I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve read and heard this statement of Jesus as a reason for Christians to not engage in “the culture wars.” Doing this is in the old saying, like polishing the brass on a sinking ship. The implication, sometimes stated, sometimes assumed, is that this world belongs to Satan. For them, apparently, Satan is the king of this world. I’ll state my conclusion plainly up front: No he is not! As we’ll see, Satan was handed a kingdom he did not earn by Adam, and Christ came to take it back. We call this the gospel. For too long as a Christian when I heard or used the word “gospel,” I equated it with the salvation of souls, full stop. Sure, it has peripheral influences on the culture, but that was only a spillover from people being saved from their sins, as the theologians call it, soteriology.
Now, I see the gospel as a proclamation of salvation for the entire created order, starting with those who’ve embraced Christ as Lord and Savior, and God starting his reclamation and restoration project at his first coming. By contrast, the typical Pietist, fundamentalist, dispensational, Evangelical understanding of the state of this fallen world is that Christ will only fully clean it up at his second coming. Until then, Satan is more or less in control of this world, and the primary purpose of the gospel is to save people out of this world so they can go to heaven when they die. The world will get increasingly worse until Jesus finally comes back to save the day and set all things right. I used to believe this, more or less, but my embrace of postmillennialism a few years ago changed that. Let’s see how.
Satan Handed an Earth and a Kingdom
As we read in Genesis, God created the earth and everything in it “very good,” but something happened to ruin it. We’re all familiar with the story of the fall. God told Adam everything on earth belonged to him, but there was one tree from which he must not eat because when he does, he will “surely die.” We all know what death is on this side of the fall, but I always wonder what Adam made of those words. He had not yet seen or experienced death in any way, so I imagine it was an abstraction to him. Yet, he knew it must not be good. Maybe not fully understanding the implications of death is why Adam failed to protect the woman from the serpent, and Satan deceived her. We read in Genesis 3:
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Notice what happens when the woman eats—nothing. Then she gives some of the fruit to Adam and when he eats what happens? Only then were the eyes of both opened, not before. Paul confirms it wasn’t what the woman did that caused the fall, but what the man did:
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. . . . 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. (Rom. 5)
22 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (I Cor. 15)
Paul also tells us in Timothy (2:14) that it was the woman who was deceived, but in Adam’s tending of the garden and protecting his wife, he was a colossal failure. Where was Adam when the serpent was allowed to deceive the woman? Why was he not there to protect and defend her? Why was the serpent there in the first place? We can’t know the answers to these questions, but we do know from Genesis 2 that prior to Eve being created, man was given the charge to work and care for the Garden:
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
He failed to “take care of it.”
Interestingly, the Lord says to Adam he would curse the ground, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded, ‘You must not eat from it’” He clearly had the option not to listen to her, and if he hadn’t there would have been no fall. The choice was his, and he blew it, big time. In the created order of things, God made it so that man has ultimate authority, and therefore ultimate accountability. It’s called federal headship, the basic idea being how one person represents and acts on behalf of a larger group, with the consequences of their actions being imputed (credited or charged) to those they represent. Our salvation from sin depends on this concept. Adam was the federal head for the human race through which sin came, and Christ was the federal head for his people he came to save from their sins (Matt. 1:21). Sin was imputed through Adam, and righteousness through Christ. Without the federal headship of Christ, we would die in our sins.
Thankfully, Christ was given a task from the Father, and he fulfilled it. We read in John 6:
37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
Another idea we get from the theologians captures what we read about here, the covenant of redemption. In the internal Triune purposes of God, the Father gave Jesus a task, “to save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Jesus didn’t come to save everybody, or to make salvation possible for all people, he came to make salvation actual for all those the Father has given him. This salvation accomplished by Jesus during his life of obedience unto death, his crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension, started to be applied at Pentecost. His kingdom was now established on earth, his having been given “All authority in heaven and on earth,” (Matt. 28). The flag of the kingdom, like a warrior in battle, had been planted right in the midst of the enemy’s territory, and he would now commence through the power of the Holy Spirit among his people to establish the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).
A Ruined Kingdom Restored in Christ
The NIV translation of the verse in 2 Corinthians is the most literal of the translations, and to me the most accurate. It says, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.” Other translations infer that the new creation Paul is referring to is the anyone, so it says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” That is true, but that gives people the impression this new creation is limited to saved, redeemed people. I used to think that. In fact, it is God’s eschatological kingdom (the final fulfillment happening at his second coming) breaking into this dark fallen world that previously belonged to Satan—it does so no longer. The Apostle Paul tells us that salvation is a package deal, us and the rest of creation together (Rom. 8):
18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Noticed how Paul connects “the glory that will be revealed in us” to the entire creation. Most Christians think we only got a very small down payment on this new creation at Christ’s first coming, and a wholesale change can only happen at his second coming. They believe this fallen ruined kingdom belongs to the devil and use the evidence of evil and suffering to claim it. So, when Christ tells Pilot his kingdom is not of this world it confirms what they believe. However, Christ did not say His kingdom is not in the world, but that it is not of the world—not that the kingdom is “not here,” but that it is not “from here.” The word “of” is a primary preposition denoting origin. This means the origin of Christ’s redeemed kingdom is not of this world because he came to redeem and transform it! Once his mission was accomplished and fully realized in his ascension and Pentecost, his kingdom was officially in this fallen world, like a mustard seed and leaven (Matt. 13) taking it back from the devil.
We always read the text based on our assumptions, so when we read, “Who hopes for what they already have?” we assume we’re not going to get it until Christ returns at the consummation of all things at the end of time. But Paul wrote these words in the 50s AD, so Christianity and its influence in the world had been limited to parts of the Middle East and some of Europe, that’s it. Even there on a societal and cultural level, Christianity’s impact was minimal, but since then the gospel has gone throughout the entire earth and been utterly transformed by it. I do not limit the gospel’s reach just to human interaction, but to the imprint our actions and ideas and effort put on creation. Remember the dominion and cultural mandate given to Adam in Genesis 1:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
As the second or last Adam, Christ came to fulfill this mandate, and at his Ascension and Pentecost he began to fulfill it through us, his church. Human interaction on a societal level has been transformed by the gospel, and this includes science and technology and knowledge of every sort that has had an impact on how we live. Trust me, none of us would want to live in the ancient world, and the kingdom Christ came to establish is the reason we no longer have to live in such a world.
The Practical Consequences of the Ascension
Lastly, because Jesus is now king with all authority in heaven and on earth dwelling with his people by the power of the Spirit of God, the gospel has gone forth to the nations and God’s kingdom is advancing. As a result, the devil is on the defensive. Until I embraced postmillennialism, I thought it was the church and Christians who were on the defensive, and I thought this because I effectively ignored the ascension for God’s redemptive plans on earth. We are living in the fulfillment of God’s promise to Adam and Eve to strike or crush the serpent’s head, his defeat fully realized at Christ’s ascension to the right hand of God. The world now belongs to Christ!
Many Christians living by sight and not faith see how horrible the world can be and conclude the devil is “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). The Greek often translated world is not cosmos, but aión or age. So Paul’s reference isn’t to the earth or God’s created order, but to the fallen world, the age of the devil’s reign on earth. Now, the devil is only the god of lost sinners, and God’s kingdom and Christ’s reign have been slowly taking over territory for the last two thousand years. That’s what the ascension means, the extension of Christ’s reign on earth and the advance of God’s kingdom. Our job as his body is to heavenize earth! When Jesus prayed to the Father, and taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” I imagine the Father was inclined to answer Jesus’ prayer in the affirmative. The point of Jesus’s coming was to establish his kingdom on earth, not wait for thousands of years to establish it. The parables of the mustard seed and leaven tell us the advance and extent of the kingdom will slowly but surely extend to the entire earth and everything in it.
The problem most Christians have with that assertion is how seemingly inconsistent the advance is. But, as I always say, God is never in a hurry. When God promised Abram 4,000 years ago(!) that all the peoples on earth would be blessed through him, for 2,000 years(!) the promise seemed hollow. This is why a common refrain of Jews prior to Jesus’ coming was, “How long O Lord!” David seemed like the fulfillment, then it all fell apart. Then Israel ceased to exist, and when they came back to the land, they were oppressed for most of the next several hundred years. Then Jesus! This little band of men and women in an obscure outpost of the Roman Empire literally turned the world upside down! As the men in Thessalonica exclaimed, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also!” More like right side up, and I’m inclined to think we’re just getting started.
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