2016 was a bust according to social–media consensus. Not only did refugees drown by the thousands, not only were scary people voted into office, not only was it a bumper year for terrorism, but it was a rotten year for celebrities: David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Alan Rickman, Prince, Zsa Zsa Gabor, John Glenn, Florence Henderson … and so on.
Get lost, 2016. Let’s start again.
I don’t want to sound too dismissive. I too found myself suddenly saddened and oddly shocked by some of those death. It’s hard to hear of the deaths of childhood icons like Carrie Fisher or Alan Rickman without feeling like a piece of your own youth is being ploughed under. For those of us who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, 2016 was a year for disenchantment—a further confirmation that we are growing old and passing away.
But we knew that already, didn’t we? We are all (parousia notwithstanding) heading for the grave. As Princess Leia went, so will we all. Our bodies will return to the ground. Our photographs will fade. Our achievements will be forgotten.
This is cheery isn’t it? What a happy note to begin the new year on.
Yet it’s something that should be entirely compatible with Christian joy, and even contribute to the wisdom and character that intensify our joy in the things God has given. We are not meant to be romantics, straining our eyes and screwing our necks for a last glimpse of the gauzy past. There really is a lost world—and the losses of our own years continually remind us of that primal fall from youth and innocence.
But the right use of those reminders is prophetic, not nostalgic. It is God who has “made everything beautiful in its time” and “put eternity” into human hearts (Ecc 3:11)—not so we can say that the old days were better (Ecc 7:10), but so that we will learn to be content with our dependence and finitude (Ecc 3:12-14). It is only God who builds to last. Our lot is to receive his gifts with joy.
Time and New Covenant
Perhaps that's the last word under the Old Covenant (though there are hints even there of something more to come—certainly in the exile era). But there's much more to be said under the new. For we who live in the “end of the ages” the passage of history has other meanings:
- It exists for the glory of God—to prove his “manifold wisdom” before the “rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms” (Eph 3:10).
- It’s shaped by God’s desire that nations should “seek God … feel their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:27)..
- It stretches out because the Lord is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2Pet 3:15).
- Its tragedies speak of the need for repentance (Luke 13:1-5) and the imminence of the end (Mark 13:29-30).
As the New Testament reveals it to us, history has a greater meaning—and we have a part in it. Because it’s the witness of the church that vindicates God. It’s our prayers, giving and efforts that God uses to win the nations. It’s our lives that testify to the new creation (2Cor 3:18; 4:16-17)
Thinking About History in 2017
At TGCA this year we want ourselves and our readers to be people who understand our place in history. We want to have our eyes fixed on God’s plans and purposes for his world.
This doesn’t mean pretending that we aren’t subject to the common griefs and interests of all humanity. It doesn’t mean cheering while everyone else is weeping. It doesn’t mean that there’s no place for looking back.
But we don’t want to mourn as the world mourns. We don’t want to look back without also seeing the great works of God looming over everything: the coming of Christ; his death and resurrection; the spread and miraculous preservation of the church.
This year, as we move toward the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we want to pay particular attention to God’s mercies to us in that great era. We want to think again about what it means to be saved by grace alone; by faith alone; by Christ alone – for the sole glory of God. We want to reaffirm and clarify our commitment to Scripture as the only completely reliable authority given to God’s people.
We want to look back so we can look forward.
May God bless you richly in the year ahead. May he “fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Andrew Moody, on behalf of the TGCA editorial panel
