times Jesus spoke about good works. And the epistles are full of references of believers to be fulled with good works. To each of the seven churches John wrote to, seven times Jesus spoke “I know thy works.”
Very interesting