Horton: "...conduct of believers in civil society..."

The kingdoms of this age, like Rome, pursue their common vocations, and now believers are commanded by Jesus, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21). Even oppressive rulers are “God’s ministers” in the cultural sphere of our common curse and common grace as we live alongside unbelievers; we must honor and submit to these governors (Ro 13:1–7; 1 Pe 2:13–17). Believers pursue their common vocations alongside unbelievers in the world with distinction in service and godliness.

At the same time, believers also pursue the aims of the Great Commission that Jesus gave to his disciples rather than to the world at large. Like Joseph and Daniel, who held positions of secular leadership during periods of exile, some believers may become rulers of state and leaders in many other cultural labors. Nevertheless, like Joseph and Daniel, they are not to confuse their cultural mandate (which they share with unbelievers) and their evangelical mandate to spread God’s kingdom.

While refusing to accommodate their faith and practice to the idolatry of the nations they serve, such leaders also do not seek to advance and expand God’s kingdom by means of the powers that they are given as secular rulers. Christ’s followers will not imitate the Gentile rulers, who “lord it over” their people, but will instead imitate the Son of Man, who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mt 20:25–28).

Unlike the theocracy in Eden before the fall and in Canaan, instituted at Sinai, cult (worship) and culture (common vocations in the world) are sharply distinguished, though not intrinsically opposed. Nowhere in the New Testament is the Great Commission fused with the cultural mandate.

Rather than offer a blueprint for establishing Christ’s kingdom through cultural, political, or social power, Paul’s instructions for daily conduct of believers in civil society seem rather modest: “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Th 4:11–12).

Believers and unbelievers continue to share equally in cultural vocations, by God’s common grace. However, Christ’s kingdom of grace is advanced in the Great Commission, by God’s saving grace.

Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 713.

Comments

Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

The giving of the law did not effect a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but merely introduced a change in its external form. The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. Many of the Israelites, indeed, looked upon the law in a purely legalistic spirit and sought to base their claim to salvation on a scrupulous fulfillment of it as a body of external precepts. But in the case of those who understood its real nature, who felt the inwardness and spirituality of the law, it served to deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only from the grace of God . L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 498–499.

John Stott on the "old man" and the "body ruled by sin" in Rom 6 v 6

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The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...

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