The Cons of Being Anti-Antichrist

I may be reading this wrong, but my anecdotal sense is that Evangelicals often perceive their duty as citizens of planet Earth as thwarting the rise of the Antichrist. Since I came into Christ way back when, over and over again I've talked with folk that are politically and socially against policy, or action, or even people they consider furthering the cause of the coming Antichrist. I think that is a misplaced aspiration.

Please don't misunderstand me, I don't want people primed to take the mark because they've come under a delusion, especially on my part. The Antichrist is [is it prophetic that I said is instead of will be? You be the judge! ;-) ] an inherently evil person and his mark seals one's doom. In my view of eschatology, only Jews will actually face that choice; nonetheless, I think we need to understand that the Antichrist and his kingdom are just part of the fabric of what God has prepared for the conclusion of this current economy.

Since the Antichrist is a precursor to the return of Christ, he will arise at the time of God's choosing, and will mark the conclusion of God's work in human history. If you give it any thought, opposing the rise of the Antichrist is not far removed, if removed at all, from opposing the return of Christ. Who'd want to do that?

So, we'll do as we have tried to do through time--what's right, what's biblical, what's sensible--and the Antichrist will come any way. He'll still take over everything and the world will go to hell in a handbasket, it's unavoidable. God did not misspeak in revealing the sequence of events leading to the end, so there are some things we just need to resign ourselves to. Why spit into the wind?

This world is not now and never has been the home to any who followed Christ. Focusing our energies here as if it were has sapped the Spirit from the bulk of the church for the bulk of the Church Age. It has destroyed the witness of the American church since 1980. Assemblies of God minister, John Keurt once quipped when asked about his philosophy of financing a building campaign, "take out a big mortgage and leave it to the Antichrist." Like it or not, we're leaving the world and all that's in it to the Antichrist, maybe we should start living like it.

Becoming Holy

Holiness, I think I have established, is about the uniqueness of God's being, and by extension, about that which is not God being made holy by being consecrated to him. It is the consequence of anything, and eventually everything belonging entirely to the holy God. Ultimately, even the reprobate sinner and the principalities, powers and rulers of this present darkness will be his in the fullest sense of the word (that's what the Lake of Fire is all about). In this bubble of time we call history, there is an option available to us. We may render ourselves "not God's" which is but an illusion that can only last for a lifetime, or we may surrender ourselves to God believing him to be Lord which can translate into eternity.

In relinquishing ourselves to God by grace through faith, we become holy, the actual efficacy thereof coming through two impositions. First, sacrificial blood must be imposed upon that which was not intrinsically holy in order to consecrate it; and second, the divine breath (the Spirit of God) which is intrinsically holy, must be imposed upon that which was sprinkled with sacrificial blood to make holy in substance. This is the pattern of things to come revealed in the OT, and this is the fulfillment of things that are in the NT. I would call these two aspects of holiness 1) positional holiness, and 2) substantial holiness.

For humans, positional holiness can only be achieved through the application of the blood of the Lamb of God through faith. When one comes to the conviction that Jesus Christ died for his or her sin and that he or she is trusting that blood alone to make them acceptable to God, that one has become positionally holy. His or her tabernacle of flesh has been sprinkled with blood. As the Holy Spirit inhabits that sprinkled tabernacle, that one has now become one with God and is thereby made substantially holy. Since our tabernacles are made of transitory stuff, God has appointed a day when all that is passing will be transformed into that which is not. Our substantial holiness will then be perfect.

Notice, I have made no reference to efforts or toil in explaining the biblical concept and process of holiness. Had I done so, I would have been in error. Holiness is not something developed from that which is not holy of itself. Holiness is a derivative property for all but him who alone is holy. For us who are not him, holiness comes imputed and imported. To walk in holiness, then, what is required is not a supernatural effort from that which is only natural, but an abandoned cooperation of the natural with the supernatural who has come in.

How Does One Become Holy?

In the Matrix, there is a number of scenes where Agent Smith infiltrates a person, who then goes through what looks like a very painful transformation--stretcho, change-o, then snaps back into the shape of Agent Smith. Believe it or not, I actually think that is a great illustration of how a Christian becomes holy.

We look at a statement like "be holy as the Lord is holy," and instantly jump to the wrong conclusion: we think it is something we can achieve if we set our minds to it and get it done. Nothing could be further from the truth. It just isn't in the nature of the beast for a human to be holy. God alone can be attributed with that quality.

The most fundamental way to conceive of the notion of holy is to think "other" or "distinctly separate." No one can fit that description but God (see link in post title). Everything else, everyone else is just part of the creation, generally along with countless other examples of the same sort. "Other" in the realm of the created is a relative term at best!

God stands alone (and when I say that, I mean the trinitarian Godhead). Nothing else is what he is; nothing else has independent existence as he does; everything else was fashioned by him, yet he was fashioned by nothing. We generally jump immediately to the moral repercussions of God's separateness when speaking of holiness, but to do so is to not go deep enough into the subject.

If we don't plumb far enough, however, we generally devolve into some kind of petty rule keeping regimen in order to give us some sense we're aligned with the command to be holy. Holiness, however, can never arise from that which is intrinsically unholy. So, perhaps we need to rethink the force of the command, and see it more as an invitation. Like any of the commands of God in the old covenant, the point was not to elicit actual obedience, but to make us aware of just how unholy we truly are, and thereby to lead us to the gracious hand of Christ.

Oh, it's not that it's possible to be unholy and get along with with God, it's just that we can't achieve holiness by our own efforts. If we're to be holy, as we must to get into heaven (not to earn it, but just to survive it), holiness has to come to us, imported like oil is to Singapore. Since we must be holy to co-exist with God, we must come to Christ and receive the gift of his nature which alone is holy. When the holy one is in us, holiness becomes possible for us.

Is Yours the Gospel of the Born Again?

Technically, we could define gospel as the good news about Christ. Generally, that is what we focus upon as Evangelicals-- why not? Good News is in our name. I have begun to wonder if in doing so we have actually stripped the gospel of its power. We take it as a story, that if believed, results in a change of one's status before God from lost to found. We have pressed this line of theology hard since WWII, and it seems to me, we need to consider whether or not the fractured, frayed, weak condition of the Evangelical church is the result.

A noted internal study at Willow Creek a couple of years ago framed the issue quite well, for more than their own congregation, I think. Church-going Evangelicals look more and more indistinguishable from unchurced Harry and Mary everyday. Our approach to gospel isn't producing change in hearers lives. We have had, in fact, a fruitless season of harvest. I think we have entirely lost track of a simple verity: Jesus said we must be born again.

So then, what does it mean to be born again? Is it a Toyota moment? Not too many evangelicals would like the feeling of that! Is it just an idiomatic expression which refers to believing the story. If one believes, then our Cartesian soteriology assumes rebirth-- I believe, therefore I'm born again. We might not say it that way in our theological tomes, but I think that may be the practical reality of our approach to gospel. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind, nor is it the picture the NT paints of the born again.

It seems to me that the born again should know they're born again, and that it should not be that hard for even the non-born again to perceive it. After all, there are effects on the mind and heart; there is an awakening of an intimate perception of the Father and the Son; there is the experience of change, akin to going from dry to wet when one jumps in a lake (not a very evangelistic image, I understand). Jesus spoke of such in crystal clear terms in regard to Zaccheus, though wee man that he was.

It's hard for the promoters of that story, such as myself, to resign ourselves to waiting upon the Lord to do that secret Spiritual thing in the soul of people that truly makes them born again. We want to know right now whether or not the hearers of that story buy the story, and we want those folk to respond right now to the telling of it. The result has been an at first slow, but now precipitating decay into methodology that delivers assent to the story while downplaying the true nature of being born again. Is it any wonder the church looks so much like the world around her?

It Keeps Coming Up Turkey! (Updated Again!)

I have gone on record here, and many of you have read it, saying that Turkey will be the country of origin for the Antichrist. Read this (HT: Paul Grabill) chilling account of what has purportedly been going on behind the scenes between Turkey, Israel and the U.S. over the last 15 years. 

Now this bit of sad news hits the headlines. Even though it's been a long time since royalty had any impact or influence in Turkish affairs, I have to wonder whether things are not converging to a ripe moment for Turkey and the world. Could a new, populist leader arise out of nowhere and repeat the type and ultimately fulfill that which Daniel spoke so long ago?

And then, there's this. The Antichrist, according to my interpretation of scripture, will start out as a Muslim. That portion of the world (at least the Shia) are primed, looking forward to the imminent arrival of the Mahdi. All things taken together, my theory doesn't look so far fetched in the real world after all-- wouldn't you say?

A Biblical Political Platform

Christians come in all stripes politically, and those that espouse a political position (as opposed to having no real position at all) tend to do so passionately. My only question about doing so is whether or not such views are truly informed by the word of God, or are they just the ideas of mankind? I've previously written about things in the political sphere that are unbiblical, but now I would like to offer some broad principles that are biblically informed and that effect virtually every political issue.

All Are Sinners

Every politician, every office holder, every public servant is a sinner. They won't always do what is right, they won't always act in other than their own interests, their judgment is able to be swayed by other than facts and circumstances, they are corruptible by privilege, power and lucre. In view of these realities, no biblically informed and Bible believing Christian should be for anything which expands governmental imposition on people. Such actions will always result either in bondage to or tyranny from the sinful, and should be opposed insomuch as a Christian has the freedom to do so.

Because those that govern are irretrievably sinners, government should be as small as possible, and as weak as possible in comparison to the citizen. Those serving in government should do so in as limited a fashion as is possible for the shortest period that makes sense given the learning curve. Most definitely, elected officials should not be able to raise their own salaries, perquisites or pensions while in office.

The Rich and Powerful Oppress the Poor and Weak
Combine the truth above with money and power and the result is the ability of the rich and powerful to use the system and to massage circumstances to their own benefit to the detriment of the weaker and poorer. The wealthy always find an excuse, like "the market," to shuffle the benefits of production to themselves, while those who labor to make the production possible get the shaft.

Unions, minimum wage laws, and the SEC have been mere bandaids for the problem. They have the appearance of addressing the issue, but leave the wealthy relatively untouched in their ability to make the system work for themselves, and actually end up working against increased productivity. Why not allow market mechanisms to determine base wages, but have every worker share in the profits produced by corporate ventures (not necessarily just incorporated ones) equally with executives and shareholders?

Human Life Is Precious
Since each human life has its own blood, it should be protected from the womb to the tomb. Abortion is murder, plain and simple. Each abortion kills a human being that left alone would live as long as God determined. Those that perform abortions are guilty of murder, and those that have them done are guilty of conspiring to murder. Assisted suicide could certainly be considered a conspiracy to murder as well.

Family Is More Fundamental than Government
The family, particularly parents, should not be interfered with nor infringed upon. If there is not actual, physically treatable abuse or neglect, no one has any right to tell anyone else how to run their household or raise their children. All decisions, from education to healthcare rests with parents, never with government.

Government Is to Do Good to Its Citizens
Citizens that do ill need to be treated appropriately, but citizens who do not, should never be put into worse situations, or be adversely effected by government action.

One could apply these principles and make a case for everything from publicly assured healthcare to environmental protection, from preventing the seizure of private property to banning professional lobbying. The issue to be balanced in doing so would be whether any stance or proposal would transgress any of these principles in its prescription to cure some ill.

When the Tension Snaps

Stretch a rubber band too far and it will snap. Maybe that's the explanation for the actions of the Arizona pastor in this article. In my last post, I said the the tension of living in two worlds can get the best of any of us, and that none of us would make it if not for the grace of God. Now, I know that grace is available to the fellow in question, but I don't think we could say he was making it by any stretch of the imagination. It kind of reminds me of the ka-fling of a noted figure a few years back.

Scriptures are clear about both our attitude toward governing authorities and the general tenor of our prayers concerning them. Wanting violence done to them, or sickness to come upon them, or desiring their death followed by burning hell is not in accord with the Word. Such sentiments cannot be inspired by the Holy Spirit, and can only be the result of the flesh, or even the Devil. This preacher, I can safely say, is not moving in the Spirit!

In his defense, I can understand his dismay with Barak Obama. The man is anything but a good president; in fact, he is destroying the country so fast and so thoroughly it makes my head spin. I can only hope that recent trends presage an awaking of Americans from the stupor induced by eight years of W's incoherent babbling and the repeated shots to head we took at the hands of his administration. We needed a change like a baby in a soiled diaper, but we're getting short-changed like the prince who woke up as a toad.

We don't have to like what the people in charge do, but we should always like to see them get saved. We don't have to kowtow to their formulations of policy, but we always have to give them the honor they are due. Feel the rubber band twisting in your gut? Let it go before it snaps, and your treatment of enemy here ends up making you an enemy in the hereafter.

The Tension of Living in Two Worlds

...the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31 (NIV)

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
1 John 2:15-17 (NIV)

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
1 Corinthians 5:9-10 (NIV)

We live in this world but are not to be of it. That's quite a lot to pull off-- a little like taking a bath without getting wet. One of my children did that once, or so he said, but this is not a command we can get away with lying about, and certainly our Father is no father who can be lied to. So we lay ourselves down, like a rope in a tug of war, and attempt the impossible.

Whatever our hands find to do, we must do with all our strength-- not half-hearted, not lacking in ambition, whether our careers or even just avocational interests. God cannot be honored by sloppiness or lack of commitment, so we concentrate our skills and attention and yet...

We try love our neighbors as ourselves, to take up the cause of the widow and orphan, and to respond to the fallen on the way. It requires not an unnoticeable amount of time and effort, and even some material. We focus on the effort to make the world a better place by easing the suffering so prevalent, and often end up squeezing the Gospel out of the picture and embracing a humanist ideal. Hmmm....

We are citizens of the land we live in, regardless of whether we give it much thought or not. In some countries, it does not demand that much from us; in America, civic duty is always clamoring for the Christian's attention: jury duty, taxes, elections, the incessant stream of e-mail warning us that the country will go to hell in a hand basket if we don't call our congressman today. Evangelicals decided to make a political stand part of their spiritual agenda in 1980. Since then, if anything, the country's decline has been more precipitous...

This world is not our home. To be too at home here is destined to make us too strange to him who matters, and too antagonistic to his interests in our lives. To go off on our own, even as if on a mission from God, to make this world a better place is bound to corrupt the mission we do have from God, and frustrate the Spirit he gave to fill us. The tension of living in two worlds is apt to tear the best of us in two: could any of us ever endure if it were not for the grace of God?

The Throne of Satan

In the Apocalypse, Pergamum is designated as the place where Satan's throne is. What is in mind by such a designation? Let's explore the matter.

Pergamum was a city familiar with hosting the throne of a kingdom. One developed there with Pergamum as its capital after the fall of Lysimachus (one of Alexander's generals) in 281 BCE. Until 133 BCE, Pergamum was the throne of this Attalid Kingdom when it was peacefully deeded to the Romans because its king died heirless. I find that more than an interesting crossing of paths between the Roman and Hellenistic worlds.

Under Roman hegemony, the city continued to prosper, and became noteworthy for two inventions: parchment and Emperor worship. We can be thankful for the first, not so much for the second. The imperial cult had its very first temple dedicated in Pergamum in 29 BCE, and so the city became the trailblazer in the development of emperor worship. In much the same way that the Whore of Babylon is a prophetic image that is indicative of the genesis of idolatry in Babylon, the Throne of Satan is a prophetic attribution which is indicative of the genesis of emperor worship in Pergamum.

John doesn't leave it alone at that, however, he further states that Pergamum is the place where Satan dwells. In speaking an eschatological word to the church which will be without Apostolic voice thereafter, John says Pergamum is not only the birth place of emperor worship, but is as well the very base of operations for Satan on earth. Given that the focus of the Apocalypse is the return of Christ, John's attributions necessarily focus our attentions on that place as significant in relation to Christ's return.

What do you think that might mean in locating the base of operations of the Antichrist, who will be the ultimate emperor demanding the ultimate worship? For me, it means I must look to Pergamum.