The Eternal City’s Fall

In a.d. 410, the city of Rome was sacked and plundered by Alaric the Goth. The fall of Rome, the “Eternal City,” shocked the world and began the chain of events that culminated in the collapse of classical civilization. Expressing the­­ lamentation of many Christians, Jerome wept and wondered, “What is to become of the church now that Rome has fallen?”

Confounded Cities

For nearly 100 years, Christianity had held sway within the Roman Empire. Persecution was replaced by propagation. The civil laws were reformed and Christ was corporately honored. The state was de-divinized. Christianity began to transform the Greco-Roman culture of classical antiquity, making life more comfortable and humane. Rome’s fall gave Jerome, and many Christians, much to lament.

To be sure, establishment had its disadvantages. Imperial privilege radically altered the church. No longer an institution of suffering pilgrims, the church became rich and powerful. Affluence and authority easily descended into decadence and corruption. The distinction between kingdom of God and kingdoms of men was confounded. Shepherds became politicians. Politicians became shepherds. The comforts of cultural Christianity tended to smother the former zeal of the suffering church.

Following the barbaric humiliation of “Christian” Rome, traditionalists, who were defenders of ancient ways and older gods, blamed the empire’s woes on its new religion. Had the gods not forsaken the great city? Had Christianity not helped undermine the civic virtues of the old order and thereby weakened the state?

Augustinian Antithesis

In the midst of collapsing culture, a North African bishop named Augustine stood up to defend the faith. In his classic work The City of God, Augustine attempted to vindicate the faith while providing the church with a more biblical understanding of her relationship to the world. Augustine reminded his readers that spiritual opposition drives history forward. According to Genesis 3:15, human history plays out the fundamental spiritual opposition between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. According to Augustine, these two seeds are two contrasting cities. “Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord” (City of God, 14:28).

These two cities are not divided by geography, culture, or even politics. Rather, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent grow up together like weeds in the midst of a field of wheat (Matt. 13:24-30). Where then does the kingdom of God find its antithesis with the world? The biblical-Augustinian answer is that the contrast transcends the mundane realities of this life and divides men according to their most profound spiritual allegiance.

Distinguishing the Kingdoms

The kingdom of God is found in the hearts of fallen, sinful humanity. Jesus declared, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21). The kingdom of heaven exists on earth through the power of the resurrection applied to individual hearts. Spiritual regeneration, or rebirth, places a fundamental separation between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men. The two kingdoms are divided by their contrasting loves and final destinations.

Two Loves

The kingdom of God, the “visible Church of Christ” (Westminster Confession of Faith 25:2), is distinguished from the world by its God-centered, rightly ordered loves. Having its loves ordered according to the work of the Holy Spirit, the heavenly kingdom stands in stark contrast to the prideful self-love of earthly kingdoms. Here we encounter the ultimate question placed before Adam in the garden of Eden: Where do your loves truly lie? The Scriptures remind us that love expresses itself in obedience (John 14:15) and in trust (Ps. 5:11). Would Adam love his God and trust His word? Or would he seek to make himself a god, defining good and evil apart from God’s revelation?

We must be careful. We must not define the difference between the city of God and the cities of men by moral virtue. It is flatly false to suggest that Christians are more moral than their unbelieving neighbors. Rather, it is the nature of her faithful trust and loving obedience that separates the church from the world. The church, the visible manifestation of God’s kingdom on earth, lives out of humble gratitude, knowing that her faith is often weak and her love often burning dimly, but that her help is in the name of the Lord. The authentic mark of the city of God is a humble faith, wholly dependent upon the righteousness of Christ, and a living gratitude for divinely accomplished salvation.

Two Destinations

All men are pilgrims. All of us approach the last great adventure. Death is the common experience of all mankind. As Hank Williams, Sr., sang, “No matter how I struggle and strive, I’ll never get out of this world alive.”

Pathetically, the kingdoms of this world seek to deny their pilgrim status. Their glory is the glory of this world, a glory that is already fading. Yet, against all hope, the world seeks to make eternal that which is passing. Whether on the plains of Shinar (Gen. 11:1-9), or in the research labs of pharmaceutical companies, the kingdoms of men seek to establish heaven here because they can expect only hell in the hereafter.

On the other hand, the city of God has made peace with its pilgrimage. It acknowledges that this world is passing away. It accepts that its ultimate hope and true loyalty belong to a heavenly city. As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).

This is a liberating knowledge, providing the city of God with a framework to embrace life’s tragic beauty. The city of God is thus enabled to enjoy life’s imperfect goodness, endure its pervasive sinfulness, and hope in its eschatological perfection.

Where Hope Lies

Christ reigns over all things for the good of His church (Eph. 1:22). As we have established, Christ’s mediatorial reign creates an ideal duty for all nations and institutions to corporately confess His lordship. In this age, the ideal is rarely approximated and never perfectly achieved. We rejoice in the approximation but do so remembering the wisdom of the psalmist: “Put no confidence in princes” (Ps. 146:3).

There are two visible kingdoms in the midst of each nation blessed by the gospel: church and state. The church is the kingdom of God on earth, yet it contains tares in its field. The state concerns itself mainly with issues of the world that is passing away, yet many believers are found within it.

The city of God and the city of man are intermixed in church and state. Sometimes church and state are friends, but even where friendship is found, eschatological tensions remain unresolved. As long as wheat and tare grow up together in a common field, unity on matters earthly and temporal, such as patriotic love for the homeland, must always mask disunity on matters heavenly and eternal. Let us remember which kingdom should captivate our hearts, own our ultimate allegiance, and provide the center of our living hope.

—William H. Chellis

Created To Do Good Works

I take issue with Rev. Chellis’s assertion that “it is flatly false to suggest that Christians are more moral than their unbelieving neighbors.”

Augustine’s two cities represent two loves, the love of God or the love of self. They have two destinations, eternal joy in God’s presence or passing away into outer darkness. The city of God relies wholly on Christ for its standing with God. It exists by God’s grace alone and sets its faith on Christ its King and not on its own moral virtue. Even now, Christians possess eternal life and are growing up into Christ their head. The Spirit dwells within believers individually and within the Church, working faith in them, rebuking sin, in short, sanctifying them.

Not every believer is “more moral” than his unbelieving neighbors. The remnants of sin sometimes involve believers in sins every bit as outrageous as those of the world (1 Cor. 5:1). Nevertheless, the work of the Spirit effectively sanctifies us so that more and more we die to sin and live to righteousness (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 35).

God, in fact, calls us and equips us to live morally pure lives. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). God calls us to “walk worthy of the calling with which [we] were called” (Eph. 4:1). Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). By this, all men will know us as disciples of Jesus, that we love one another (John 13:35).

So it is not surprising that a recent and widely reported study concluded that religious conservatives in the United States were far more likely to be generous with their time and money to help others than were nonreligious conservatives or liberals.

By giving us new hearts and His Spirit, God makes us new men who should be and are more moral than our unbelieving neighbors. We boast in the cross of Christ, not in our good works, but we were created in Christ Jesus to do them.

Our lives, moral or otherwise, are not the basis for our citizenship in the city of God. But every new citizen takes on something of the character of his new country. The works of the flesh are adultery, hatred, envy, and drunkenness, but the works of the Spirit are love, joy, and peace (Gal. 5:19-23).

It is therefore a flatly false supposition to suggest that Christians are not more moral than their unbelieving neighbors. It is God’s purpose to make us so. A reason to boast before either God or man? No. Even when we’ve done all that God commanded, we appropriately say, “We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10).

But to assert that there is no moral difference on the whole between believers who belong to the city of God and unbelievers who are loyal to the city of man is to deny the work of God’s Spirit in His people and to ignore the reality of the work of sanctification in our hearts.

—Bill Edgar