Lighthouse Community Church

The story of the bible is the story of redemption. However, behind the incredible historical accounts of God saving His people, there lies the golden thread of God's own plans and purposes for all people. If, as we saw last time, God's ultimate purpose is for His own glory, then everything that He does is geared towards bringing this about. Therefore, man and the rest of creation cannot remain fallen forever, for then no one seeks God (Rom 3:10). There must be a transformation. There must be a decisive rendering of justice and reparation. There must be restoration. In fact, this is the way it has been from the beginning. 

God's Work of Restoration

Throughout history, God was neither silent nor inactive. Even as the world rebels against God in our fallen state, trying to render Him irrelevant, attempting to usurp the throne which is rightfully His, God still lovingly works to restore man and bring Himself the glory He desires. From the moment of the Curse, He speaks, promising redemption in the form of the Serpent Crusher (Gen 3:15) as He declares the proto-evangelion. As history progresses, God in His sovereignty chooses Abram from amongst all the people of the earth and sets about making him the channel of blessing to the nations (Gen 12:2-3). As God brings forth the nation of Israel from Abraham's line, He institutes laws and statues so that Israel will be a "light to the nations" (Isa 42:6), taking particular care to ensure provisions for the alien (Ex 22:21; 23:9; Lev 19:10; 23:22; 25:6; Deut 10:18-19; 23:7; 24:14, 19, 20-21; 26:11-13; 27:19) and the proselyte (Ex 12:48). Even in the Great Commandments, the mandate to love God and love one's neighbor is a command that holds within it a measure of the reversal of the curses.

Yet Israel projects the "spirit of Babel" instead of living out its call, division, war and unrest being the norm. As Israel is sent into exile, it turns inwards, becoming an insular community and remaining so until the advent of Christ.

As God the Son steps into history, a large part of His ministry can be seen to involve the reversal of curses. As the death of Christ reconciles man to God, it is also efficacious for reconciling man to man, thus reversing, the curses of Eden, in part now, and in full upon His return. However, there is another aspect to His ministry. The account in Acts shows the Kingdom inaugurated by Christ during His earthly ministry transcending national, racial, cultural and linguistic borders. As the Gospel goes forth from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth, Christ reverses the curse of Babel, bringing the scattered nations together once again as God's people under God's rule. The result of Babel was the sundering of nations. The result of the Gospel is their unification under Christ.

It is also interesting to note the New Testament does not speak of forcing worshippers into a certain mold or mode of worship. There are general guidelines for worship, a prescribed form of church government, even very specific doctrinal and theological truths that believers must affirm. However, the New Testament writers do not tell believers to change their culture in order to "fit in" with a prescribed method of worship or a single system church culture[1]. Rather, Paul says that he has "become all things to all people, that by all means [he] might save some" (1 Cor 9:19-23). This is particularly startling in light of just how deeply racial tensions ran, especially amongst the Jews. By declaring that, "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all" (Col 3:11), Paul was introducing a radical change to the socio-political climate at the time[2]. He was advocating culturally contextualized applications of God's truths while retaining the absolute nature of that truth[3], celebrating of the uniting power of the Gospel and the reversal of the great estrangement.

This is not to say that all aspects of culture should be retained. The measure of what stays to be celebrated and what is put aside is the Gospel, which never changes. God's word to His people never changes. The things that change from place to place are the ways in which these truths are expressed. For example, the Chinese believer in the underground house church will not express their communal worship in the same way as we do at Lighthouse. However, they will retain and maintain the elements of the ministry of the Word, prayer, praise, singing and the offering. They just do it in a different way. They sing different songs, pray at different times (and probably more than we do any given Sunday). That does not make them somehow less spiritual than western believers. We call them brother and sister, embrace them as our own, identify with their suffering and share their joy. Under the unity of the Gospel, any who truly heed the call of Christ, regardless of their ethnicity, their culture or their social background become "our people". That is the reversal of Babel's curse.

No more do we divide because of cultural or ethnic differences. No more do we hold others at arms length because of national or social boundaries. There is one Gospel, one Savior, one Way, one Father. We are one nation, one priesthood and one people (1 Pet 2:9). We are, as people were before Babel, united in a greater cause and by a greater power. We are, as Adam and Eve before the fall, people of the Kingdom, whose home is not of this earth (Phil 3:20). We await the Day, when our countrymen from all tribes and languages and tongues will worship with us, and all will worship Christ, giving glory to the Father.

Heaven awaits. There is yet glory to come.

[1]  Robert L Saucy, The Church in God's Program, (Chicago: Moody Press 1972), 105-106, 118-119. While the New Testament describes a Congregational form of church government, and prescribes certain activities for the time of meeting, it leaves the finer details of that form for the individual congregations to work out.

[2] Andreas J Kostenberger, Peter T O'Brien, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission, Ed: Don Carson, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press 2001), 153-157

[3]  Patty Lane, A Beginner's Guide to Crossing Cultures: Making Friends in a Multicultural World, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 135-137.