The Hope of the Church 115 As a matter of fact the early Christians were taught that they had died already—“Ye died and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3, R. V.). Nor is heaven set forth as the Christian’s hope. The New Testament represents the Church as in heaven already. We have been raised up with Christ and made to sit with Him in the heavenly places. (Eph. 2:6.) Our warfare is carried on against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly. places. (Eph. 6:12.) Our citizenship is, there. (Phil. 3:20.) Browning’s conception of the experience of Lazarus when he came back from the tomb: “Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul’s use while seeing heaven,” is almost precisely the apostolic representation of the be- liever’s life upon earth. It is potentially a life in heaven. Neither death nor heaven, then, can be the Church’s hope, for, in their essential relation to the Christian life, death lies in the past and heaven in the present. The conversion of the world is not the object of the Church’s hope. I t is quite true that this glorious consum- mation lies in the future, for “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” but the task of bringing this about was not committed to the Church. On the contrary, the New Testament descriptions of the last days of the Church upon earth preclude the thought. They are depicted in dark colors. (2 Tim. 3:1-5; 2 Pet. 3:1-4.) The history of the preaching of the Gospel in the world should be enough to show that this cannot be the object set before us, for, while whole nations have been evangelized, not a single community has ever been completely converted. It is a striking fact that the apostles had nothing to say about the conversion of. the world. While they were'busy preaching the Gospel in the world they gave no indication that they ex- pected this work to result at length in the transformation of the world. They were not looking for a change in the
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