Help for Understanding Our Dual Citizenship as Believers
Jesus prayed for his followers who are in the world on mission but not of the world in their way of life (John 17:15-16). How is this prayer answered among us today?
Peter writes that we are “strangers and aliens” and we do well to remember this. As with Abraham, we must always seek the City with foundations, whose architect and builder is God (1 Peter 2; Hebrews 11). When we conflate the Kingdom of God with the politics and/or civic culture of a particular nation or empire, we inevitably undermine the credibility of the Faith.
Paul wrote to a community of Christians who were “at Ephesus, faithful in Christ’” (Ephesians 1:2). Both realities are essential to our witness in the world. We are responsible with others for the good order of the cities and towns we call ‘home,’ but we are also aware that we have a higher and eternal “citizenship in heaven” (Philippians 1:20). In his commentary on Ephesians, John Stott referred to these twin realities as a kind of dual citizenship observing that “that those have trusted in Christ…have two homes, for they reside equally ‘in Christ’ and ‘in Ephesus’.” He goes on to say that, “Many of our spiritual troubles arise from our failure to remember that we are citizens of two kingdoms…” (see The Message of Ephesians, John RW Stott, IVP).
This is especially true in times of persecution. The Church in the United States has been persecuted, though it has largely been the African-American Church that has been the victim of both violent and passive assault by government agencies and private individuals. But whether persecuted or at peace, the Christian community in a city is never of that place even as it seeks its good.
Before God we are saints and children; before the world, we are servants, here as God’s apostolic people to offer everything - even our suffering - for the glory of Christ and the advance of the Gospel in the world. That service takes many forms. Is there a place for believers to serve in a nation’s civic order? Certainly, but insisting that one’s nation or politics is ‘Christian’ is a bad case of over-realized eschatology and leads to massive departures from the Faith, impediments to others joining it, and deep and widespread opposition to and resentment towards the Gospel and the Church. Let’s get back on message.
The following is from the Letter to Diognetus, an anonymous epistle from a Jesus follower to a non-Christian, written around 130-150, and noting the place of believers as both citizens and aliens in our various cultures. Diognetus can help us with that task.
“Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.
They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life…
To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.
Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.”
While we might take issue with the author’s well-intentioned metaphor about soul and body, we shouldn’t miss the point he sought to make: believers are in the world but not of the world, just as Jesus prayed. United with our Savior, we seek to be his body in the world, announcing his gospel and showing his mercy.
The ancient Christians were often misunderstood and falsely accused as well; they were, like Jesus, hated without a cause. Proclaiming Christ’s message and living in Christ’s Way doesn’t mean anyone can expect applause from society. Far from it, we can expect continued anger and disdain from certain quarters. That’s especially true regarding a few really sensitive areas - our beliefs about humanity, sexuality, money, and power, as the author of the letter to Diognetus also notes; in many ways, not much has changed!
Yet this is why what he wrote remains so timely and helpful. We teach and live our faith in the world for the sake of the world all the while knowing that the message is not one any can believe apart from the work of the Spirit opening hearts to the beauty and believability of Jesus. Our witness in society isn’t to rebuke them for their ways - what did we expect of slaves to sin, and haven’t we all been in the same sinking ship? We are instead here to remind all of God’s grace given in Christ and offered in the Gospel. Our lives, far from confirming their accusations of arrogance and the desire for power, must be marked by humility, graciousness, and service in our world to the end that Christ will be seen and heard in the world through his people.
Here is a link to the full text: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/diognetus-lightfoot.html