From the Least to the Greatest, Everyone Shall Know the Lord

Sidebar scripture change alert!

Hebrews 8:8-11 is one of the key verses for me. This verse along with the verse in the Our Father that says, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," are crucial in my way of seeing things.

These are two verses that I take literally (that's not saying much being that I take quite a bit literally). But if you conisder them as verses that should be taken literally, I think you'll see where I'm coming from.

These two verses are a huge part of the reason I believe that Christianity is not the final form of God's history on earth. The ultimate goal is that we will reach a point when the Lord's prayer, "thy kingdom come. . ." will have been fulfilled. That point in history will be marked by the Hebrew verses in which we are told, no one would have to teach their neighbor about God because from the least to the greatest, everyone shall know the Lord. Obviously, Christianity cannot get us there. Christianity has gone as far as it can and a new religious form is going to have to evolve out of Christianity to produce the desired eschatological goals. Christianity has failed to produce what it advertised. Paul said, "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things have passed away, behold all things are new." The seemingly infinite deviation from the ideal of the Christian faith that now and has always characterized actual Christians is simply proof that the faith has failed to produce the these new godly men and women. On the contrary, Christianity has produced and initiated some of the most viscious and unChristian activity in human history.

Now, one can argue that Christianity has offered very many positive things to human history. True. But you don't commend a cat for meowing. Our failures are enough of a testimony against us.

So, on the religious front, then what?

Nothing. There's nothing anyone can do. We all simply have to wait for God, it is his history to make and not ours. In the meantime, we have to do our part and set the right conditions for the God's kingdom on earth. No eschatological kingdom will come from the sky and change things in a flash. The earth and human history have no hope but us and God. This is where we have to take our future into our hands to build that kingdom. We do our part, God does his.

So then, what is the difference between us and other non-Christians who work for progress, peace and justice? The difference is that we know that our push is transcendental and that we work with God and the future brings us closer to God's kingdom and that belief is the transforming power for progress: that belief is the seed and nourishment for authentic hope that will transform the earth to God's kingdom.