Wherever Marx’s ideas have been implemented, collective ownership has given a few people immense, unchecked power over every aspect of life—ironically, one of Marx’s accusations against capitalism. The failure of utopia to materialize means that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” becomes permanent, and can only be maintained through brutality and terror. 
To borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis, there are two equal and opposite errors one can fall into concerning Marxism. One rightly identifies Marxism as a powerful and pernicious influence in modern Western culture, but then comes to the mistaken suspicion that anything that talks about oppression or justice is “Marxist” and needs to be exposed as such. The opposite error, which can stem from naïveté or nefarious intent, is to ignore or deny blatant signs of Marxist influence in contemporary ideologies and movements.
The two errors feed on each other: the more one side sees Marxism under every bush and uses the word as a club to beat down any opponent that is in some sense to their “left,” the more the other has an excuse to dismiss all charges of Marxism as so much spin and propaganda. In order to help the church avoid both of these errors, this article provides a factual account of Marxism’s origins and character. A subsequent article will look at the long-term influence of Marxism in communist societies and the West.
Origins
Marxism takes its name from the German thinker Karl Marx (1818–83). Western European society was changing rapidly in Marx’s day. The French Revolution of a few decades earlier had unleashed tremendous political upheaval. The Industrial Revolution was leading to the growth of cities and the emergence of a large urban working class. A growing belief in the inevitable progress of science and culture was taking hold of educated people.
Rapid change created new social problems. The new class of wage labourers in the mines and factories were vulnerable to dangerous working conditions, low pay, and insecurity—which seemed all the more unjust in comparison with the spectacular wealth and power amassed by the entrepreneurs who owned these mines and factories.
Marx was not the only thinker to criticize these conditions, and propose a society based on a different, more egalitarian economic system. What set him apart from other “socialist” thinkers was his all-encompassing vision of the hidden laws governing human history and society.
In contrast to the prevalent philosophies in Germany at the time, which saw ideas as the driving force in history, Marx concluded that material factors are everything. There is no realm of spirit and no God, he claimed—all that exists is the material world. The economic basis of life, how we feed and clothe and house ourselves, determines every aspect of a society, even its ideas. In particular, Marx argued, the class that owns the “means of production” in a society is able to dominate and exploit everyone else.
For Marx, this simple principle explained historical change. Changes to the means of production led to changes in the identity of the ruling class and therefore the leading values. The feudal nobility of medieval Europe had derived their power from their control of the land, and exploited the serfs whose labour made them rich. But as economic power shifted to commercial and industrial activities, the nobility and their values were thrust aside by the urban merchant class, the “bourgeoisie.” In this new dispensation, which Marx called “capitalism,” the exploitation of serfs by nobles gave way to the exploitation of industrial workers (the “proletariat”) by the bourgeoisie.
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God is graciously patient. He keeps the earth spinning. God gives us the seasons. God gives us grace every single day. May we not presume upon His grace. May we not be lulled into complacency. His bow in the sky brings amazing comfort to the Christian heart. His bow in the sky must not lull us into presuming upon His grace. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. 

“It is a bow, but it is directed upwards, not towards the earth; for the seals of the covenant were intended to comfort, not to terrify.” – Matthew Henry
And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. – 1 Corinthians 6:11
The Sign of God’s Gracious Patience
In a sermon at presbytery we were reminded of Henry’s words above. God could have pointed the bow toward heaven as a continual threat. The Lord of the heavens could have given us terror every time the clouds formed. Our lives could have been lived in constant terror that God would again destroy. But, he didn’t. God gave creation a sign of his gracious patience.
The Danger of Presuming Upon Grace
Here’s the rub though. We by human nature like to presume upon grace. We live as if our daily bread is guaranteed. We go to the store assuming there will be produce. We presume the world will continue to wobble on its axis giving us seasons. We presume the cosmic order will remain the same. We presume the seed time and harvest time will come in their intervals. The modern mind makes the presumption that what we experience historically will continue to be historically true. Nothing new here. Just carry on with business as usual. We presume.
From Presumption to Complacency
Presumption naturally leads to complacency. I presume my wife will always be loyal and committed to our marriage so I can take her for granted. I presume my children will grow up well so I can become complacent in my parenting. I presume the church will remain healthy so I can become complacent in shepherding. I presume God saved me so I can become complacent in piety.
This presumption and complacency can dull us to both amazing beauty and signs of danger.
The Beauty of God’s Promises: A Lesson from Hawaii
When my wife and I were courting she lived in Hawaii. When I went to visit her one week I was awe struck. Not by her – she was and is beautiful –
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Micah says God “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” The many shameful things we’ve done and covered up, the evil ruminations, all our caustic words—all these God will cast into the depths of the sea. To the Israelites, if something was thrown into the sea, it was lost and gone forever. The sea was the fearful place of the unknown, a vast and dangerous part of God’s creation. The sea was where you went if you never wanted to be found again.

The gospel knows no exaggerations. God doesn’t simply say, “I forgive your sins”—even though that would be saying enough, because his Word is true.
But in telling us about his mercy, God uses emphatic language, colourful comparisons, and gripping images to portray how in Christ He has fully pardoned our guilt. He is emphatic without ever stepping into overstatement.
Consider these four stunning windows into God’s forgiveness:
1) In Isaiah 38:17, Hezekiah offers this prayer to God, “You have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.”Hezekiah had been sick and near death, but he repented and the Lord restored him. And it was as if the LORD had taken the king’s wickedness and thrown it over his divine shoulder, never to be seen again. Forgiven sin is in a place where it can no longer bring harm to our relationship with him: “You have cast all my sins behind your back.”
2) God declares to his people in Isaiah 43:25, “I am He who blots out your transgressions.”Blotting out: like a scribe who hides a mistake on a scroll with a blotch of ink, or a student who uses correction fluid on his final exam. God has obliterated the sins of his people; in forgiving for Christ’s sake, God has covered, erased, deleted all our offenses, and He remembers them no more.
3) God says in Isaiah 44:22, “I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist.”You’ve watched a white fluffy cloud traipse across the blue sky and seen its transience. Here one moment, and when we look up again, it has disappeared. Like that, God has swept away our sins, evaporated our offenses in the presence of his glorious majesty.
God’s forgiving love is shown to be an amazingly powerful love, robustly effective and radical. His forgiveness doesn’t leave any traces of what was there before.
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