Two people may stand at the kitchen window and look at the outside world. One will see colorful birds flying around in the garden, collecting the building materials for their nest, while the other sees only the endless string of cars on the busy road some 150 yards from the house.
Similarly, when I sometimes hear people discussing a sermon I have preached, I wonder whether they all actually attended the same church and heard the same preacher.
What we notice and experience depends on a wide range of factors. One of them is the relationship we have to a particular event. I know people who regard the British author C. S. Lewis as a saint and regularly meet to read from his works and discuss what they have read. For them, no doubt, November 22, 1963, is chiseled in their memory as the day on which their beloved writer died. For most of us, however, as much as we appreciate Lewis, this particular date is the day U.S. president John F. Kennedy was assassinated!
The way in which we view historical events depends greatly on our perspective. When I attended elementary school in the Netherlands, I learned about the four “English wars,” in which the Dutch fought against the British in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I left school with the impression that “we” won them all. Later, I lived for a number of years in England and bought some books about the history of my adopted country. I was surprised to find that these books did not refer to the “British wars,” as “we” did, but to the “Dutch wars.” And, strangely enough, these books claimed that the English performed rather better in these battles than the Dutch!
What is true of separate events also applies to history in general. There are various ways in which we can view history. Some see history as nothing but a random series of events. It is all, they say, a matter of chance. Others maintain that evolutionary theory may also apply to the history of humankind. Just give it another million years and humankind will have improved to the point that it no longer makes war! Others again believe they can detect cyclic patterns in history, while many in the twentieth century held that history simply records the struggle between capital and labor.
For Christians, who take their cue from the Bible, history is more like a straight line with a beginning and an end. Human history starts in Eden and ends in the world made new. Somewhere on this line is a crucial spot that marks the birth of Jesus Christ. Therefore, history is divided into B.C. and A.D., before Christ and after Christ!
There is, however, more to the Christian perspective on history. The biblical view of history is best defined by the expression “the great conflict,” and suggests that everything that happens on our planet must be seen against the backdrop of something that far exceeds our human scope.
The last book of the Bible informs us that at a certain point in the distant past, “war” broke out in heaven (Rev. 12:7). A being created perfect challenged the love and goodness of God. We will never understand how that could happen, but it did. A few passages in the Old Testament (Isa. 14:12-14; Eze. 28:12-18) provide us with some hints, but the origin of evil remains a dark mystery.
After God had created this world, the battle scene moved to this earth. The book of Genesis (3:6-8) informs us about the “fall” into sin of the first human couple. The rest of the Bible describes the aftermath of this terrible event. But it also tells us that the power of God has already gained the decisive victory over all evil. Sin gained entrance into the world through the sin of one person. But sin is also conquered and destroyed through the life and death of one Person (Rom. 5:12-21). The problem has been solved, and a new sinless world is just beyond the horizon.
People who flippantly suggest that there is more between heaven and earth than meets the physical eye often do not realize how much truth there is in that statement. The struggle between good and evil on this earth is a conflict with extraordinary dimensions. It is a conflict between light and darkness, between Christ and Satan, between the Prince of life and the super-angel-turned-rebel.
Therefore, we do not simply participate in a fight with beings of our own size and sort. The apostle Paul put it like this: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12).
I must confess that I do not grasp the full meaning of what this means. But one thing is clear: Something momentous is going on “between heaven and earth,” in this cosmic “great controversy.”
I am reminded of this as I read the prologue to the book of Job (chapter 1), which tells how God meets with Satan, who has returned from “roaming” the world, to discuss the loyalty of an ancient patriarch called Job. I can think of quite a few questions I want to ask as I read this story. Did Satan still have direct access to God after he had been banished from heaven? And does (or, at least, did) God have a habit to discuss the spiritual condition of believers with the archenemy? But never mind these questions. What is crystal clear is that, once again, there is more going on between heaven and earth than we know and understand.
Recently I read the biblical book of Daniel in a single session. More than ever before I was fascinated by what I read in chapter 10. The chapter begins with a scene in which Daniel is greatly disturbed. It seems that God is not answering his prayers. But a heavenly being appears to set Daniel’s mind at ease. “Your prayers have been heard,” this being affirms. “I was sent by the Almighty to visit with you and talk with you. I am a bit late—in fact, I was delayed for three weeks.” His words are even more specific. “I was detained by the Prince of Persia,” he declares. And this heavenly messenger says he must return to continue his confrontation with the “king of Persia” (see verses 10-20).
This passage is strangely reassuring. It tells me: Leave things to God. The “great conflict” is far more complicated that you can ever imagine, but there are all kinds of things happening “between heaven and earth,” and our God is in absolute control.
The history of the universe does not play out in a vacuum. Neither does our personal life story. Every single person is a player in this “great controversy” between good and evil. The powers of the evil one keep pulling us away from “the straight and narrow.” But the power of God also keeps drawing us with His infinite divine love. We must confess that in this struggle we do sometimes lose a battle. But the final victory has already been secured through Jesus Christ.
We must learn to look with new eyes at what happens in the world and in our life. There is more than what meets the human, carnal eye. When the apostle Paul was considering this topic, he concluded with the question: “What more is there to say?”
I want to join him in that concluding question, but also in his final triumphant remark: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”(Rom. 8:38, 39).
Never forget: That is God’s perspective.
