The religious divide of our time is between those who think they can compromise with the sexual revolution without compromising their faith—and those who are awakening to the fact that this experiment has been tried and has failed. 

Solzhenitsyn famously defined the principal trait of the twentieth century in four words: “Men have forgotten God.” So far, the twenty-first century might be summarized in six: Men are at war with God. Awakened from agnostic slumber by new forms of temptation, chiefly the sexual revolution, humanity is at war with God over a question that reaches back to the beginning of time: Who, exactly, should have power over creation?
Christianity and Judaism teach that the answer is “God.” The ­culture dominant in the West today teaches the opposite. It says that the creation of new life is ours to control—more precisely, that it is woman’s to control. It says that we can dispose of life in the womb for any reason whatsoever, from simple whim to a preference for a boy rather than a girl. It goes further, saying that we can erase life on the basis of rationales that continue to expand. In Belgium, a middle-aged woman was recently euthanized because she was distraught over the surgeries done and chemicals taken in the vain hope that she could change her sex. She was seduced by the prevailing culture, which says that we can re-invent ourselves in new genders, cosmetically accessorized by surgeries and chemicals.
How did we reach the point where our society repudiates creation? Let’s begin in the present. Many voices, both supportive of and opposed to identity politics, have discussed what this new code of conduct is doing to us. We need to ask a different question: What is the nonstop obsession with identity telling us—about ourselves, our civilization, and the wounds that our complicity with the sexual revolution has caused us to inflict on ourselves?
By way of answer, consider this syllogism. The sexual revolution led to the decline of the family. This weakening in turn has fueled the decline of organized religion. (I lay out why this is the case in How the West Really Lost God.) Both of these losses have left elephantine holes in the Western sense of self. As a result, many Western people now scramble to fill those vacancies with something else.
The revolution robbed many of a familial identity. By spurring secularization, it also robbed them of a supernatural identity, which is why swaths of the materially advanced societies once rooted in European civilization now suffer ­unprecedented uncertainty about who they are. This is especially true among the young. They are racked by the compound fractures of what is now a sixty-year experiment, motivating frantic, often furious attempts to construct an ersatz identity. We are told to see ourselves as members of political collectives based on race, ethnicity, gender, and the rest of the alphabetized brigade. This divisive project has in turn given rise to today’s sharply politicized turns of public discourse, street ­unrest, and the rancorous, unforgiving tone of much of our politics.
Famous experiments on animals demonstrate that artificial isolation from their own kind produces dysfunction. We need to understand that humanity is running an analogous experiment on itself. The revolution ushered in facts of life that had never before existed on the scale seen today. Abortion, fatherlessness, divorce, single parenthood, childlessness, the imploding nuclear family, the shrinking extended family: All these phenomena are acts of human subtraction. Every one of them has the effect of reducing the number of people to whom we belong, and whom we can call our own.
Outside consciously religious communities, which now amount to a counter-culture, generational reality for most people can be summarized in one word: fewer. Fewer brothers, sisters, cousins, children, grandchildren. Fewer people to play ball with, or talk to, or learn from. Fewer people to celebrate a birth; fewer people to visit one’s deathbed. In a way that is not generally acknowledged, the sexual revolution has produced a relationship deficit. And since we are social creatures and define ourselves relationally, this shortage means that we face an identity deficit. Who am I? This is a universal, inescapable question. Because of the revolution, many of us have lost the material with which to construct an answer.
As our individual lives become more disordered and bereft, so do our politics. The first use of the phrase “identity politics” appears in a manifesto published by radical African-American feminists in 1977—just as the first generation born into the revolution was coming of age. For those who haven’t read it, the Combahee River Collective manifesto is a poignant window onto modern times. It declares, in essence, that its signatories—all women—are giving up on the men in their lives. They are banding together for a future that does not include unreliable boyfriends and husbands. There is a straight line from that declaration of failure to the one uploaded by Black Lives Matter last year (and subsequently removed), which likewise denied healthy relations between the sexes and within the natural family, and failed even to mention fathers or brothers. Both proclamations signify that political identity has become a substitute for familial and communal bonds. Both are rooted in a fury at creation itself—an anger at the disruption of the natural order, which the creature now claims the right to re-order.
Read More

To the disciples, much about Jesus’ coming Kingdom would be learned through these secretive parables (Matthew 11:34-35). They understood that for a period of time, imposters would exist alongside the true followers of Christ, like a field of wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-31). But, by the end, the Kingdom of Christ would tower over all the kingdoms of the earth, like a Mustard tree in the master’s garden (Matthew 13:31-32). And, at the end of the age (As Malachi predicted), all who are in Christ would be separated from the wicked, like good and bad fish caught in a dragnet (Matthew 13:47-52). 

From Malachi’s Eden to Matthew’s Jerusalem
As we begin, I want to reinforce two tremendous truths that have revolutionized my study of eschatology. 1) Most of the “end-time” events have already occurred in the past. They truly were future events to the men who described them and wrote them down. But, for us, most of these events have already occurred. 2) Jesus came to earth twice in the first century. The first coming was physical and incarnational. This is where He rescued His people and delivered them from their sins. The second coming was spiritual and covenantal. This is where He rained down judgment upon apostate Judah for her crimes and rebellion.
We know this because Malachi prophecies there will be two specific first-century “comings” of the Lord. His first coming will be a physical coming, where He rescues those who feared the Lord and esteemed His holy name (Malachi 3:16). This includes all those who repented and followed Jesus under the guidance of John, those who repented under the ministry of Jesus, or those that believed in His name in the earliest days of the Church. God saves those men and women by allowing His one and only Son to undergo the punishment they deserve (alluded to in Malachi 3:17) so that He can declare them righteous, and distinguish them from the wicked (Malachi 3:18). This certainly has already occurred and is the very Gospel of our salvation today.
The second first-century “coming” of Christ, described by Malachi, is a spiritual act of judgment against the covenant rebels in Judah. While Jesus’ physical body remained in heaven, seated upon His throne, Malachi tells us that He would bring a fiery judgment that none of that generation could endure. Of that “coming”, Malachi tells us several things:

“But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? – Malachi 3:2
“Then I will draw near to you for judgment – Malachi 3:5a
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” 2 “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. 3 You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord of hosts. – Malachi 4:1-3

These final verses from chapter 4 bring the entire theological point together. Jesus is coming in two different ways to deal with two very different kinds of people. For the repentant, He will rise from the dead bringing healing to the broken, and He will endow the joyless with never-ending delight. He will welcome His people into the garden of His presence. He will graft them into His covenantal and life-giving vine, even while cutting off the apostate Jews so that neither root or branch remains. Unto that wicked and adulterous generation, the Lord would not come in peace, but with a flaming sword. He will turn them back into the dust from which He made them and put them, like the serpent, under His people’s feet (c.f. Romans 16:20). That is the picture Malachi is painting.
This is also the eschatological picture the whole Bible is painting. Adam was created to live with God, have a legacy and dominion, feast upon the life-giving tree, and put the enemies of God under his feet. Instead, Adam chose to sin, which meant he lost his relationship with God, he was chased out of the garden with a fiery sword, he was banned from the tree of life, his progeny was put under the curse, and his dominion was turned into slavery, and his body was subjected to sweat, blood, and toil until it returned again to the dust.
This is the subtle Edenic picture Malachi is painting for Jerusalem. Like Adam, the Jews were going to lose their favored status as God’s firstborn son (Exodus 4:22-23). The nation would be removed from the garden land of Judah, set ablaze by the sword of His wrath, incapable of consuming the life-giving vine, their legacy finished, their national sovereignty turned to full-on slavery, and their bodies turned to ash so that God’s true people would tread them underfoot.
What Malachi is alluding to is that fallen Jerusalem will fare no better than fallen Adam. But, redeemed Jerusalem, the Israel of God (Galatians 3), who is the church that Jesus would save unto Himself, would be brought back into relationship with their creator by the working of the true and better Adam (1 Corinthians 15). Because of Jesus, the Church will have a lasting legacy that will bless all the families of this world (Genesis 12:1-3) and she will have a never-ending dominion that extends His Kingdom to the ends of the earth (Daniel 2:44-45). Because of Jesus, the Church will be a tree planted beside the fount of living water (Psalm 1; John 7), she will be grafted into the life-giving vine of His love (John 15), to produce all kinds of fruit for His glory (Galatians 5; Revelation 22:1-2), that will also provide healing to the nations. And, instead of returning to the dust in curse, eventually, these people will be given new heavenly bodies (1 Corinthians 15) to live with their true Adam King, forever in a garden city (Revelation 22).
When Malachi speaks of two very specific outcomes, happening to two very different kinds of people, that are brought about by two very different kinds of “comings”, he does two very important things. First, he is simply picking up on the massive Biblical themes that were woven throughout God’s amazing story. The children of the serpent (everyone who rejects God’s messenger), will receive the curses of the covenant (Matthew 23:33; 1 John 3:8-10). The children of God, made alive by the rising Son, will receive every single one of the covenant blessings (Ephesians 1:3). Second, he is rooting the fulfillment and inauguration of all the Old Testament’s eschatology to the two first-century comings of Christ.
Knowing these truths, mentioned above, will help us as we transition from the last book of the Old Testament to the first book of the New Testament. There, we will examine what Jesus, Himself, says about the topic of eschatology, and how that applies to Jerusalem, which will take us several weeks to cover. Today, we will begin with some introductory observations.
From Eschatological Malachi to Jesus as True Israel
The first portion of Matthew’s Gospel details how the coming Christ will bring healing to His people, as Malachi predicted. What Matthew uniquely contributes to this story is that Christ would do that work by replacing Israel. For instance, in Matthew 1, Jesus will come from the prototypical line of David and Abraham, which makes Him not only a candidate for the Jewish throne but the one who will bring the Abrahamic blessing to the nations (Galatians 3:16). This makes Him true Israel, but let us keep going.
Read More
Related Posts:

Three cheers for all those who approach church history looking for heroes and villains. May the tribe of passionately subjective historians increase, may their efforts always spur us on to love and good works (Heb. 10:25). Similarly, three cheers for all those who know the value of historically diverse conversation partners. May we all long to hear not just from God’s people around the globe, but from across the ages.

In a previous article I addressed the need to rethink how we teach and study history, especially the history of the church. I highlighted two pressing problems: First, a name-and-dates approach to the subject is both a failure to grasp what history is as well as a reliable way to ensure that most people will never care about it. (We’ll return to this presently.)
Second, a far more destructive problem is the fact that most people have drunk so deeply from the poisoned wells of progressivism that they have fallen prey to the smug fallacy of chronological snobbery.1 In this way, the point of history—if a modern man even cares about it at all—is simply to make sure he doesn’t repeat it.2 The solution to such a dim view of history is found in the biblical injunctions to “remember the days of old; consider the years of past generations” (Deut. 32:7). For all these things were recorded “for our instruction” (Rom. 15:4), that we might “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) and “hold fast to the traditions” of God’s people (1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thes. 2:15) as we imitate their virtues (Heb. 11:2ff; 13:7) and avoid their errors (2 Chron. 30:7; Zech. 1:4). In this way, history is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16)—not an as an equal to the Scriptures, much less as a replacement for the same (μὴ γένοιτο), but as an interpretive assistant and an illustrative guide.3
This brings us back to the first problem. Christians of all people (should) know that history is not something mainly to be ridiculed and avoided but to be treasured and studied with humility and gratitude. This is precisely why the names-and-dates approach to history is such an abysmal way to teach the subject, for the main effect it produces is a listless yawn. Yet such apathy only furthers our ignorance of history, which, in turn, fuels our chronological snobbery in self-destructive ways. Here, then, is a proposal for a better way forward.
Heroes and Villains in History
Since the ultimate point of history is not merely learning ‘what happened’ but learning to imitate the good, we ought to approach church history from the explicit goal of trying to cultivate virtue. And that means history must have heroes and villains.
Unfortunately, such an approach is widely frowned upon. For example, when speaking of historical theology (a field of study closely related to church history), one prominent evangelical historian writes: “If it is to be of use, historical theology must be descriptive rather than prescriptive.”4 He further explains, “It is not the historian’s job to prescribe what should be believed theologically or done practically today.”5
Never mind the hopelessly modern notion of an objective historical record.6 The fact is that ancient historians cared very little for any sense of neutrality. They had some thoughts about what happened, and so should you, dear reader. To be sure, their interpretations might be wrong—as might ours. But at least they were spared of the terrible demon of dispassionate historical detachment.
Read More
Related Posts: