At certain times it hits you. Someone you know dies and that someone was a lost person, and you think about their life and you wonder what was it for?
I've had the same experiences when diving deep into history, probing lost empires like say, the Kassites for example. Have you ever heard of them? They were a power for at least four centuries during the time of Moses, Joshua, and the Judges. As an American you can't help but think about the duration of this country and the complexities of its history, the great changes that takes place over time, how events shaped families, ideals, and so much more. And yet this empire lasted longer than America has so far existed - and yet like so many others, its name is all but forgotten. Those who read history books might know something of it - or perhaps the people of Iran. But for most people in the world today, they've never even heard of them. All those centuries of writings, art, architecture, wars, lives, aspirations, and so forth - they're all virtually forgotten. No one really cares.
It's a lesson in humility that many would do well to learn.
Why? What's this all for? Can it really be in God's plan that all these lost people lived what amounts to meaningless lives? Was all that they produced in the realm of ideas, arts and culture essentially meaningless too?
These questions are common enough in our day. For many they are occasion for great stumbling as many cannot accept this truth. As such, the exclusivity of the Christian message becomes unacceptable, something too narrow, even too harsh.
To suggest that not only are these nations and empires essentially valueless and thus meaningless but that all these lives, hopes, dreams, struggles, and sacrifices were all wasted, seems absurd. To believe that these people who loved their spouses and children, showed sincere if misguided piety and devotion, and in many cases demonstrated great conviction were all hopelessly lost and wasting their time chasing delusions and bringing judgment on themselves is a very hard and bitter pill to swallow.
Truly these lives, ideas, and kingdoms were (as the song says) but dust in the wind. Or as another put it - vanity. Might we say that we live in a present evil age or that Satan is the god of this world?
It would an error to assume that Mordor in real life is a place of smoke and ash, dark towers, and monsters. That might represent a spiritual reality but in temporal terms, Mordor can appear quite beautiful and for all its evil, a great deal of beauty can yet shine through. The real world is also far more deceptive than Tolkien's Middle-Earth. In real life the Barad-dur might appear in the awe-inspiring form of the Vatican, or Minas Morgul as the World Trade Center.
And so we must wrestle with the question of why? When those who doubt their faith or the unbeliever asks this, we should have an answer - it does not mean that we will have a comprehensive answer that explains all. That is beyond us and so profound that the weight of it is crushing.
In some specific cases, something of the purpose is revealed. We know the Canaanites and ancient Egyptians served a purpose in terms of Providence. The Pharaoh of the Exodus was raised up so that he could be brought down - a testimony to the power of God and the nature of His righteous judgment, wisdom, and grace, and most important of all, the entire episode is replete with typology pointing to Christ as both Saviour and Judge.
The Canaanites were also part of this typological scheme and their wickedness was allowed to abound so that they might be destroyed - Israel, a picture of the righteous Son called out of Egypt bringing judgment and destroying the rebel nations. It's a picture of the Day of the Lord and the destruction of the god of this world and this present evil age.
But there are only a few specific examples like this. What about the rest? What about all the extra-Biblical examples of nations, cultures, and peoples? And even with Canaan and Egypt, we only see the broad strokes, we see a redemptive-historical blueprint - but for the most part we don't see individuals and their struggles, hopes, convictions and the like. Rahab is a rather poignant and touching exception - a real testimony to the grace of God, a brand plucked from the fire. But what of all her neighbours?
In the end there is a great deal of mystery in it all. We know of the grand Christological scheme, preparing the world for the gospel and now in the post-gospel age for the judgment. It's a story of wrath and grace very much typified in the repeated visions and imagery found in Revelation -itself a series of visions laying out the history of the Last Days or Church Age as it were. It's humbling to say the least, but Revelation also informs us, providing something of how to view the world and history - or it should. I'm not speaking about the attempts made by some to tease out and identify every last symbol and event, often with a newspaper in hand.
Rather, in the course of the visions we are granted brief glimpses into the heavenly workings (as it were) and we see things taking place that we cannot understand, things we cannot through normal means relate to the happenings going on around us, or even those from the historical record - though many try and do this. We know there are connections, we can surmise this or that - but we really don't know because we lack the eternal, spiritual, or eschatological viewpoint necessary to make such judgments. We have no way to reference the workings of eternity with the temporal order. Time does not relate the same way.
A cold logic tells us these nations and individuals were created for destruction and the New Testament hints at this in a couple of places but the Scripture also says a great deal more, revealing that it's also God's will that no one should perish. While the lost are children of wrath, in another sense God loves the world.
It's a mystery-dynamic. God is revealing multiple truths to us and it's a grave mistake to think that we're called to put these doctrines on the dissection table and pick them apart - reorganizing them into some kind of system that seems coherent to us and is just by our temporal and finite standards.
It is impossible to pursue this without doing harm to one aspect of the truth or the other. Let the dynamic exist where the truths come to the fore - as the context demands.
Reflecting on this, we realize that the effects of the Fall are far more profound than we are accustomed to in terms of our thinking and daily reckoning. Contrary to popular narratives, death is not natural. Death is something that came into the world with the fall. It literally ruined everything. This death-world cannot be renewed - a New Heavens and New Earth are required. This world is fraught with grief, sadness and as the Scriptures state - futility. This is not our home. We are pilgrims here. I truly pity those who think the New Testament teaches that we're going to redeem this order, that we're going to 'right' this present evil age. I pity the Postmillennialists who labour in hope of a golden age which is (at best) but a shadow or counterfeit of the true Kingdom. Rule the world - but death is still with us. As long as death is present, it's not Christ's Kingdom. Death has no place there. It constantly amazes me that they fail to understand this.
But there's another angle to these questions that is rarely considered, perhaps because in the end it also provides no definite answers. I refer to the celestial context, the cosmic war taking place in the spirit realm.
For some (especially in the Reformed-Calvinist sphere) this question is moot because the sovereignty of God is placed within a framework of logic and thus (theologically) taking the place of axiomatic priority, any real cosmic or spiritual struggle is rendered illusory, as something less than genuine. Because of these commitments made at the level of theological prolegomena, these questions (and what the Scriptures say about them) are rendered all but inconsequential and have no bearing.
But should we not simply rely on what God has revealed, even if this seems to posit a composite or complex cosmological picture - one potentially at odds with our theological constructs? Though many theologies struggle with this, God uses means and this creates various dynamics in terms of not just the Christian life (ecclesiology and prayer for example) but in how the world works. So while God is sovereign, there are spiritual entities in possession of real power. The threats of Christ's failure were (it would seem) real - though many cannot logically admit this. The theologians get tangled up in pointless questions of impeccability and the like.
These dynamics are everywhere from the proclamation regarding Judas - the fulfillment of the written word and yet his own culpability, to making one's calling and election sure, to prayer and the sacraments, to the Incarnation and the even more complex and insoluble questions regarding the Triune nature of God. Such dynamics are at the heart of Divine revelation, Christian epistemology and piety. I say this realizing fully that such a statement is antithetical to how many Christians understand these issues - and such statements in their minds relegate me to the realm of mysticism and heresy. I stand on the Scriptures.
Returning to the celestial conflict, Christ is often presented (in Old Testament Psalms, prophecies, and the book of Revelation) as a victor in battle - but according to this logic the battle was illusory, mere theatre as it were. Such thinking may prove coherent vis-à-vis a framework of Divine Sovereignty but it's not a faithful reading of the text. It would seem that Divine Sovereignty is not threatened by such mitigation or complexity.
We don't know how all these dynamics work and though these entities and powers are certainly subordinate to the One True God - the ways and means by which He governs the universe and the order He has established is a mystery to us. Is their power just fictitious? That's not how it's presented.
We are told of thrones and principalities and powers but we don't know how it all works and how they relate to one another and the world itself. Some of the information revealed in Daniel leaves us somewhat awestruck. We read of princes (celestial Sarim) somehow relating to earthly powers, angelic struggles, and even the archangel Gabriel is hindered by the Sar of Persia - itself a mystery as this is no mere earthly king being referenced. Once again there's a mysterious dynamic at work. It's all rather peculiar and once again should leave us humbled. I cringe when I think of many sermons I've heard on such topics. These men (via logic) think they know best and can break it all down for you and yet what is the end result of their inquiries? - the Scriptures are made to say something other than what they say. This may represent a kind of logic but is utterly lacking in wisdom or fidelity we might add. And if their conclusions are untrue and are reductionist and yet (as is so often the case) cast in absolute or dogmatic terms, then their words do great harm.
The Scriptures reveal hints of something vast and yet it also reveals that we are not qualified to ask the questions we so often want to ask. This doesn't stop the systematician in his tracks - but it should. Their hubris and self-confidence will not allow them to admit that they cannot grasp it, nor the plan that governs it. For that matter it could be argued we're not qualified to understand the answer either. Reading Job, it is difficult to escape this conclusion.