God’s Politics
remember that you were at one time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, Ephesians 2:12
Commonwealth – God has a government. He rules in a particular way. His authority is unquestionable, His legislation perfect. If we want to live, we must be included in His kingdom. Fortunately, by faith, we are. The question is what that means.
We have to do a good deal of detective work with this one. Of course, when we see a word like “commonwealth,” we naturally think of a nation or state. But when we look at the New Testament itself, this word is used only one other place, in Acts 22:28, where it is translated “citizenship.” What’s worse is that the only places where it is used in the LXX is in Maccabees. We will have to dig deeper.
The root of this word is polis. You will certainly recognize that this is the basis of our English word “politics,” but what you might not realize is that the word in Greek is about a city, not a nation. This word points to the Greek city-state, a time when individual cities like Athens and Sparta were separate ruling bodies. The politeia (the word in this verse) is a citizen (a city member). A citizen is one who lives in good conduct according to the laws and customs of the governing body. In Greece, not everyone who occupied a city was a citizen. Membership had requirements. Correct behavior was one of those requirements. Citizenship simply by being born someplace is a modern invention. In Paul’s day, citizenship was hard to come by. So, citizens took their responsibilities very seriously.
What can we learn from Paul’s deliberate use of this rare word? Perhaps we need to re-think our idea of the heavenly government. We tend to imagine that God runs His government like our earthly nations, but, of course, that isn’t the case. First, God is building a city, not a country. Abraham looked for a city whose builder and maker was God. The new Jerusalem is a city, not a nation. What this means is that God’s idea of governance is far more intimate than our present national concepts. In God’s city, everyone knows who you are. There are no strangers living in distant places. All the citizens are within the protective walls of the city of Zion.
Furthermore, becoming part of the “commonwealth” of Israel is really the equivalent of being adopted into city membership. Did you every wonder why God chose to bring His message of salvation to the world through such a small and insignificant nation as Israel? Actually, God chose one man, Abraham, and built from one man a tribe and then a people and finally a nation. In this tiny nation, everyone is related to everyone else. This is a nation where membership means bloodline and obedience. God seems to enjoy these humanly unreasonable and inefficient methods. Instead of choosing mighty Assyria or prestigious Babylon, God made Himself a city-state from one nomadic family.
We need to re-think heavenly citizenship. It’s a privilege granted to us, a place of intimate, family government where heritage matters. It’s our city of brotherly love. Live accordingly.
Topical Index: Citizenship
