Thu 14 Aug, 2008
A few years ago I lived in Northeast Philadelphia, an area of the city known for it’s growing Russian population. At the local Sunoco station station I always stuck up a conversation with the local immigrants who I had assumed to be Russian. I was to find out that they were Georgian.
Well that changed things. Georgian politics was a whole different animal especially in light of the Rose Revolution in 2003.
Over the last week we’ve seen this radical difference played out in the Russian invasion of South Ossetia and Georgia. The roots of this war go deep. Nationalism, ethnicity, pride and geo-politics, all play a role.
In each of us a similar war is being waged. It’s a war of who we are, to whom do we pledge allegiance, how do we see ourselves and how do we want to be seen. It’s the war that’s mentioned several times in the New Testament in Romans 7:23, 2Cor 10:3, Hebrews 11:34, James 4:1 and 1Pet 2:11.
Yet for those whom God has saved through faith in Jesus Christ, the war is over. Romans 5:1 says those whom God justified have peace with him. Yet in God’s economy we live in a state of “the already and the not yet”. The end result is assured but the skirmishes continue. Arturo Azurdia, Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Western Seminary, gives us a great example of this concept. In his 80+ part series on Revelation, he likened this victory to the final days of World War Two. With the successful invasion of Normandy on D-Day and subsequent Allied victories, the German’s knew the war was over. I was not over in terms of a formal surrender or at that very minute, but with blow after crushing blow, the reality of shrinking German territory confirmed it was only a matter of time before the Allies won.
Thus it is like this in our lives after redemption. We live in the present, battling the flesh yet we persevere in light of the victory that Christ won on the cross and the confidence in the Gospel’s triumphant march towards the eschaton.
So how should we respond?
Earthly war is an effect of our depraved humanity, love of self and hate of God. In every conflict large or small; local or global, we should hate evil. Psalm 97:10 says those who love the Lord should hate evil. Proverbs 28:5 says that evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it completely. In effect we should respond the way God responded to our war with him- grace, mercy, peace and justice.
We must pray for our leaders and not respond sinfully, becoming caught up in the political frenzy. The Spirit provide us with discernment and the ability to act Godly, though we don’t always use it or act appropriately. We must remember that peace is not the absence of armed conflict but the result of a change in heart. As the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn said “gradually it was discerned to me 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.” That change can only be wrought by God.
Ultimately the answer to world peace is the Gospel. While I am here living in the tension of the “already and the not yet” I will experience the effects of sin but I know that my sovereign God, the Lord of history is in complete control and that His glorious Gospel will triumph.
