Last Sunday, I highlighted the idea that God’s people are a sojourning people by looking at Abraham’s life. He never possessed the land he was promised, neither did his descendants for the next 400+ years. They were sojourners – aliens and strangers – living in a land not their own. Even when they possessed the land, they did not, according to Hebrews, truly receive the promise. They were looking for an eternal home, a heavenly city build by God whose foundations cannot be shaken, not just a plot of land in the Middle East.
The New Testament picks up on the sojourning theme, emphasizing our true citizenship, even our lives, are in heaven where Christ is. We are pilgrims here in this land. This nation, this city, my physical home, are just temporary locations, not my true home. This has profound impact on how we live our lives here, from our politics to our attachments to material things.
Admittedly, this does create a bit of an us & them dynamic. We, as Christians, are citizens of the City of God living alongside those who are citizens of the City of Man. We are sojourning among a people who do consider this their true home – they belong here, we do not.
I think there is a good impulse in most of us to push against the Us vs Them mindset. I commend it – nonChristians are not the enemy. We aren’t against them, though we stand against the principles of this world. We do not need to be combative, but instead demonstrate love, civility, and servanthood to others.
But, rejecting the “us VS them” mentality shouldn’t lead us to discount the “Us as distinct from Them” truth. There is a distinction between Christian and nonChristian as it relates to citizenship and homeland. Believers do have different motives, priorities, values, mores, etc. We do not treat the things of this world as ultimate.
It is true, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, that “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.” I, like my neighbor, am a sinner. My neighbor can do good and evil. I can do good and evil. But there is an incredibly important distinction we often neglect. There are repentant and forgiven sinners and unrepentant and incalcitrant sinners. There are those who by faith embrace the offer of amnesty and those who through unbelief or pride refuse the offer. There are those who submit to King Jesus and those who continue to assert their autonomy. There are those who love God and those who persist in self love.
Rejecting the distinction of between us and them, the Church and the World, is catastrophic. Treating “them” like “us” is unloving if they are not truly citizens of heaven, adopted sons in God’s family. Acting like there is no distinction is [unintentional and well intentioned] deception, but ends up affirming people on their path to destruction.
Our desire should not be a blurring of the line between them and us, but that the line would be so stark, the beauty of being part of us so glowing, that people would want to cross the line and truly become part of the multinational, cross-era, eternal, people of God sojourning to their heavenly home!
