It’s not easy to live as a stranger and foreigner in a world which feels like home. We might know we are heaven-bound. But something about living on this world makes you anchor yourself here just a little. It’s like we are called to keep pulling the anchor up, but it’s a heavy weight and sinks again. And so we struggle with worldliness while journeying to another world.
Although Christians and non-Christians inhabit the same world, there is a deep and fundamental spiritual antithesis between the two. There is certainly no lack of biblical argument for this statement. However, Vandrunen starts in a place we might not typically think of first. That is with the covenant with Noah.
The first covenant is with Noah to all people (see Gen 9), and that’s important to notice. God will preserve the cultural works of all people in this age as the sun and moon continue in their path and as the seasons come and go when people sow and reap. All the people of this age are to pursue these activities with justice. All people of this age are to be fruitful and multiply. But importantly, the covenant to Noah is temporary. It will last as long as the earth remains. Now that is going to be a long time, true. But there will be a time when this age comes to an end (something we all too easily forget. Even as Christians, we struggled to keep the second coming of Christ at the front of our minds). At the end of the age, all these cultural activities will end. All people will cease to do them. These cultural works will be no more.
What is important to realise about the covenant God makes with all people in Genesis 9 is that God is the ruler of all people. We are all living in His world under his promises to all people to maintain the sun and moon the seasons as we work and toil under a universal inclination of justice in Genesis 9. All humanity shares that in common. Meaning we all live in the common kingdom of God. But don’t get that mixed up with the second kingdom—the heavenly kingdom of God. The covenant with Noah does not promise salvation to anyone. It is merely the preservation of this age.
At the same time, a second covenant is made with a particular group of people. It is the covenant of Abraham to bless him and the nation that comes from him. The promise made to Abraham, and its blessings is a special relationship with God, a saving relationship. This comes to fruition in the Lord Jesus.
There are two things to note about this promise. The children of Abraham still inhabit the common kingdom. Day by day, Abraham, Israel, and Christians, share the world with those who do not receive the promises of Abraham for salvation, and so we live in two kingdoms; the common kingdom and the redemptive kingdom. We are citizens of this world, and we are citizens of heaven at the same time. We operate in both. That is the first thing to note.
The second thing worth noting is that our commitment to the common kingdom is tempered. We are in the world but we are not of the world. We are redeemed from the world and we will inherit the world to come. This is particular to those in God’s redemptive kingdom. Those in the common kingdom will not inherit the world to come. As we mentioned earlier, there is a spiritual antithesis between the two groups of people. So although we work side-by-side at the office in the common kingdom, only some of us will inherit the life to come through faith in Christ. To put that another way, although God promised Noah to preserve all people for a time, even to preserve the ways of this age for a time, that does not mean all people will be preserved into the age to come. That comes from another set of promises made to Abraham to bless people through faith in Jesus Christ.
So what does it look like to live in two different kingdoms simultaneously?
Abraham was a sojourner and a stranger among pagans. At times he entered into covenants with the civil rulers of the lands in which he lived. He buys land from them to bury his wife. The same is true for his descendants. Consider Joseph. Through Joseph, a devoutly godly man, the whole land of Egypt is blessed. Of course, Joseph is a prisoner in this situation. Egypt is not his land, yet he works for its benefit and of course for the benefit of his family – those that are recipients of God’s promises.
Eventually, when Israel become a nation outside of Egypt, they lived according to the Mosaic covenant. So now, their “common kingdom” is basically indistinguishable from their “redemptive kingdom” as a religious nation. It’s an interesting time to consider when the Israelite people lived in the promised land under God’s rule. I don’t want to dwell on that too much right now.
But what about when Israel get kicked out of the land?
Unlike Abraham, who was a sojourner and stranger in a foreign land, Israel as a nation became exiles in Babylon. But the Lord gives them a particular command through the prophet Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 28:1-4). The Israelite nation was to seek the welfare of the city in which they were exiled. They were to pray for that city on their behalf seeking its welfare because its welfare would be their welfare. This is a particularly striking command because the Israelite nation was so distinct from the nations around them, especially Babylon. But when they go into exile amongst the Babylonians, they must seek the common good while maintaining spiritual purity.
Again this is only temporary. The exile is going to end and they are going to return to the promised land. Important to note, is that Israel’s goal wasn’t prosperity in a foreign land. They were always going to return to the promised land. They were going to build homes and plant gardens which they wouldn’t keep in the end. To add to that tension, they were both seeking Babylons prosperity (to a degree), while also longing for its destruction and justice to prevail against this tyrannical power that opposed God ( not that Israel was any better themselves at this point…), but you get the picture, the tension.
For a more personalised version of Jeremiah 28, read the book of Daniel. It’s much like the story of Joseph in a sense. A devout believer living in a land not his own, yet it prospers and benefits from his work in it. All the while, Daniel is spiritually opposed to it.
These Old Testament examples are helpful pictures of what it means to live as sojourners and strangers in a foreign land. We have a lot to learn from how they were intimately involved in the common kingdoms they inhabited. At times they lived as foreigners in exile, seeking the prosperity of a foreign land while maintaining a distinct spiritual fervour. Their temporal residence didn’t undermine their commitment to do good, even though the goods they would build up themselves would ultimately not be theirs in the end when they left.
It’s a constructive picture of how we are to live as sojourners and strangers in the Babylon of this world.
VanDrunen, D. (2010). Living in God’s two kingdoms: A biblical vision for Christianity and culture. Crossway. 75-97
Bigvai and Shiphrah 