An exchange of emails on a pertinent subject
What are we to make of the present state of our nation?
Perhaps we might hear a preacher’s comments from the pulpit concerning God’s attitude to Western society. But what insight do we actually have into what God thinks of us?
Dear Preacher,
I wonder if I might raise with you a question arising from something you said (twice, I believe) while you were here over the weekend? It is the statement that we are a nation under judgment. I know that this is something that many Christians today in this country believe to be the case. I think I share many of the assumptions underlying it. I have always, however, been troubled by the statement itself and I hope you don’t mind if I air these with you, in the hope that you might be able to shed some light on it for me. It is not that I think the statement is wrong necessarily – I am just unsure about its biblical basis.
What and how?
I suppose my question falls into two parts: firstly, what do we mean precisely when we say that the nation is ‘under judgment’ and, secondly, how do we reach that conclusion in relation to a particular nation or people?
The Scriptures tell us that the world is under God’s judgment (1 John 5.19; John 12.31; 16.8, 11) and is facing future judgment (Romans 2.5; 2 Peter 3.10). But, of course, at the same time God has loved the world enough to send his Son to die, that we may not perish (John 3.16). In the OT particularly, we see the Lord pronouncing judgment on various individual nations, including at times Israel and Judah, through the instrumentality of inspired prophets. I quite accept that the principle of the Lord dealing differently with different nations and peoples at different times, clear in the OT, is likely to continue into the NT era. However, none of that answers (so far as I can see) the two-part question stated above. Do we have sufficient revelation in Scripture to enable us to discern that one nation is under judgment and another is not, and, as I say, what precisely do we mean by that?
Any light you can shed on this for me would be gratefully received.
Dear Listener,
Thank you for your email and the question concerning my use of the sentence ‘We are a nation under judgment.’ We must of course, go back to the Bible if we want to gain insight into God’s thoughts. Here, briefly, is my response.
1. Though, as you have pointed out, the world as a whole is under judgment, the immediate manifestation of that judgment may be different at different times and different places throughout history. There may be different levels of intensity. So, for example, my understanding of 2 Timothy 3.1 is that during the last days – the whole period from Pentecost until the Second Coming – there will be ‘terrible times’. Not all times will be equally terrible. There will be periods of blessing too – doors for gospel advance will be opened, etc. And these two things can happen simultaneously. So, of those who led the persecution of the church in Thessalonica, Paul says: ‘The wrath of God has come upon them at last’ (1 Thessalonians 2.16). But at the very same time Thessalonica had experienced extraordinary blessing with the planting of a church from which the gospel ‘sounded out’ like ringing bells, 1 Thessalonians 1.8. So if the UK is under judgment that would not preclude blessing too.
Unravelling good creation
2. The manifestation of God’s wrath is not always in terms of war or fire from heaven. Romans 1 is, of course, key in all this. Paul says that ‘the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven,’ (present tense). He then explains something of what the expression of that wrath looks like. In their denial of him, God ‘gives people over’ and what God gives people over to in their proud foolishness is the undoing, the reversing or the unravelling of the ‘very good’ which he gave us at creation.
3. Perhaps the most dramatic instance of judgment as the reversing or undoing of creation is seen at the Flood. At first, in Genesis 1, the world was covered with the deep, and then God made the land appear. But in Noah’s Flood that is reversed.
Instead of knowing God they turn to idols. This leads to the pursuit of behaviours which are both sinful and self-harming. In Romans 1 we see God’s judgment includes common sense replaced by foolishness, and people living at odds with the way God made things. These are such things as the undoing of family life, natural affection for parents and the ignoring of God-given gender.
God gave them over
4. In Romans 1 we see God’s ‘giving over.’ But in Ephesians 4.17-19 we find the parallel of people who have ‘given themselves over’ to the same things. Part of the judgment on the Gentiles, who live ‘in the futility of their thinking’, is that they have lost sensitivity (to God) and given themselves over to sensuality. Without God we ultimately become only interested in being a ‘feel good’ society.
Paul’s description of the ‘terrible times’ in 2 Timothy 3.1-5 seems to parallel both Romans 1 and Ephesians 4. In such times people become ‘lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,’ and adopt a proud and aggressive love for themselves. (We are the inventors of the ‘selfie’). They become self-centred rather than God-centred, with all the sins which follow.
5. If such things are the marks of God’s ‘giving over’ in judgment then when we see those things becoming prominent in a nation’s life, given general applause and even written with public approval into the laws of the land – e.g, the redefinition of marriage, abortion on demand, removal of parental rights over children etc. – then we have reason to conclude that the land (or a civilization) is under God’s judgment.
It is what I call ‘judgment in slow-mo’ (slow motion). I call it that because as good things unravel over the decades, as the resulting degradation and damage increases and the folly of the path to which a society has ‘given itself over’ becomes clear, God is giving people a chance to come to their senses, like the prodigal son, and repent. The drawn-out nature of the process actually gives opportunity for the gospel.
Closed minds
6. But it is not just the ethical / moral life of a nation which reflects God’s judgment. The intellectual life and ‘plausibility structures’ of the society also reflect God’s ‘giving over.’ When a nation has been so saturated with spurious arguments in favour of pure materialism and the non-existence of God that there is no longer an open mind to the evidence, that too is God’s judgment. God sends a powerful delusion (2 Thessalonians 2, etc.).
7. When we see the way God’s laws are flouted, Christianity being systematically pushed out of the public square by our leaders and ordinary English people finding it so difficult even to contemplate a serious conversation about the gospel, I conclude we are under God’s judgment.
The stark contrast between the hardness of many indigenous British people towards Christ (especially the well-off) compared with, say, the desire of many Chinese students in UK to find out more about Christianity – despite their Communist upbringing – seems obvious.
Challenge to the churches
The evangelical church is not to be smug. We should be asking ourselves if we as churches or as individuals have actually confirmed our fellow citizens in their hardness. Our frequent failure to live differently and be anything other than chaplain to middle-class materialism is nothing to be proud of.
But at the same time even though our nation is under judgment, that doesn’t stop God from being gracious. This judgment in slow-mo can be used by the Holy Spirit to awaken people to their need. Therefore the evangelical church is to be hopeful in God and encouraged to preach the gospel.
