Beloved,
I’m almost certain I have never had an original thought in my life. Countless individuals and movements have shaped the way I think, speak, and live. But few living theologians have shaped my understanding of the Scriptures and the Christian life more than Richard B. Gaffin Jr.
As we wrap up our sermon series on Daniel with its consistent theme on the suffering God’s people face as they await the full realization of their eschatological hope, I thought I would share the concluding remarks of Dr. Gaffin’s inaugural address at Westminster Theological Seminary titled “The Usefulness of the Cross.” This lecture delivered in 1979 has come to my mind frequently as I’ve wrestled with the eschatological implications of the book of Daniel for God’s exilic church today. While I don’t normally quote dense theological lectures in my emails, after revisiting Gaffin’s work this week, I felt impelled to share some of his words at length. I promise they are worth your time and reflection (in fact, the whole lecture is!). Here are the final paragraphs:
I want to address for a moment the traditional evangelical debates on eschatology and the question of the millennium. I do so with a continuing sense of the complexity of the issues, recognizing the plausible appeal to Scripture that each position can make and the need for all sides to do greater justice to the whole of Scripture. My plea here is simply this: for a greater recognition of what we have tried to show to be the defining, delineating role of Christian suffering in biblical eschatology, and that this perspective be given its due in our discussions.
Looking in one direction, we must agree that New Testament eschatology is most assuredly an eschatology of victory, and of victory presently being realized. But, any outlook that fails to see that for the church, between the resurrection and return of Christ and until that return, the eschatology of victory is an eschatology of suffering, any outlook that otherwise tends to remove the dimension of suffering from the present triumph of the church, distorts the gospel and confuses the mission of the church in the world. The church does indeed carry the eschatological victory of Jesus into the world, but only as it takes up the cross after him. Its glory, always veiled, is revealed in its suffering with him. Until Jesus comes, his resurrection glory in the church is a matter of strength made perfect in suffering. The ‘golden age’ is the age of power perfected in weakness.
But now, doesn’t this outlook betray a pessimism that virtually turns away from creation and our calling to it? Doesn’t it surrender or at least undermine the ideal, so precious to the Reformed faith, of the whole of life to God’s glory and of a gospel that addresses the whole man? To this we reply with Abraham Kuyper that we will not yield one square inch of the crown rights of our King Jesus over the whole creation, and we will insist that the gospel offers the present reality of eschatological life in Christ, present renewal and transformation of the believer in his entirety, according to the inner man, with the redirection and reintegration of human life in all its aspects. And we will have much more to say as to the cosmic scope of redemption and the awesome breadth of the gospel of the kingdom. But, at the same time we must also insist with Paul in Romans 8 (vv. 18ff.) on this cosmic truth: that the whole creation groans, that there is not one square inch of creation which is not now groaning in anxious longing for the revelation of the sons of God. And in the meantime, until that revelation at Jesus’ coming, these adopted sons, under the power of the Spirit (v. 23), also groan, not in isolation from creation or by withdrawing from everyday life and responsibilities, but they groan with creation; they groan out of their deep, concerted solidarity with the rest of creation. They groan by entering fully and with hope for the entire creation (vv. 20, 24f.) into the realities of daily living and cultural involvement, knowing all along that for the present time these are all subject to futility and decay.
Only in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings will the church avoid the extremes of a quasi-theocratic utopianism, on the one hand, and a millennial escapism and narrowing of the gospel, on the other. For this reason, too, that we stay free of these extremes with their inevitable tendency to various forms of ideological and even practical bondage, it has been given to us, ‘not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer for him’ (Phil. 1:29).
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick
