—John 18:36-38a

You may be wondering what that strange title, Saecula Saeculorum, means, exactly. The loose rendering of the Latin is “forever and ever” or, more strictly, “unto the age of the ages.” I used it as the title of this article because this phrase, both in Scripture (see, for example, Galatians 1:5 and 1 Peter 4:11) and in the life of the church, has a long and complicated history. Paul, Peter, the writer of Hebrews, and John of Patmos use this phrase to contrast the concept of God’s eternal power and the enduring nature of His reign to all other measures of power and meaning. Only God and God’s rule is eternal, transcending all powers, principalities, and circumstances.

If saecula saeculorum is a shorthand way to highlight the eternal nature of God and God’s rule, then we gain an insight into Jesus’s response to Pilate in John 18. Pilate, a creature of the bureaucracy of empire, thinks and acts in ways that prioritize the aims and goals of his king, the emperor. His imagination and heart are ultimately limited by his allegiance to power concepts and compulsory rule by force. Here in John, he even does his best to pin Jesus down to making a similar sort of claim, although he fails to do so. For Pilate, any king or kingdom is measured by fleeting standards of human dreams and aspirations. So it is no surprise that when confronted with the alternative that Jesus presents, his only response is, “What is truth?” Even truth, then, is malleable when your only measure is the span of a human life or, at best, a few human generations. All is change to creatures ruled by change.

Yet Jesus makes it clear that the kingdom he proclaims and the rule he is inaugurating is of an entirely different order. Its measure isn’t the brief passing of human life or the even briefer span of human plans. Jesus’s rule isn’t derived from the present ordering of the world; it’s not from around here. God’s kingdom isn’t a matter of instituting another human project. Instead, the kingdom of God is built upon the eternal and unchanging truth that God is God alone, we are creatures, and in Jesus Christ, we are destined for an eternal fellowship of unending love with God. Saecula saeculorum, amen!

Reflecting on this contrast, St. Augustine in his City of God suggested that there are two realities at work in the world, the city of God and the city of man, or the heavenly city and the earthly. He writes:

"But the families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the earthly advantages of this life; while the families which live by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised… The earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the end it proposes, in the well-ordered concord of civic obedience and rule, is the combination of men’s wills to attain the things which are helpful to this life. The heavenly city, or rather the part of it which sojourns on earth and lives by faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until this mortal condition which necessitates it shall pass away."—City of God, Book 19, Chapter 17, s.1

Translation: there is God’s eternity and God’s kingdom that holds as its highest good eternal communion with God (saecula saeculorum), and there is the world as it is presently ordered whose aims, ordering, and rule are destined to pass away. This present ordering is the origin of the concept of the secular, or that which is confined to this age. Secular isn’t about whether someone or a group of people have a religious belief. Secular is the horizon of time by which our human projects and dreams are measured. All secular things, all present orderings of the world that measure outcomes in time, are destined to pass away.

And so, Augustine argues, the heavenly city and its citizens (the church) lives with its eye on a different prize. Yes, we must make our way in this world as it is, but we do not make our home or place our hopes in it. Yes, we honor the emperor (1 Peter 2:17), and we obey governing authorities (Romans 13:1), but we never, ever confuse their reign with the eternal city of fellowship with God, built upon Jesus Christ. The rulers of this world and the Pilates of our age are secular, by definition; the church, in Jesus Christ, is destined for eternity. Saecula saeculorum, amen!

You might ask why I’ve gone into all this detailed analysis. It’s simple, really. I’m writing this on Monday, November 2, 2020, the day before our national election. In the lead-up to this election, I’ve heard many, many voices insisting that voting this way or that is some sort of litmus test for one’s Christian faith. Anxiety is high. Who knows what tomorrow or the following weeks might hold?

Yet, whatever the outcome, I say to the church of Jesus Christ: stop measuring yourselves this way. Republican or Democrat, it is all destined to pass away. Yes, we must live as responsible pilgrims in this world, but as Jesus reminds us, we are not of this world (John 17:16). We are salt and light. At best, we point the way to what is and is to come in and through Jesus Christ who loved us first. We are witnesses to the world, not its princes. My prayer is that the church will end its confusion on this point.

In Christ,

Pastor Sam