Why Should We Redeem Society?

It seems necessary to address why and even if Christians should be involved in redeeming society and culture. There are many who deride such activity as being a diversion from the “real” work of the church, which in their minds is nothing more than articulating the personal plan of salvation (or “gospel,” very narrowly understood).

However, I would counter by saying that such a distinction is more accurately rooted in pagan dualism than scripture. Platonism divides reality into two spheres: the material and the nonmaterial-with the nonmaterial, or spiritual, being superior.

This classical Greek view offers a completely unbiblical understanding of reality. Its practical acceptance by many in the church has only served to further the irrelevance of Christianity in the modern West.

The Bible offers no such separation of spiritual and physical and, in fact, regards mankind as being unique from every other in creation precisely because of our combined natures. God’s ultimate act of atonement for the sins of men was to become flesh-a real man living in the real world dying a real death and being physically resurrected. Secondly, God is very much interested in his physical creation, as it remains an object of redemption, which will be completed in the new heaven and earth.

To reduce the gospel to nothing more than the personal plan of salvation (a strictly spiritual good) is to minimize God’s ongoing relationship to the world and Christ’s authority over same. The “good news” established at the appearance of Christ is that our God reigns! Both the alienation of mankind from God and the groaning of creation find their remedy or redemption in the work of Christ. Men and women are set free from eternal bondage to sin and enlisted in the service of the King as the body of Christ to “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).

These good works naturally include acts of mercy, charity, and service to individuals but also those efforts that seek to remedy the effects of the fall upon the whole society. In other words, redeeming the institutions of culture and the conditions of society that affect people by bringing them into conformity to biblical principles as a sign and foretaste of God’s rule and reign.

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