PAPER NO. 34
GLOBALISM AND NATIONALISM
A Biblical Perspective
The Biblical perspective of creation–fall–redemption must be used to understand the historical tension between globalism and nationalism.
Creation
Man is created in the image of God to have dominion.
Let us make man in our image and let him have dominion.
The work of dominion is corporate, cumulative and communal; it will take all of mankind all of history to complete the work of dominion.
Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
Through dominion man is to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
The Sabbath is a sign that the work of dominion will be completed.
Fall
When they knew God they glorified him not as God.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
No one seeks God, no one understands, no one does what is right.
Without understanding, man sinks into the spiritual death of meaninglessness, and boredom, and guilt, without end.
God permits sin to deepen the revelation of his justice and mercy.
Unbelief in every form is allowed to work itself out in world history.
Redemption
Man is redeemed from sin and death by the curse and promise.
The curse of toil, and strife and old age, sickness and death is imposed by God on man to restrain, recall from and remove moral evil (sin and self-deception and self-justification).
The promise is that one in the place of Adam will come to undo what Adam did and to do what Adam failed to do (rule to make God known).
There will be a spiritual war, which is age-long and agonizing, in which good will overcome evil (belief will overcome unbelief).
From the Fall to the Flood
In the first epoch of world history, believers fell into apostasy and the world sank into moral decay.
Every inclination of the thought of his heart is only evil all the time.
The judgment of the Flood removed moral evil outwardly, and the curse was intensified greatly to further restrain moral evil. Universal evil, which brought universal judgment, was never to occur again.
From the Flood to Babel
In the second epoch of world history, apostasy, manifest in a central government, soon reappeared.
Let us build a city so that we make a name for ourselves and not be scattered.
The Lord said, if as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
To prevent a return to universal decay and judgment mankind was scattered by a division of language.
From Babel to Pentecost
From this scattering over two millennia arose the nations, kindreds, tribes and tongues in the world today.
Mankind was restrained from unity in unbelief by wars and famines and plagues.
Generations came and passed, as a tale that is told. Nations rose and fell as they forgot God. The chosen nation Israel languished through cycles of unbelief, until Christ came to fulfill the promise given to mankind after the Fall.
From Pentecost to Post-Modernism
At Pentecost Christ sent the Spirit to the Church to make disciples of all nations, to bring back the scattering from Babel. After two millennia, even through recurrent cycles of apostasy in the Church, the world has come into a physical community, but without a unity of faith. The post-modern world is putting aside the assumptions of modernity for a post-Christian, secular source of unity.
From a Post-Modern Present to an Unknown Future
For those who affirm creation–fall–redemption, history is determined by God’s rule in Providence. There can never be a return to the unity in unbelief at Babel. Unity can come about only if nations are under the moral law, which is grounded in human nature and given also by special revelation in the Decalogue (Ten Commandments).
The Church is to be salt and light in the earth, to teach the law of God to the nations of the world.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
If the Church ceases to be salt it will be cast out and trampled under foot.
Attempts to put out the light of Christian culture remaining in the nations of the West in order to hasten a globalist agenda will only hasten divine judgment. Both the Church and Globalism will be scattered once again in unbelief.
A remnant must then rebuild the Church on a deeper and more sure foundation.
