Gordon uses God’s call of Abram to leave Ur of the Chaldees to go to a different land as proof that Christians are not supposed to be attached to place or people. Gordon insists that the land of Christians is the heavenly land and, by implication, that our people are not our own kith and kin but are instead fellow Christians. Gordon says “the whole paradigm of Scripture is moving us away from these earthly loyalties to heavenly loyalties.”
Doubtless this is why God said, “Honor thy Father and Mother.” Doubtless this is why God said “If a man does not provide for his own household he is worse than an infidel.” Doubtless this reasoning accounts for Paul’s throated expression of love for his earthly people in Romans 9:3.
It is these kind of statements of the R2K fanboys like Rev. Chris Gordon that finds me screaming, “GNOSTIC.” The Christian faith does not separate or divorce the heavenly from the earthly but finds the heavenly in the earthly. That which is earthly in the negative sense is earthly because it has been divorced from the meaning it has when it is injected with the heavenly. It is earthly because it is fallen and yet to be restored by grace. If grace restores nature then nature becomes what it was always intended to be, and that is due to grace.
As a Christian I don’t have to be all dualistic separating heaven from earth as if there is no relation between the two. As a Christian I know and live in terms of the reality that Christ has redeemed and so is redeeming all of nature and as such the dichotomy between heaven and earth is no longer a dichotomy.
The negation of distinctions of male and female, jew and greek, slave and free, are all made in the context
of our standing in salvation with Christ.
This standing does not negate the distinctions outside of Christ as we live and breath in
our physical world until we die.
For example, when Paul spoke these words I doubt that the slave was freed from their earthly bondage. They were freed from the death of Adam, their seperation from God.
Christ has no distinctions as to who He will apply the blood.
On gnostic belief and the dispensational view of not polishing brass on a sinking ship.
There is nothing in scripture about the destruction of physical matter, the terra firma or
universe.
No where in scripture is it stated that there is an end of time. KJV has an translation bias
stating the end of time, but it is incorrect, its time of the end. Just like end of all things.
Its the end of the Mosaic age or Old Covenant.
All references in scripture to destruction of heaven and earth are from a order of things destruction. Heaven and earth in proper context is always referring to predominate order of the day. ie old covenant order, new covenant order, preflood order.
We now live in the new heavens and earth order of things. The Messianic age that will last forever.
Here are some verses that clearly state that the physical matter of our universe and planet are forever.
Ecclesiastes 1:4
Christian Standard Bible
4 A generation goes and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
Ephesians 3:21
English Standard Version
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Psalm 104:5
English Standard Version
5 He set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be moved.
Psalm 78:69
English Standard Version
69 He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
like the earth, which he has founded forever
Not only is the molecular level preserved forever but also His Kingdom.
God created the physical world and pronounced it good.
The fall of man did not alter the physical world. All discussions of the creation groaning,
and thorns and briars is simply ancient near east figures of speech. It was common language in their time to discuss things hyperbolically in creation and decreation language.
This false view of gnostic beliefs that we need not waste time on the physical world because Jesus may be coming back tonight to burn it all up is the most christian culture killing presupposition on our planet today. That and the belief in the fake joos of the nation of Israel today.
Gnosticism has already shown itself to be a very efficient way to infiltrate Christianity – that is probably why the apostles condemned it so fiercely.
One poisonous fruit of the first Gnostic onslaught upon the church was the cult of celibacy and virginity that developed among the “church fathers”, and permanently blighted RC/EO traditions – and Charles Hodge argued that even the 16th century Reformers did not reject it firmly enough:
https://ccel.org/ccel/hodge/theology3/theology3.iii.v.xi.html
“The doctrine which degrades marriage by making it a less holy state, has its foundation in Manicheeism or Gnosticism. It assumes that evil is essentially connected with matter; that sin has its seat and source in the body; that holiness is attainable only through asceticism and “neglecting of the body;” that because the “vita angelica” is a higher form of life than that of men here on earth, therefore marriage is a degradation. The doctrine of the Romish Church on this subject, therefore, is thoroughly anti-Christian.
…
That is, virginity is a virtue. Celibacy is a higher state than marriage. Those who cannot live in that state, should descend to the lower platform of married life. With such dregs of Manichean philosophy was the pure truth of the Bible contaminated, even as held by the most illustrious Reformers.”