A glimpse of Katz, his thoughts on what Church could and should be.The Meaning of EternityPaul wrote to Timothy, Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called ... (1 Timothy 6:12a)It is evident that Paul is not speaking of some future time, but now! It is something given by the life of God—a particular kind of wisdom, a mindset and a perception. Whosoever believes on Him, shall have eternal life, not just future, but now. It is a very peculiar state of being, a dimension that is concurrent with time, and indeed, it is a dimension that needs to be contended for, if we will enter into His life. “Contend for the faith that was once given to the saints” is more than just an injunction to embrace their doctrines, but an invitation to come into a certain dimension of being. It is not going to make you ethereal and irrelevant. You are not going to become dreamy or visionary, for if eternity is anything, it is the very essence of that which is real.Eternity needs to be brought into time, and the church is the only agency on earth given by God through whom that can happen. But it is an apostolic church that lives, and moves, and has its being in the eternal dimension, and who abides in Him, who inhabits eternity. Our problem is that we secretly covet the world’s admiration. We want to succeed on the world’s terms, if not academically, then theologically. We find ways to be polite, and to address our Christian convictions in a manner by which the world can receive them. We have lost the apostolic view, which was intended to confront the world in its entire framework of thought, for the whole of non-Christian thought is a lie, for it has not reckoned on eternity. It has not brought the invisible things into its consideration, and therefore all of its other considerations are amiss.The world needs to be confronted by the things that are eternal. Paul himself demonstrated this on Mars Hill. He struck at the very heart of the world and its lies. It is remarkable that he came down that hill alive, when he could just as easily have been the object of men stopping their ears and rushing upon him with teeth gnashing. Are we eager to preach Christ and Him crucified, Him risen, the soon coming King and Judge? We cannot divide these realities. Paul was determined not to know anything but Christ and Him crucified - and it takes a determination! Everything in the world, the flesh, and the Devil conspires against it. It wants to diminish this truth, and put it in mere religious and doctrinal categories, but we are enjoined to preach this gospel to every creature, namely,… He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)God has furnished proof to all men by setting a ‘Paul’ before them, who not only proclaims the doctrine of resurrection and judgment, but is himself a demonstration of the resurrection life, a taste of the power of the ages to come. The issue of resurrection is already the issue of eternity, for it is the life to come. And when a man stands before unbelieving Greeks and speaks to them penetratingly out of that life, then God has furnished proof to those men.Eternity as Resurrection LifeThere is an entry into the eternal dimension through the reality of resurrection life. Merely approving the doctrine is not enough, we need to live and move and have our being in Jesus Christ, or our words about an imminent judgment are without value. There can be no preaching of the resurrection, or of eternal judgment unless the entire framework of our life is changed. Do we really want to see all men everywhere repent? They need to see the eternity that is already in us, and they shall be eternally condemned except that they receive Him in whose Name we come. We are moving to a final and ultimate confrontation with the philosophical spirit of the world. Something timeless and eternal must be presented to men by an apostolic church, a people who have laid hold of that which is eternal, and are not just awaiting some future state. They are already appropriating it, and bringing it into their present consideration. The issue of the resurrection in us is the issue of eternity for them. God is desirous of an apostolic mind-set, for these are the foundations of the church - not the issues of the mechanics of church government, however important that might be in itself. A church without the eternal dimension, however correct it may be in every other form, is not an apostolic or authentic church. This is a position far beyond correct doctrine. Something must come again into the atmosphere of God’s corporate people, a sense of urgency that we ourselves cannot calculate or establish. We must be purveyors of a sense of imminence, and of the things that shall shortly come to pass. We must bring the eternal sense of things, and the eternal stakes of heaven or hell, because we have already sensed the eternal weight of glory as being so presently real to us now. The rejection, the abuse, the reproach, and the persecution that will come to us for bearing an unwelcome word to a world that does not want to hear, is for us, only a momentary and light affliction. But it will be true only to the degree we see that which is invisible.Captured from chapter 2 ofApostolic Foundations:The Challenge of Living an Authentic Christian LifeBy Arthur Katz
