Eschatologies of defeat for Christ’s victory in history
Fifth, she must reject eschatologies of defeat for Christ’s victory in history. Christ’s command to his church is to occupy until he comes (Lk 19:13 KJV). Through his ascension to the Father and enthronement at his right hand the Kingdom has already been inaugurated and is advancinguntil fully realized in history. Christ will not come again until his church has fully occupied the nations (Acts 3:21).According to Psalm 110 he remains seated in ascension glory until all his enemies have been made his footstool. Only then will he return to defeat the “last enemy”, death, in the resurrection (1 Cor 15:25). Instead of the second coming as the hope of the church, it is rather his first coming. As the climax of the ages, it was then that Satan was defeated, his head crushed, and sin vanquished! And it was then, when Jesus declared, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Lk 10:18). He has been disarmed and dispossessed! And so, his gates will not prevail against the onslaught of Christ’s church (Mt 16:18).
This means that in the face of seeming defeat, of insurmountable odds, the church of God will arise victorious well before the end.
History demonstrates Satan’s brazen overplay of his hand. This is certainly the case in the present “culture wars”, especially the WEF’s Great Reset of 2021. The barefaced attack by the cultural and political elite in league with unelected globalists – and weaponised by Big Money, Big Tech, and Big Pharma – upon all things Western is, in fact, a demonic agenda to unseat Christ. Western culture, once known as “Christendom”, is nothing less than a cultural outworking of Christ’s dominion in history.
The consummate example of satanic overplay, however, is the execution of Christ in the days of his flesh. Peter confronting the human perpetrators, delivers a stinging indictment: “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23 NASB).
Diabolically animated, but nonetheless culpable, “godless men put him to death”. Nevertheless, it was the Sovereign God’s “predetermined plan” from eternities past. Consequently, his satanic-majesty, believing that he had sprung the consummate cosmic coup was, instead, hung on his own gallows. The death of Christ becoming the very death of death, so “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14). Lights out Lucifer!
And so, the nations and their kings may conspire against the LORD and his Anointed, to cast off their restraints, but the LORD will have them in derision. For he has established his King in Zion, and it is he who has been given the nations – not the global elites – and he will possess them as his inheritance and break them with a rod of iron. Our LORD is the Governor of the universe. Therefore the nations will be brought to book:
Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Psalm 2:1–9 (cited Acts 4:25-26)
As a result every defeatist and “pessimillennial” scheme must be exorcised from the belief of the church. Or should I say unbelief! When Christ was enthroned at the ascension all heaven resounded with the cry that, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev 11:15).
So, now is the time to take sword and trowel in the right hand and the left. To wage warfare against every proud reasoning, every ideology raised up against the knowledge of God. And to rebuild the ancient ruins of Zion, the city of God, until she completely subsumes the city of man. Until a new Christian civilization emerges from the ruins of the present crisis and fills the entire earth.
This therefore demands the recovery of a biblical philosophy of history. One that sees Christ at the right hand of the Father governing “all things” for the sake of his church (Eph 1:22). That sees him as the Sovereign over history, bringing everything into his administration (Eph 1:10). Our vision of God, therefore, determines our view of the future and how we act – or not– in the present. As one well known dispensational preacher once infamously quipped, “Why polish the brass on a sinking ship?” In other words, the world is destined for destruction why bother with it. An eschatology of Christ’s victoryinhistory will embolden the people of God to do exploits, to confront the idols of the culture and build for the generations.
Summary conclusion
In summary we have shown that the Christian community must reject 5 things if she is to chart the way forward:
- Partisan politics for the politics of the Kingdom,
- The myth of neutrality for a cultural gospel,
- Experientialism and false prophecy for the Scriptures,
- Tribalism and sectarianism for apostolic unity, and
- Eschatologies of defeat for Christ’s victory in history.
Summing up, we have truncated the Gospel to personal salvation only, believing the myth of neutrality and the lie of the division of secular and sacred. We have falsely believed that our job is in the church, not in the world (especially politics), apart from perhaps some good works (welfare etc.). Because of this we have forsaken the public square. The consequent authority vacuum has precipitated a cacophony of competing voices, each new expert vying for cultural supremacy: public health experts, politicians, unelected elites, media commentators (or should I say commissars?), educators, mental health authorities, police and state authorities ad nauseum.
Because the church has rejected the authority of God in his word, the world has rejected it in his church. The churches, by not applying the whole word of God to the whole of life, have bred sentimental Christians but practical atheists. And so, the world likewise has become atheist. So goes the church, so goes the world. The salt then, having lost its savour, has been trodden under foot of men by an unbelieving culture.
In conclusion, the mandate given by our LORD is a teachingone (Mt 28:18-20). It calls for a recovery of the Gospel as a comprehensive world-and-life-view, reaching from individual salvation to cultural redemption. We must therefore embrace long-term generational change—strategies for the reconstruction of the church and society. With a biblical eschatology of Christ and his church victorious in history, time is on our side as we labour not only for the present but for the generations.
And this demands: first, the urgent recovery of biblical blueprints for every sphere of society; second, a strategy for the re-education of church and society—because ideas have consequences our battle, first and foremost, is for minds; and third, the merging of Word and Spirit emphases, of Reformed and renewal streams, into the mainstream of God’s Kingdom purpose to reform entire cultures and nations. Only then can the word do the work (1 Thes 2:13).
These five adjustments will prove to be God’s Great Reset!
Part 1: Partisan politics for the politics of the Kingdom
Part 2: The myth of neutrality for a cultural gospel
Part 3: Experientialism and false prophecy for the Scriptures
Part 4: Tribalism and sectarianism for apostolic unity
Part 5: Eschatologies of defeat for Christ’s victory in history
Download The Great Reset: Charting The Way Forward, Part 5 as PDF