Why Very Few Christians Today Go to Church on the Same Day the Earliest Church Did

 We're Christians, not Jews. That should seem obvious, but for some people they want to constantly go back to the lesser covenant of the old covenant. The old covenant is the covenant that redeems some amoral things in creation but not others. The new covenant, however, redeems the whole world, i.e., every day, not just some days, every food, not just some foods, every drink, not just some drinks, etc. But some just don't get it, so they want to create a new covenant version of the old covenant that is just as restricted as the old covenant even though the new covenant is an expansion rather than limited to the restrictions.

One of the ways they do this is by arguing that Sunday must be attended by all Christians or they somehow are not faithful Christians. Now, let me be clear. The new covenant requires people to serve one another in love by getting together, to be discipled by elders who call meetings, and those meetings and fellowships need to be attended if you are able to do so or I will say you are not a good Christian and maybe not a Christian at all.

But the new covenant expands the redemption that is in Christ to all created things, so that no specific day is required by anyone to meet upon simply because the day is somehow holier than any other day. In fact, the New Testament never gives a command to attend church on Sunday. Instead, it tells us that they met on Sundays and it tells us that they met every single day. But description must subject itself to prescription when Paul states in Romans 14:

One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. (Rom 14:1-14)

Again, in Colossians 2:

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival celebration or a monthly holiday or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Col 2:13-17)

In both of these passages we see that Christians are free to celebrate or not celebrate whatever days they see fit. This is because the Christian is redeemed. Everything a Christian does as a Christian is redeemed because he is redeemed. He doesn’t need to force himself under a law of specific practices to redeem anything. He will simply be redeemed and therefore redeem everything he does by virtue of gratefully partaking in creation. Like a man with chalk on his hands, he gets his redemption on everything by virtue of just touching it in worship of God. That means there is no day, food, way of doing this or that or the other thing that must be partaken of specifically because all amoral things can be redeemed, thus giving Christians a world of options to practice in their customs.

But what of Sunday? Again, it is the day we often call people to come be discipled and fellowship because we commemorate the Lord rising from the dead that day, as the early church did. So the elders call an assembly on that day, but they also call assemblies on other days to do the same thing and all should come because of that, not because the day in and of itself is more redeemed than other days, as though those who partake in this day will be more sanctified and blessed than those who do not.

Furthermore, those who would argue that this day should be observed because what we see in the New Testament as descriptive should also be prescriptive fail to understand what day the church is meeting. It is Sunday for them, but not Sunday for us. Let me explain.

It becomes clear as one reads the New Testament, especially in Acts, that the earliest church was meeting on Sunday to celebrate the communion and fellowship Christ had with the disciples on the night of Passover as well as the time he rose from the dead on Sunday morning, which is early in the morning before the sun rises. It is at night that the supper takes place. It is at night that they go from the upper room of that fellowship and communion to sing songs as they walk to the garden and it is at night when they arrest the Lord. It is still dark (i.e., at night) when the Lord rises in the morning. This means that the earliest church was meeting on early Sunday, which in the Jewish understanding of a day is at 6pm on Saturday night. This is why the communion is a supper and not a breakfast. They would often meet on what is to us Saturday evening and go into the early morning on Sunday after which the day often proceeded like any other day.

For instance, in Acts 20, Luke relates the following scene.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. (Acts 20:7–9).

The first day of the week is Sunday, but notice that Paul is talking to them and goes to midnight. They had already many lamps lit because the night we are referring to here is Saturday night in our configuration of the days. Paul didn't start talking in the morning and not finish until midnight. He started in the night and finished during the night of the first day of the week. But notice, Paul was going to depart the next day. Verse 11 states:

And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed.

So Paul talks even longer and then he departs in the morning at the next daybreak after that evening as the text states also in v. 7. But also notice that they break the bread of the communion after midnight in the early hours of the morning before daybreak, which means that the day Paul departs on, the morning he leaves and travels because it's no longer "Sunday meeting time" is Sunday morning. If one does not take it this way but suggests that the evening in which they are meeting is on our Sunday evening (which in the Jewish configuration would end at 6pm, they service would actually have been held on Monday, the second day of the week (and this would be true in any configuration because he doesn't break bread with them until after midnight).

This isn't consistent with the text that says he gathered with them on the first day of the week to break bread. This means that they are meeting on Saturday night, which is their early Sunday, not Sunday morning.

If one is to see the description as prescriptive and follow a regulative principle then most of these Christians have never actually attended a Sunday assembly in their lives unless they showed up to some Saturday night service.

By their own words they will be condemned if they have condemned others for doing the same.

However, this is not prescriptive because any time can be redeemed and made holy to the Lord whenever the elders call the assembly, so one can meet on Sunday morning, i.e., our Sunday morning, or Sunday evening, or Saturday evening, or Tuesday evening, or Thursday morning or afternoon, etc. because Christians are not under the old covenant which restricts the times that can be made holy. They are under the new covenant which redeems the entirety of time, food, amoral customs, etc. Only under this understanding can one continue to meet on our Sunday mornings without violating any prescriptions in the New Testament.

This is why one can observe all days or one day or no days. He can eat all foods, some foods, or fast. He can wear clothing of any one fabric, all fabrics, or any mixture therein. Any holiday can be redeemed or left uncelebrated.

But whenever the elders call a meeting, if the Christian is able bodied, he needs to be there. That is not because the day is special but because the calling of the assembly, upon whatever day that may be, is. For instance, I had people made at me for not being able to attend Sunday morning as a sick person, but they themselves did not attend the Tuesday evening they were called to attend by the majority of elders. Again, by their standard of measure they shall be measured. But have no doubt, all things a Christian touches are redeemed because he is redeemed, not because they are holy in and of themselves.

What Doth Calvinism Have to Do with Postmill?

Is Postmill Exclusively Optimistic? 

What World Has Been Given to Christ? Why One-Kingdom's Deficient Biblical Theology Cripples Its Systematics

 "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Me" (Matt 28:18). From this statement, one-kingdom advocates argue that Christ now rules everything. He is the king of all the nations already because this statement suggests that there is nothing that does not belong to him. Other texts make similar statements, such as 1 Peter 3:22 and Ephesians 1:22. 1 Peter 3:22 states: "[Jesus Christ,] who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him." The oft repeated Kuyperian quotation proclaims, "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!"

This statement is true enough in its proclamation but likely not really understood biblically by Kuyper and those who follow him. The reason why I say that is that there are two factors often missed by one-kingdom advocates. The first is understanding a figure of speech called prolepsis. This is the idea that something that has not yet taken place can be stated in a way so as to present it as having already taken place. This is often used to state the absoluteness of something occurring in the future. If it has already been done, there is no undoing it. It is going to happen. The second is a failure to identify what is being talked about when the Scripture discusses Christ's supremacy over all things. I would suggest that the Bible presents a sovereign rule of God that pictures Him as reigning over all things cosmically but only directing localized spiritual and physical authorities over the earth. So even though the devil is the god of this age, for instance, God says what he can and cannot do, but he still maintains his localized dominion over the earth. God is the emperor but the devil a king over planet earth. God rules over Israel alone as its king, preserving a people for Himself (Deut 32:8-9).

First, we need to look at Scriptures that indicate that Christ's supremacy over all things does not mean that all things are currently subject to him or that he directly rules all things as their localized ruler/king. 

Hebrews 2:5-8 states the following:

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor,  putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. (Heb 2:5-8)

The context makes it clear, as well as the explicit statement in v. 9, that Auctor is applying this passage to Jesus. The "him" who does not currently reign, even though all things were subject to him, is Jesus. Why is this? Because, Auctor explains in v. 5, it is the world to come, not the present world that has been subjected to him. So he uses the phrase that God subjected all things to him, but then explains that this is the world to come, not the present world that is not currently in subjection to him.

So what is the authority given to Christ in Matthew 28:18? And why do texts like Ephesians 1:19-23 and 1 Peter 3:22 seem to suggest that all things have been subject to Christ already and other texts suggest that he has not yet subjected these things to himself? 

For instance, 1 Corinthians 15:23-28 states that all things have been subjected to Christ and in the same breath Paul tells us that all things are not yet subjected to him and need to still be subjected to him in the future at which point he will hand the kingdom back over to the Father. 

The fact that the world to come is the world being subjected to Christ, and that everything in this current world has been subjected to Christ already, and yet there are rulers and authorities, and even the physical world (Phil 3:21; Rom 8:19-23), that are not yet subject to him, means that at least one of the two options I presented are happening here. Either it is a case of prolepsis or Christ's supremacy refers to the position the Father has over the cosmos, not the lower regencies of the earth.

In some instances, it is a matter of prolepsis. Christ is given all things but does not yet currently have all things in his possession. In other words, he has the deed to the house but hasn't evicted the squatters yet. Those squatters have legal rights to the house still. They are the previous occupants. In this case, they are the previous localized rulers of the world, angelic and Satanic powers that were given the domain of the world in the fall of the world to the devil (Gen 3) and in the dividing up of the nations at the fall of Babel (Gen 11:1-9; Deut 32:8-9), keeping only Israel for himself, since he is the king of Israel. This is why Peter's sermon in Acts 2 quotes Psalm 110 yet again and then declares that the entire house of Israel needs to know that God has made Jesus both Messiah and Lord of that house, not David. Hence, God has restored the Davidic king to his throne, and that throne is the throne of David, the rule of Israel. Yet, Christ also reigns at God's right hand, which we will talk about next. At some point, as the book of Daniel and prophetic books proclaim, Israel with its Messiah at its head will take possession of all of the nations and all of those nations will come and bow down to it. Of course, what we learn from Acts is that Israel, the kingdom of God, is the church of Jesus Christ. So Christ currently rules over the church locally, but the rest of the powers have dominion until he abolishes all rule and authority as 1 Corinthians 15 states. This means that some passages that speak of God having already subjected all things to Christ may be proleptic in that they speak of something that is yet to be accomplished as though it has already been accomplished and currently exists even when it has not yet come about. When Revelation states that Christ was crucified before the foundation of the world, for instance, this is proleptic. Obviously, Christ wasn't literally crucified before the foundation of the world. He wasn't crucified until around A.D. 26-30. However, it is spoken of that way because his crucifixion was a such a sure thing that it was spoken of in a way as though it had already occurred from the "point" it was decreed in eternity past.

Having said this, however, there is another fundamental point that needs to be understood. As I just argued above, Christ is made the king of Israel. He is not made the king of the nations or the world for that matter. The devil is not only the invisible ruler of this world who currently is at work in it as its ruler (Eph 2:2), he is the god of this age (2 Cor 4:4), the age in which Paul is currently existing when he says this after the resurrection of Christ, after Christ has been given all authority in heaven and earth. So Christ is the king of the world but the devil is the king of the world? Christ is the Lord of the world but the devil is the god of this world/age? This makes no sense unless we understand that the terminology of all authority in heaven and earth, subjecting all things, at the right hand of God, etc. refers to Christ taking up the position of the Sovereign Lord God who reigns cosmically over all things as the Father has always reigned cosmically over all things, even while the lower regents of the devil and the fallen angels have ruled the world.

This means that Christ is ruling as King of kings and Lord of lords, i.e., the emperor of the cosmos as the Father once ruled but now has given all authority over the Son to bring about the salvation of the members of his nation, Israel, the church. Hence, he now works all things as God the Father once did. The idea is not that God the Father isn't doing anything now but that there is no disagreement between the Father and the Son in moving all things toward the one goal. This is why 1 Corinthians 15 says that once Christ has put all things under his feet he won't reign in this way anymore. Instead, he must reign until a point in time when he abolishes all of these lower regents. Once he does that, then, the text says, he'll hand the kingdom over to the Father. This is why Jesus states in Revelation 3:21. He doesn't take some other throne. He's not sitting on the devil's throne who clearly has all power in the book so much so that he gives the world power to the empire of Rome and its Caesar and has the authority and right to kill all of the members of Christ's spiritual Israel who reside in his world. The devil, not Christ, is the localized authority over the world. Christ has taken the throne of the Father that is far above all rule and authority as the cosmic King of kings and Lord of lords. He will hand this throne back to the Father once the earthly throne of Israel is all that is left in the world and he returns to rule over the world as the sole ruler of the localized domain.

Again, he is the king of Israel, the Davidic king, in reference to the world, not the king of the whole world as the under-regent of it. He rules all things in terms of directing all things toward the good of his people's salvation, preparing them for the world that Auctor tells us has been subjected to him, the world to come.

Ephesians 1:19-23 states this same bifurcation between the cosmic role of an emperor over the universe versus the localized role where Christ is head of the church, not the new ruler of the domains of the angelic rulers and authorities who are still in power. Christ does not abolish them yet here. Instead, he rules over them as God the Father has always ruled over them cosmically and toward his ultimate goal of the new heavens and earth.

And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. 

Notice that he is made the cosmic ruler over all things but made head over all things in the church. So the entirety of the cosmos is subject to him in the sense that he rules as God the Father has always ruled, even during the localized rule of the devil, but he is made head only over all things in the church when it comes to localized dominion within the world. This means that Christ reigns in the world by reigning over his people who are the church, i.e., Israel. He rules over the cosmos by directing all things toward the goal of their salvation but this includes leaving the current rulers in their places until the time which (the Greek of 1 Cor 15:25).

This whole understanding causes us to read 1 Corinthians 15:23-28 with far more light on what is happening here, so I'm now going to translate this text from the Greek without leaving out what English translations traditionally do.

23 Ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, 24 εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν ⸀παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν. 25 δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. 26 ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος·* 27 πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. ὅταν δὲ εἴπῃ °ὅτι πάντα ὑποτέτακται, δῆλον ὅτι ἐκτὸς τοῦ ὑποτάξαντος αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα. 28 ὅταν δὲ ὑποταγῇ αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, τότε °[καὶ] αὐτὸς ὁ υἱὸς ὑποταγήσεται τῷ ὑποτάξαντι αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα,* ἵνα ᾖ ὁ θεὸς °1[τὰ] πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν. (Kurt Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012), 1 Co 15:23–28).

23 But each in its own order: Christ as firstfruits, then those of Christ at his coming. 24 At that time it is the end: when he hands the kingdom over to the God and Father, when he abolishes all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign until the time which he places the enemies under his feet. 26 Death is the last enemy to be abolished. 27 For He has subjected all things under his feet. But when it says, "for all things have been subjected," it is clear that the One who subjected all things to him is excepted. 28 But when all things are subjected to him then the Son himself will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to him in order that in this God will become all in all.

Now, I could go on all day with this passage but this last phrase is often missed by people. It is not until the time when all rule and authority and power, i.e., the magistrates of the localized world, are abolished that the Son will be again made subject to the Father rather than reigning together with Him on His throne. He is made subject to the Father by becoming the localized ruler of the world after abolishing the other rule and authority, as we also see in Daniel (the rock destroys all of the nations until there are no more nations for any other people except the kingdom of God, then it takes over the world). It is not until this happens that Christ gives over the kingdom/domain/throne he has been ruling, which is his Father's kingdom/domain/throne and takes up his earthly throne over the entire world as the Davidic king of Israel who has conquered the world. And it is only at this time that God will become all in all because right now God is not the God of the world, the devil is. But when Christ takes it back at his return, then God will also rule all things both cosmically and locally, and hence, be all things to all things. 

Hence, there are two kingdoms. The kingdom of the devil and the kingdom of God, and it is our job to get as many people as God has chosen into the kingdom of God and prepare them for the new world. It is not our job to try and make the devil's kingdom look more like the kingdom of God. It is our job to disciple individuals in the nations by baptizing them (masculine pronoun not in agreement with "nations" a feminine noun, so showing that its individuals not whole nations btw) and teaching them all that Christ commanded. Christ is preparing the people now. The place is not yet prepared by him but will be.

So I would heartily affirm Kuyper's quotation that there is not one square inch of the world that Christ looks at and doesn't say, "Mine," if it is also understood that there is also not one square inch of the physical world that Christ looks at and has actually taken yet. He captures the souls of his people now so that he might redeem them physically in the creation of the world to come. Hence, in response to his being given authority over all things he tasks the church to do just that: As you go, make disciples, not buildings, not cultures, not governments, not breweries, etc. You can do and should do all these things just as a people, but the church has the task of making disciples because that is the work of the specific kingdom of Christ in this world until the day dawns and the kingdom of men has become the kingdom of our God and His Christ (Rev 11:15-19).

Already, Not Yet.

Reading Genesis the Way God Intended

How to Read the Early Chapters of Genesis

Why Genesis 1 & 2 Cannot Be Harmonized

The Not-Yet Redemption of the Body in Ephesians 4

One of the most important lessons for anyone struggling with sin to learn about the nature of biblical soteriology is that the body is not redeemed yet. In fact, not only is it not redeemed, because it is corrupted, it continues to be corrupted the rest of your temporary life here. This means that not even the physical thing attached to your spirit directly, a thing the spirit pervades, is redeemed until the Lord returns and the physical resurrection of the body occurs.

One of the texts that tells us this is Ephesians 4:18-24.

⸀ἐσκοτωμένοι τῇ διανοίᾳ ὄντες,* ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τὴν οὖσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς,* διὰ τὴν πώρωσιν τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, οἵτινες ⸀ἀπηλγηκότες ἑαυτοὺς παρέδωκαν τῇ ἀσελγείᾳ εἰς ἐργασίαν ἀκαθαρσίας πάσης ⸂ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ⸃.* Ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως ἐμάθετε τὸν Χριστόν, εἴ γε αὐτὸν ἠκούσατε καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐδιδάχθητε,* καθώς ἐστιν ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ,* ἀποθέσθαι ὑμᾶς κατὰ τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροφὴν τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν φθειρόμενον κατὰ ⸂τὰς ἐπιθυμίας⸃ τῆς ἀπάτης,* ⸀ἀνανεοῦσθαι δὲ ⸆ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν* καὶ ⸀ἐνδύσασθαι τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν κατὰ θεὸν κτισθέντα ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ὁσιότητι ⸂τῆς ἀληθείας⸃.* 

Having been darkened in their [people without Christ] understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But you did not learn Christ this way if indeed you heard Him and you were instructed by Him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you are to take off the former way of life, the old man which is being corrupted in accordance with its deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Things of note here: The former manner of life is described in vv. 18-19. This is the behavior that comes from an unredeemed life. However, we are told that this behavior can still come from a believer because the corrupt body continues to be corrupted in harmony with its deceitful desires. It is not the manner of life that is being corrupted but the old man that is currently being corrupted still. The participle τὸν φθειρόμενον is a Present Passive "being corrupted" and it is masculine in gender in agreement with  τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον also masculine in gender. It is not in agreement with τὴν προτέραν ἀναστροφὴν which is feminine in gender. Hence, it is not the behavior that is continually being corrupted but the source of that behavior, the old man, which is still something a Christian has as a part of him, i.e., this body of death, the flesh.

Paul tells us that the remedy for this is not to believe that the body is redeemed but rather to throw off those former behaviors by putting on the new man through the renewal of the spirit of the mind, which is created in the likeness of God. So this new nature is found in the spirit of the believer, in their minds, which are now made after the image and likeness of God as opposed to the corrupted old man that in Pauline theology is found within the physical body, the flesh. 

What this means is that there is no redemption of the old man in the flesh until the redemption of the body. This is helpful to understand in that many Christians are thrown into absolute despair because they find that they struggle with the same evil desires that they had before they were saved, and then, think that maybe they are not saved. 

Instead, what is really happening is that the person is saved and has become a new man in the spirit of the mind, but rather than ushered into the peace of a fully redeemed self, has instead entered into the war before the peace. 

Christians, therefore, need to understand that the desires of the body are not in continuity with the life of holiness but rather one that is alienated from God, hostile toward God, run by their emotions and given over to an indulgence in sexual immorality. And that is still the state of their physical bodies. They have not yet been redeemed in their bodies. That is the hope that they are to look toward and in view of that hope subject their bodies to the renewed spirit of their minds in Christ and be led by that spirit rather than by the winds and waves of what they want to do. 

This is helpful to note since it lets Christians know that the struggle is the normal pattern of the Christian life as the full redemption of his person has not yet taken place yet. It is also helpful to know that a Christian must overcome the flesh rather than try and get it aligned in agreement with the spirit. The wants will never be in agreement in this life. Hence, every decision will have an opposite desire to it and the Christian must learn the mind of Christ in order to choose which path to take. Even when taking the right path, there will always be a desire to take the other. This is the craziness of war but it is the craziness to which we are called when we have been reconciled to God in the inner man, but the body must now be placed in subjection until it is redeemed at the coming of the Lord for the world to come.

The Already-Not Yet of John 5:19-30 and How Christ Applies His Given Authority to the World

 If you've ever heard the Kuyperian claim that "there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” then you'll be familiar with what I'm talking about in this post. I actually can't stand when people quote this because, of course, every Christian agrees with this statement given qualifications concerning what they mean by it. The question is how much of what Christ claims of that every square inch as His and not the devils occurs before His second coming. In other words, the issue surrounds when Christ takes hold of what is given to Him as the reward of His work, not whether He does or not.

As argued in the last post, He clearly doesn't claim that of the bodies of believers until the resurrection. I don't know about you but my body is more than a square inch. In fact, the increase of potlucks lately has made quite a few more square inches than it previously was, and Christ has not yet applied the transforming redemption to it and laid hold of it yet. It remains an unwilling participant in my worship of Christ. Because the Spirit of God is within me, it, again, unwillingly, has become the temple of God, but it would as soon as get rid of the Spirit in order to have its way as look at ya. 

So I may not even need to write this post. I probably already proved that Christ has, in fact, not laid hold of everything in the previous post. In fact, the Bible is really clear that He must reign until He puts all of His enemies under His feet, the last one being death. Hence, there are many square inches, according to Scripture, that are not under His feet, i.e., under His authority, in subjection to Him.

So what does Matthew 28:18 mean? All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth? I think the problem is that people are thinking in terms of American politics and not ancient authority. You may be given all authority as a king in the ancient world, but you now have to take hold of it. It doesn't mean you reign over anything yet. What it means is that a province, nation, etc. has been given to you. You now have to go and subdue it or it does not belong to you.

In other words, the giving of authority is a right to rule over that area and its people, not the actual ruling over the area and its people. 

God gives the authority to Adam to rule over the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, etc., but He tells Him to then subdue it by a continual activity of being fruitful and multiplying so that the earth is filled, man subdues creation, and then, and only then, does he get to rule over it as its sole king.

Christ is the second Adam. He's been given the mandate. He now must subdue what has been given to Him. 

But here is where everything goes awry in some people's theology. Does Christ subject the world to Himself by just subjecting the spiritual individuals who will belong to His kingdom first and then, only when they are completed in number, subject the physical world to Himself, or does He subject both the spiritual and physical world to Himself simultaneously? 

As argued in the preceding post, the latter is clearly not true, and John 5:19-30 is yet another scriptural example of that.

In this text Christ proclaims:

Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. 21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. 30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

Jesus is here arguing that He only does what the Father is doing and that as His Father judges men and gives life to people, the Son now can do the same. This is the authority that is given to Him. He now decides to whom He will give life and to whom He will give a decree of condemnation. 

Hence, Christ says in v. 25 that He will call out to those who are spiritually dead and they will come to life. The reason He is able to do this is given in vv. 26-27: The Father has life in Himself and has granted to the Son to also have life in Himself and that the Father has granted to the Son the authority to execute judgment in this regard. In other words, the authority granted to the Son is to become the judge of the world, save some in regeneration, and then in v. 28-29 to resurrect all men to either eternal life or eternal condemnation. But these very verses tell us how Jesus applies this authority to judge the world. He applies the spiritual authority to raise from spiritual life now. He applies the authority to the physical world at the judgment when some are raised to eternal life and others to damnation. In other words, the application of Christ's authority is to claim every spiritual square inch of his people now, and claim every physical square inch of creation in the eschaton, i.e., at the resurrection from the dead.

That is why the immediate result of Christ declaring that all authority has been given to Him in heaven and earth in Matthew 28:18-21 is commanding the disciples to go get all of His spiritual kingdom, to go lay hold of it through the means of making disciples via baptism/conversion and teaching all that Christ commanded. That is why Christ proclaims to Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world. It is not of this world. It is the physical new world to come, but His kingdom now is a spiritual one that is not of this world. It's why we are strangers and aliens here. Why we are told we are citizens of heaven and we ought to seek the things above rather than the things below because are lives are not here but instead have been hidden in Christ, why we are told that we are waiting for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, and not merely looking to lay hold of a world that the Bible says is passing away. 

To be sure, the new world is not a completely different world anymore than our new bodies will be completely different bodies. Same bodies but glorified. Same creation but cleansed and transformed. But this all at the coming of the Lord according to the Scriptures.

An Argument against a Postmillennial Claim about the Physical World

The best part of a storm is at the end of it. The darkness is broken by a sudden ray of light from the sun that crashes through the clouds signifying the end of the gloom. There is a sort of picture of Christ's return in that. 

Not all postmills will make this argument. I feel like I have to say that every time I talk about somethi9ng these days because the immediates response will be, "That's not what I claim." I get it. Everyone has their whopper their way. I'm just talking about those who put pickles on it. 

The pickles in this case is the claim that the authority given to Jesus Christ as a reward for His faithful work has already effected the physical world and it will continue to progress into something better until the day the Lord comes. In other words, the weather will be more accommodating to humanity, the animals will no longer be as hostile toward humans or one another, the trees will grow more green year by year, humans will live longer, etc.

Of course, I've talked a lot about the already-not yet theology of the New Testament that is pretty much unanimously held by New Testament scholars, as a theology that teaches that the spiritual transformation of God's sons must precede their physical transformation, but this belief above must deny this, and I'll argue here as to why.

In Romans 6-8, Paul argues that although we have been united to Christ, it is the inner man, the spirit, not the body that has been transformed. Hence, the physical body remains, not only in its evil estate, but , as he states in Ephesians, "continues to be corrupted" (Eph 4:22). Paul says of his physical body that nothing good dwells within it (Rom 7:18), and that it is only the inner man that loves the law of God (v. 22). Hence, he cries out, "Who will save me from this body of death?" (7:24). The body, after the Christian has come to Christ, is called "the body of sin" and that it is possible to let sin reign within it because it, in fact, has not yet been redeemed/transformed. The hope of the Christian to get freedom from sin in this life is by realizing the death sentence the body has been given (Rom 6:8, 11; Gal 5:24), giving it up as a living sacrifice to God through the renewing of the inner man/the mind/spirit (Rom 12:1-2), dominating the body by living in the spirit/the inner man rather than in the flesh. In other words, there is a war in the Christian because the physical body has not been transformed yet and still desires to do what is sinful (Gal 5:16-18). Paul argues in Galatians 5 here that the spirit/the new inner man is given so that we do not do what we want, referring to the desires of the flesh/the body. 

Now, it is important to put in another caveat that although the body is interchangeable with the flesh in Pauline literature, he is not saying that the body is inherently evil but instead that it has been completely corrupted. It is from this corruption that the body has not yet been delivered.

Instead, the timing of that deliverance is given in Romans 8. In vv. 10-11, Paul concludes based upon what he just argued that although the body is dead (notice: dead, not transformed), the spirit is alive because of Christ's righteousness. Paul then gives this hope to Christians in v. 11: "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ will also give life to your mortal bodies through the spirit that dwells in you." In other words, the spiritual transformation within the believer that has taken place due to his unification with Christ will be the means through which the body is also given life and transformed by God.

When does this occur? Immediately? No, we just saw that the believer will struggle with the desires of the body that continues to get worse and worse, not better. As it gets worse, Christians who are growing in the new man are also getting stronger and able to dominate the desires of the body more and place it into submission by force, not because the body wants to be in submission to Christ. Instead, the transformation of the body occurs at the resurrection. Paul states in v. 23 that we inwardly groan as we await the revealing of the sons of God, which he explains is at the resurrection of the body.

Now, why is this important? Because in vv. 19-23, Paul argues that all of creation is linked to the body of believers through federal headship. It cannot be linked to the spirit except through the body because creation has no inherent spirit within it. There is no eternal life force in creation. It is linked to mankind and his lifeforce, his spirit, only through his body. Hence, it is only at the transformation of his body that creation can be transformed. Hence, it remains in a state of futility and decay until that time. There is no transformation of the physical world before it because there is no transformation of the body of believers before it.

We know that the resurrection occurs at the coming of Christ. It is then that we are transformed as He is (Phil 3:19-21; Col 3:1-4; 1 John 3:2-3). This is the already-not yet. In John 5:25, Jesus states, "“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." The kingdom had come in Jesus very day as the Son of God called out and raised spiritually dead men to spiritual life. But notice that this is for the inner man/the spirit, not the body. That is spoken of in vv. 28-29, when Jesus says, "Do not marvel at this [i.e., that God has given the Son authority to raise men spiritually], for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment." This is not said to be now. This is not what the kingdom looks like now. The kingdom now is a bunch of spiritually raised people with untransformed, corrupted bodies. We'll talk about in another post the fact that the authority given to Jesus to judge the world manifests itself in the already-not yet in these texts so that only the spiritual is applied now, but I digress.

My point is that this transformation of the body only occurs at the resurrection of the bodies of believers which only happens at the second advent of Christ.

Now, back to Romans 8. In vv. 18-25, which read as follows:

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 

The suffering in the context is due to an untransformed body and the struggle between the old man and the new man that it creates. Paul tells us to win the battle with our corrupted body by living in the mindset of the new man and overcoming it. This struggle is linked to the struggle that all creation has since it is linked to the body and now Paul personifies it as though it has a mind that is waiting to be delivered from it decay, corruption, and futility. In other words, the creation is still in the same state it was in before Christ came just as the body of the believer is in the same state it was in before Christ came and the gospel was applied to him. That's because the gospel has not been applied to his body and it has not been applied to creation yet. That is the "not yet" part of the already-not yet. 

So all one has to do to evalutate this common postmill claim that creation has been transformed or is being transformed or will be transformed before Christ's return to his physical body. The Bible says that the body was not transformed, is not being transformed, but will be transformed only at the resurrection of the body at the return of Christ. 

This, of course, leads us to a complete misreading of Isaiah 65:17-25 as some sort of future promise that God must fulfill in the church. Instead, these are Deuteronomic promises to Israel that if it obeys the law and is faithful to the suzerain-vassal covenant made by God with Israel after the exile, He will restore them as a picture of the new heavens and new earth that they were meant to be, and thus, fulfill their role as the means of saving the nations through that picture. They are not faithful, and therefore, this was never fulfilled, nor since Christ who is the substance of the shadows has come, does it ever need to be fulfilled. The church now is the spiritual kingdom that will spiritually picture the new heavens and earth as a place where everyone loves God and one another and where sin and chaos are no more. The church pictures this by loving one another, being faithful to God, and not living in the sins of the corrupted flesh.

It is important to understand, then, that the passage in Isaiah 65 would be a contradiction with the New Testament in any other framework. If this passage is arguing that the physical creation will be transformed before the resurrection and transformation of the bodies of believers, then it is a real contradiction with the New Testament that says otherwise. Instead, understanding it correctly as contingent, and therefore, unnecessary for God to fulfill due to Israel's unfaithfulness, will lead one to conclude that this prophecy remains a shadow of the world to come, and a sad commentary on what Israel could have been had they been faithful. 

So the gospel has not been applied to creation. Christ is given authority to take over all heaven and earth but has not yet applied that authority to the physical world, starting with and including our physical bodies. And this is, perhaps, the greatest irony of this argument within a postmill context because it ends up being a whole lot of people claiming to transform the world with the gospel who cannot even transform the most essential part of the physical world, i.e., their bodies, before the return of Christ. To use a verse out of context, If the eye is dark, the whole body will be. And it will remain that way until Christ appears in glory as the light that washes away all of the gloom. 

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 8:19–25.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 5:28–29.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 5:25.