What the gospel does is take people who were enemies of God and transform them into lovers of God
I have a variety of friends with many different perspectives. Some are to the left of me politically, others are to the right of me. Some have as much theological passion as I do or even more, while others, much less. The vast majority of them come from an American cultural perspective, as opposed to other parts of the world, at least to the point that they are relatively happy to live here, as far as I can tell, even if they don’t all agree with the past or current directions in American society.
On occasion, we talk about things like what it would mean for America to, in some way, shape, or form, function as a “Christian Nation” instead of a secular nation where Christians once were highly influential in social, economic, and political discourse. I struggle with this idea for the simple reason that, generally speaking, the gospel does not make Christians into qualitatively better people than non-Christians. If it did, there would be no need for confession and absolution, pastoral counseling, or the law after conversion.
Instead, what the gospel does is take people who were enemies of God and transform them into lovers of God. The gospel takes people who were spiritually disconnected from God, and causes them to become intimately connected to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Connected in this way to God, they are also connected by faith with one another, living as citizens of the heavenly kingdom while living in the kingdoms of this world. This is something that human wisdom, intelligence, or willpower cannot accomplish because our fallen nature is contrary to the holiness of God.
The Apostle Paul describes it this way in 1 Corinthians 2:7–10:
But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
The distance between what we are capable of doing in terms of acknowledging, much less practicing the good, and what God defines as the good, is vast. So vast that we must either acknowledge that “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot attain it,” or else keep trying to figure out how many bricks we need to bake in order to finally build that tower God sabotaged in Genesis 11. If we humbly embrace the former, God can begin to work in us both the “to will” and the “to work” for his good pleasure, even in the present evil age.
The difference between “us” and “them” is real; unlike “the line between good and evil,” the line between holy and unholy truly lies outside of ourselves. Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 10:3–6:
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
This is not a function of lineage, spatial location, or language. People of Anglo Saxon ancestry, or Hebrew Ancestry, or African Ancestry, have no inside track on others who do not share their ethnic distinctives. America is no more constituted to be a “Christian Nation” than is the Vatican, Israel, or Ethiopia.
Through the gospel, God is raising up a nation, “out of every tribe and tongue and kindred.”
That does not mean that God cannot “raise up a nation” whose God is the Lord. On the contrary; through the gospel, God is raising up a nation, “out of every tribe and tongue and kindred.” This will take place apart from the work of the law and without the power of the sword. As the Prophet Hosea declared in Hosea 2:16–20:
And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me “My Husband,” and no longer will you call me “My Baal.” For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
The transformation of goodness – one promised by politicians and philosophers, envisioned by poets, and pursued by activists and revolutionaries – will come, but not by these forces. Instead, as the Lord said again through Hosea, “and I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God’” (Hos. 2:23).
In this age, through the Church, we experience the foretaste of this transformation, conveyed to us in fellowship and worship, mediated to us in Word and sacrament. In the age to come, when the Lord Jesus Christ fulfills his promise to return for his bride, the Church, and to establish the new heavens and the new earth, we will experience it in all of its unmediated glory. The foretaste is wonderful, but only because of the fullness to which it points. An improvement in the quality of life, as evidenced by lower crime rates, cleaner environments, and healthier lives, is nice, but it will never compare to what life will be like when the Lord brings to past his promise, “Behold, I make all things new!” (Rev. 21:5) The Gospel brings that day into the lives of those who hear it, not as an end in itself, but as the pledge made by God in Christ, purchased by his blood, for its fulfillment on the great day of God Almighty. Even so, come Lord Jesus, come!
