The Promise of Christ

Since 323 A.D. the Church has had unprecedented favor, fiscal gains and freedom. Christianity became the world’s religion as Rome under Constantine adopted it as the official religion. Ironic that the Church which was to be reviled for Christ, “Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner. of evil against you falsely, for my sake” (Matthew 5:11), was now renowned. The laurel crown has since faded, and setting in is a crown of thorns. We forget that when Jesus said “take up your cross,” he wasn’t talking about cutesy bumperstickers, bling pendants, or testimony tattoos, but that we like He would suffer and as is the fate of all crucifixion, even possibly be killed. We have become complacent with the comfort and prosperity Constantine afforded us, and we forget the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ that we will suffer and be hated for His namesake:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.  Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.  If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.  But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.  And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning;” (John 15:18-27), and “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.” (John 16:1-4). 

The Early Church knew upon conversion  that persecution, enmity, and even death was the common badge of being a Christian, and so they gloried in their hope of life eternal and in a deep relationship with Emmanuel (John 17:3). The apostles did not mistake Jesus’ promise of a cross, they knew just as He had sacrificed himself on the cross for our sins, that we carry crosses and will most likely suffer and even be slain for our faith. The impending mistreatment and threats of death were not only anticipated but counted as an honor: 

“The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.” (Acts 5:41 NLT)

“If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:14)

“But if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear that name.” (1 Peter 4:16)

“He valued disgrace for Christ above the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his reward.” (Hebrews 11:26)

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5) 

How did the Church get to a place that ridicule, rancor, and even being ravaged by the world was thirsted for? What truths did they have that made tribulation a libation that they drank with cheer and passion? The answer is spread across the New Testament Scriptures, but an example is: 

“Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of Godb are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.c For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it,d but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.” (Philippians 3:2-16)

We Post-Constantininan Christians must soak ourselves in the Scriptures and not learn them to impress scholars, but let the words of Christ and his apostles sink deep into our souls;  and with a deep relationship with Christ be transformed. We must build endurance as the apostle says (Romans 5:3-5), and accept that the favor of our faith in this world is fading. I reckon Satan’s greatest scheme was to get Constantine to make our church vogue so that many generations of Christians would forget the world is our enemy, “If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first. If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world,” (John 15:18-19), “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” (1 John 2:15), and that being a Christian means enmity with the world, not favor, “You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” (James 4:4). Amen.