NOVEMBER 13 2016
TRUMP: GOD’S TRUMP CARD
I did not start a new blog until I knew the outcome of the election. Tuesday night I went to bed at 10 as usual, seeing the avalanche coming. At 5 in the morning, after a fitful sleep, the headline on CBCNN told the story, and I slept again for a couple of hours.
Already in the evening my thoughts went to a possible tack to take, so I started re-reading a book I had translated by J. H. Bavinck – BETWEEN THE BEGINNING AND THE END – A Radical Kingdom Vision.
Last week I wrote that we all are little Trumps. I also said that “we – stupid we – sold the Earth to The Evil One”, and wondered whether we will do it again when the USA elects TRUMP, which now is the case: IT SEEMS THAT THE DEVIL HAS BEEN THE REAL VICTOR HERE.
But wait, perhaps God planned this all along!
People in general, and Trump in particular, have no idea what actually matters in life. So a sober view of what life really is all about is in order. In this I am guided by Bavinck’s book, quoted earlier.
J. H. Bavinck wrote:
When we look at the very last pages of the Bible we cannot fail to notice how similar these chapters are to the first sections of the book of Genesis. Again we read about the Tree of Life; again we see the descrip¬tion of the river of the water of life; again are we confronted with the terrifying aspects of the divine judge¬ment. The end time again picks up the threads which have deter¬mined human life throughout the ages; in the end-time all things return to their beginning. Just as the book of Genesis paints us paradise, the place where human life started, so the book of the Revelation of John brings us back to that same place. End time and Urzeit, the primeval era, are indeed intimately related. In short, the end time reveals again the realities of the Urzeit, the billions of years when the stars were formed and matters slowly evolved.
And between these two, between Urzeit and the End time, we, the human race, are positioned. This is where history finds its place. History is therefore not an event without boundaries; it is not something that arises out of the haze of an unknown past which someday will end up in an undetermined future. No, history is delineated territory; from its very inception it is anchored in its basic form. History is the spark that jumps from the Urzeit to the End time, from the first Paradise to the final one where God himself will be both light and temple. History can do nothing else than again and again stir up the awe¬some forces that were born in the Urzeit. History can only realize what was revealed in the primeval era: the terrible, fatal, ruinous renunciation of God, and in contrast to that the magnificent reality of God’s grace. The entire mighty drama of life involving all nations and races—all the wars and calamities, all the hate and misery, all failures and pains—all this is nothing but the direct consequence of “the tragedies of tragedy” that took place in the Urzeit when Adam and Eve sold the Garden of Eden to The Evil One: Paradise Lost and history began.
And when all these centuries with their troubles and tears are history, then the thread will be picked up again at the coming of the divine judgement that the world will face.
To stand in history means to stand in the flash between those two, between the beginning and the end. To be human means to have a place between these two, between Urzeit and End time, between the two trees in the beginning and the judgement in the end.
That is how the Bible in living colors depicts the life of us men and women, each with their own life to live, each directly related to eternity and each simultaneously caught up in history.
So far the Bavinck quote.
The next day.
On Wednesday morning the thought went through my mind that we all get the government we deserve. In Canada we have been fortunate having had a mild version of Trump in the form of Stephen Harper which prepared the way for Justin Trudeau, who, after a year in power, still enjoys the most favorable ratings.
In the USA, after 4 years of Trump and Republican rule, in which they can implement their ideas of lower taxes, making the rich richer, doing away with benefits for the very people who put them in office, and, generally, undo whatever Obama has strived for, such as Climate Change and health care for everybody, deep, deep disillusion will be the direct result.
Is that the type of government our neighbors deserve? Trump will cause chaotic years, because we are not only running but rushing toward the End.
We all contribute in making creation run its course. Trump plays a very important part there. Of course, he hasn’t got a clue what the apostle Peter once wrote. 2 Peter 3: 10-12 also applies to Donald J. Trump: (10) “The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. (11) Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives (12) as you look forward to the Day of the Lord, and SPEED ITS COMING.
We speed its coming through daily praying “MARANATHA, Lord come quickly”, my mantra during my three-times-weekly run. Trump’s role in speeding the coming of the Kingdom is different.
Matthew 24: 22 relates Trump’s contribution to coming of the Kingdom: “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive”. Trump suspending all environmental regulations, inciting China and India to do the same, will speed up the coming of THE DAY OF THE LORD. That is the Lord’s TRUMP card, the real Good News.
Trump, totally unwittingly, is God’s instrument in bringing about the New Creation by killing the old one, just as Pilate and Judas and the Pharisees did it by putting the Son of God on the cross, enabling the coming of the New Earth.
History repeats itself, but in a different form.
There is a definite parallel between the church in Jesus’ day which killed him, and the (American) church today which is determined to kill God’s creation by endorsing Trump, a self-confessed woman molester and unapologetic capitalist, who pursued wealth by hook and crook having no inkling that the Bible states that “The lust for money is the root of all evil.”
So what must we, as creation-loving Christians, do in an era where evil is now officially in power?
We must remember that these Christ followers live for only one goal: The New Creation. Bonhoeffer starts his book CREATION AND FALL with these remarkable words: “The church of Christ witnesses to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it acts from the end, it proclaims its message from the end.”
The goal of the church is so well defined in the Lord’s Prayer, where we are urged by Jesus’ very words to see creation as holy and to work for the Coming of the Kingdom.
Let me again quote J.H. Bavinck, this time in his description of the Kingdom. He writes:
The concept of the Kingdom contains a number of elements that are of the highest significance for our inquiry.
In the first place we must realize that God’s Kingdom has a cosmic character, which means that it comprises the entire world as we have come to know it. Not only are we humans part of that Kingdom, but it also includes the worlds of animals and plants. Yes, even the angels are part of this wider context: they too have a place in the harmonious totality of God’s Kingdom.
This implies that all parts of the world are attuned to each other. Nowhere is there a false note, a dis¬so¬nant that disturbs the unity, as everything fits harmoniously into the greater scheme of the totality. This applies both to each individual specimen but equally to the various circles or spheres found in creation. The celestial bodies follow their orderly tra¬jectories and do so according to God’s royal will, obeying his voice. And so the stars in their courses sound a melodious note in the great concert in which all creatures participate. The mountains rise up high above the water-saturated earth, their proud summits piercing the clouds; yet even these mountains are nothing but servants of Him who has planted and secured them by his power. On every page the Bible makes plain that the meaning of creation resides only in the one overarching motif: the motif of God’s Kingdom. That is why Scripture and Creation are never at odds: they always form a unity where the one reinforces the other.
So far Bavinck.
Let me emphasize this last line: “Scripture and Creation are never at odds: they always form a unity where the one reinforces the other.”
Yes, you can’t have the one –Creation- without the other –the Scriptures.
When the church is solely preoccupied with the Scriptures, God’s secondary, indirect Word, it loses the earth, God’s primary, direct Word. It then also fails to see what the Bible teaches. That’s how the church has prepared the way for a man who is proud of his sins, who is not ashamed to commit the greatest of sin: the sin against Creation, against God’s very work of art for which he sacrificed his son to rectify this abnormality.
Yes “Abnormality.”
God made the earth perfect: that is the normal state of affairs. Sin is the abnormality. And, as the last Bible book unambiguously states in its last chapter, Revelation 22: 11: “Let those who do wrong continue to do wrong; let those who are vile continue to do vile; let those who do right continue to do right; let those who are holy continue to be holy.”
The above text suggests that “Everything will become what it is; the true face of humanity will be revealed”. That’s what is happening in the Trump election. The Most Christian Nation on earth, the USA, with a church building on every corner, has no inkling of the real meaning of Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection, of THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.
The entire prayer the Lord Jesus taught us is an ‘ode to the Kingdom’. It has only one purpose: to tell us about what is in store for us in eternity, in life after death.
Where that kingdom perspective is absent, Proverbs 29: 18 paints an accurate picture: “Where there is no vision, the people perish, but blessed are they who keep the law.”
By and large the church has lost the vision of the kingdom, the glorious new creation that awaits those whose lives are consumed by this desire. The lack of that vision has led to the election of Trump and his party of misguided and repulsive Republicans, who pride themselves to represent THE CITY ON THE HILL, the shining light for the world to follow, now becoming THE CITADEL OF HELL for minorities, preparing the world for THE ANTICHRIST.
It will lead not only to a growing tendency for persecute minorities – both ethnic and sexual – but also cause an unprecedented increase in natural disasters world-wide, speeding up the coming of the Kingdom.
Here comes my Calvinistic background to the fore again, because we all, like sheep, have gone astray, forcing me to confess: “Oh, God, what have we done!”
Now, more than ever, we must ask for forgiveness, because we too are eager participants in the destruction of creation, the apple of God’s eye.
Psalm 115 comes to mind: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands………Their makers will become like them” unable to see, unable to think, unable to act.
Yes, the election of Trump and his spineless partners spells the beginning of the end of humanity.
But: “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth”.