The Eternal Now.

It's been a while since I updated this thing.

I recently encountered an argument against Christianity in the books of Philip Pullman, author of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy.  In his books, he exploits the past and present failures of Christianity to say that God has outlived His usefulness, and it's time to watch Him blow away.  The main argument is that the Christianity of men like CS Lewis is grounded not in our present reality, but in an intangible future hope that renders Christians incapable of present goodness.

I think he missed the point.  I think we all sometimes do.

So what is the point?

I think in the Bible it's very clear - Christ was about the Eternal "here and now".  That sounds contradictory, but let me explain.  When Christ came, the Prophets had all been saying "The kingdom of God is coming...."  Christ began preaching "The kingdom of God has come.  It is here.  Don't miss it" (see Mark 1:14-15).  Obviously, people were a bit confused.  Still are.  But after Christ, this preaching continued, and people continued to say that following Christ was about what I've called in this post "The Eternal Now".

What do I mean by that?  I mean that for the Christian, the hope of Eternity glorifying God starts in the moment they decide to make Jesus Christ the Lord of their life.  Their Spirit, now born of God, has been given the promise of Eternity with Him, and is therefore immortal.  We cannot be separated from God, not even by death. (Romans 8:38-39) We are now counted as being God's children, and we are ambassadors in the "now" for the Eternal God (2 Corinthians 5:20).  Again and again, we are told to live while we are in the present age - the "now" - in this Truth, conducting ourselves in a way to bring glory to God (1 Peter 1:17-21).  All the letters of the apostles to the Church emphasize our responsibility to live in the now in a way that will glorify God.  Jesus Himself instructed us on the way to live.  The point of the New Testament is to show the fulfillment of God's promise, and to answer the question "How now shall we live?"

Unfortunately, we've gotten caught up in the fact that we cannot be "of the world" rather than owning the fact that we are "in the world" for a reason (John 17:15-18).