Introduction
Why Church history? Why history? Why does what happened 1,500 years ago, or 500 years ago, or 50 years matter to us today? Who cares? What’s the point? These are questions and thoughts that many modern evangelicals really think. Maybe some of you kind of feel the same way as we begin this Church history series. I think many of you, being that you are reformed tend not so much toward those skeptical thoughts, but we have wrong temptations of our own, as people who do appreciate and respect and even love history. Depending on your outlook, some of you may be tempted to over-glamorize people and events in history. Others may be tempted to be overly critical or assume the worst of people and events in history. But I think one of the more important ways that generally reformed people fail in regard to Church History is that we can fail to have it impact our lives. It’s often more of just an intellectual and academic pursuit that doesn’t make the connection to our everyday lives. And I believe that it should. I know that in my own life, learning stories and actions of certain faithful Christians in history has truly changed my life. Because the world in which I live, is the world in which they live. And the world into which I was born, is the world that was shaped by what people said, taught, and did before me. We are connected to Church history, whether we want to be or not. There are people in church history that we love being connected to, and others, not so much, but we are connected. And since we are still living out history, those who come after us, will be connected and affected by how we live now, particularly as a body, as the Church. And those who come after us, will be affected by us, whether we like that or not.
People, time, history, and the Church, are not isolated things. They are deeply connected and intertwined. We are part of the The Church universal, the Church catholic, not just that is living today, but that has lived throughout history and that will live after we are gone.
Thomas Chalmers once said, “Every day that passes should be lived in light of the past, in light of the future, and in light of eternity.”
Each of us here only has one life. We have been allotted a beginning and end and God has ordained that which should come to pass. Our time cannot be added to or cut short. No matter how long or short anyone’s life is, the oldest among us has been given just a few short years on this earth. We have one moment in history in which we live. We cannot control when that is or where on this earth that it is. But though we as living people cannot live beyond the time God has set for us, the things that we do, will. The things that we do will live on. Think about it in the simplest of ways: in your life, maybe you dig a hole in the ground. Maybe you plant a tree in that hole. Now that tree has the potential to grow big and strong and to remain there for hundreds of years. If you can think that way about your everyday life, that will change the way you live your everyday life. Your work will suddenly have so much more meaning and joy and purpose. When I preached in John 17, one of the things I brought up was that this prayer that Jesus prayed in time and in history in the first century, is a prayer that is still effectual to God’s elect to this very day. Some of you probably also had great grandparents that prayed for their great grandkids, and maybe God is still answering those prayers today, by working in your life. Christians from eras past, prayed for many generations that would come after them. And when God saves their 10th generation grandchild, God is answering their prayer. What if you lived, worked, and prayed for your great great great great great great great great grandchildren? You might live to see your great grandchildren, but you won’t see much further than that, but you can live and pray for them in such a way that you will still have a very real effect on their lives. Or you could pray Habbakuk 2:14, that “the knowledge of the glory of God would fill the earth as the waters cover the sea,” and who knows how far down through the future God will be answering that prayer.
So I want to give you a few principles of Church history to keep with you and to help us as we go through Church history, as well as answer the question of “why.”
History has meaning
First, as Christians we must recognize that time and history have meaning. It is very important, in fact, that Christians understand the importance of time and history. This is because our enemies do. The enemies of God understand the importance of time and history so well that they have long sought to destroy it. Or to change it. Or to lie about it. The work of doing history cannot be done from a neutral standpoint. So on the one hand you have certain secular historians who lie about history, it’s revisionist history. And on the other hand you have the Marxists who are destroyers of history. Literally what are we seeing in our own nation? Statues of men who founded our nation being torn down. This is not just about slavery, because also statues of slavery abolitionists and Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and other such figures. This is about the total destruction of history. During the French Revolution when the revolutionaries took over, they reset the year to year zero. They were saying time and history starts with them and everything before, all the ages of Christianity are bad and evil so we must destroy it. Think of what Academia is doing today. They are trying to rid us of the B.C. and A.D. time markers because they don’t like the fact that they live in the “year of our Lord Jesus Christ.” They are now saying BCE and CE. Before the Common Era and the Common Era. This attack on time and history is an attack on Christianity.
We as Christians cannot think that this doesn’t matter. We must recognize history has meaning and importance as our enemies do. We as Christians are not to be destroyers, but to be builders and reformers. As we know and will see, Christians have done some bad things in history. But we as Christians, need to be unafraid of history and what it contains because we know that Christ redeems from the worst of sins in history. We know that we need history in order to be builders and reformers, not destroyers. We must see the importance of history, in that it not only contains bad things, but it contains great and glorious things pertaining to Christ defeating enemies and the growth of the kingdom of God. But before we go more down that path, listen to this from R. J. Rushdoony:
“Time and history therefore have meaning because they were created in terms of God’s perfect and totally comprehensive plan. Every blade of grass, every sparrow’s fall, the very hairs of our head, are all comprehended and governed by God’s eternal decree, and all have meaning in terms of it. The humanist faces a meaningless world in which he must strive to create and establish meaning. The Christian accepts a world which is totally meaningful and in which every event moves in terms of God’s predestined purpose, and…[for the Christian] every event works together for good…(Rom. 8:28).”
History Belongs to God
This leads to my second point, and that is that history belongs to God. History is God’s predestination coming to pass. And the Bible teaches that we are to remember the past and know that the future will also be brought to pass as God declares it. Isaiah 46:8-11, “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.” The secular humanists hate God’s predestination. So they seek to destroy and to be the predestinators themselves in the form of centralized power and control in the state. But as Christians we are to love history, for it is exactly what God desired would happen. And even the wicked and evil things, even the times of great suffering, we, as Christians are to thank God for, for we know that it is not meaningless, but it is filled with great meaning as all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. We can look upon the more unpleasant things that happened in Church history and know, that as part of the church, this too God works for our good…
History belongs to God and it is also the tracking of the progress of Christ’s victory in time. It is the tracking of the growth of God’s Kingdom. It is the tracking of the sanctification of Christ’s Church. Therefore, history has great meaning. In this way, church history is a great comfort to Christians. Sometimes we can get lost in the darkness of our own time and be tempted to despair. But having much history to look upon we can find times of equal darkness and see how God worked it for good for the growth and advance of His Kingdom and the defeat of His enemies.
Therefore, this means that history is not endless meaningless cycles from which we must escape. History is not repeating cycles. History is progressing toward a goal. God does nothing that is meaningless. He declares nothing that is meaningless. History has a purpose and an end goal. The end goal is that Christ delivers the kingdom to the Father after destroying every rule, authority, and power. 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”
So since history belongs to God, we track time in terms of Christ. BC and AD for example. Now of course Christians are free from being bound to celebrate man-made holidays in any way, but the fact that I want to track my time in terms of Christ is one reason why I like to celebrate Christian holidays with my family. This means that my time of the year is marked by what Christian holiday we’re celebrating. It’s something that we enjoy.
History is a Teacher
Third, history is a teacher. So we should be humble and ready to learn from it, and that can happen in all kinds of ways. One way is that we will look at people and events in history and we should learn the lesson not to make the same mistakes they did. And of course we are to use the Bible to interpret history, meaning Scripture tells us what was a mistake and what wasn’t. But history illustrates these biblical lessons for us, we can often see the fallout of certain mistakes.
Another way history is a teacher, which I believe is critical for us, is to see lessons of courage and bravery illustrated for us in the past. We live in a time of weak and scared men. We desperately need brave men. We desperately need strong men. And one of the things that can help us to look at the courage and bravery of men who came before us, and draw from the same well of Christ that they drew from so that we might be taught how to live today and in the future. The secular humanists have done their best to remove those stories from our history books, or greatly revise them, because the secular humanists do not want strong Christian men who fear nothing but God to walk this earth again. Because they know that since this world is Christ’s that means it will be won by strong Christian men with courage in the name of Christ. And that means their defeat. I believe this aspect of Church history is so important for us, our children, and the future. We need these great stories to help us to live.
God enjoys history, it pleases Him
Finally, I just want to mention this last point. Why Church history? Because God enjoys history. History pleases God. He wanted to make and write it and decree it. And God is pleased with things that happen in history.
So many passages of Scripture, and you’ll find this throughout the Psalms, they bring to mind things that God did in history. They tell us to remember it. God is so pleased with history, that God does things in history, and He inscripturated many things that happened in history. This means that to be a Christian means we have to know certain historical facts. The life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ are historical facts. These things happened in history, because God was pleased to decree them to happen in history. To know God’s Word, God requires us to know history. That is what so much of it is.
Christ came in History, lived, died, and rose.
I want to end with this quote from R. J. Rushdoony, “The purpose of Biblical history is to trace the victory of Jesus Christ. That victory is not merely spiritual; it is also historical. Creation, man, and man’s body, all move in terms of a glorious destiny for which the whole creation groans and travails as it awaits the fulness of that glorious liberty of the sons of God (Rom. 8:18-23). The victory is historical and eschatological, and it is not the rejection of creation but its fulfillment. This victory was set forth in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Who destroyed the power of sin and death and emerged victorious from the grave. As St. Paul emphasized in 1 Corinthians 15, this victory is the victory of all believers. Christ is the firstfruit, the beginning, the alpha and omega of the life of the saints. Had Christ merely arisen as a spirit from the grave, it would have signified His lordship over the world of spirit but His surrender of matter and history. But by His physical resurrection, by His rising again in the same body with which He was crucified, He set forth His lordship over creation and over history.”
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