How do you live in two places at once? Maybe better: How can you belong in one place and yet live in another? It’s a strange predicament. But it’s one for every Christian. And I believe the answer has much to do with our greatest love.
I was born in a small fishing town in Nova Scotia, Canada, where my father was helping to plant a church. We lived there until I was five and then moved back to the States. For a time, I held dual citizenship. I was welcome in both countries as a legitimate citizen, with full access to all the rights and privileges of each nation. Back in the early 2000s, when you reached eighteen as a dual citizen, you had to choose which citizenship you would legally embrace. You couldn’t remain a dual citizen forever (this is different now, as I understand it). Naturally, I chose American citizenship, since that was my home. It also made sense to me that people could only ever hold one ultimate allegiance.
Dual Citizens
As a pastor, my father saw a thread that ran from the ancient pages of Scripture to the life of his teenage son. Something that Paul told the Philippian church struck a chord in my father’s soul. And it reverberates in me now, especially as I try to live faithfully as a Christian in America.
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. 18 For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. (Phil. 3:17–4:1)
In the margin of my father’s Bible, he had written the following notes:
• We’re visitors—here for a short time.
• We belong somewhere else.
• Sightseeing, not occupying
• Taylor—Dual citizenship, makes choice @ 18
Simple notes for a simple Christian man, now safe and secure with the Lord Jesus Christ. (Incidentally, he passed away from cancer when I was eighteen. I finalized my earthly citizenship as he entered fully into his heavenly one.)
There’s much here we can learn when thinking about our situation in the modern West, especially as Christians in America. Paul is outlining here not how to be in two places at once, but how to belong in one place and yet live in another. He’s also calling us to a life of imitation. We need both of these things in our current context, ordering our life according to our first love (Rev. 2:4). Let me first spell out what it means to be a citizen of heaven and how that affects our earthly stewardship as Christians in America and in any other earthly country.
What Is a Citizen of Heaven?
To understand what Paul means by heavenly citizenship, we have to examine the context. He starts this passage not by defining terms, but by inviting the family of God to a life of imitation, of mimesis. Note that this is already an affront to modern secular culture, which strives to make its own way in the world, opting for poiesis instead of mimesis, a point recently emphasized in Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self and Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. But Paul takes his queues from the living Christ of Scripture, and he asks us to then take our queues from him: “join in imitating me”; “stare at and walk by the example I have given” (v. 17). The Christian life is deeply mimetic—not because we try hard to be like Jesus but because the Spirit of the risen Christ is working in us already (John 14:23; Rom. 8:9; Col. 1:27).
Our hope and pride are set not on what we are doing right now but on what God is doing to us, both now and in the future.
Now, things shift in verse 18. Paul moves from the positive to the negative, from the redeemed to the rebellious. There are those who are enemies not just of “Christ” but of “the cross of Christ.” That wording is critical. It can be easy to be a fan of a moral teacher. But Jesus was no mere moral teacher. He went to the cross. That was his central message: that he must suffer and die at the hands of godless men in religious garb. And then, when the whole world was convinced he was crushed, he would rise from the dead on the third day (Matt. 16:21; Luke 24:26). Why did he have to do this? Because of our sin. The cross is God’s grand answer to human sin and rebellion. We needed God to do this on our behalf. Otherwise, we’d be lost and gone forever. The enemies of “the cross of Christ” hate that message—that they would need such amazing and supernatural grace to be set right with God. This brings Paul to tears.
Paul then tells us about their goal, their god, and their glory. He summarizes their entire lives by revealing (1) where they are headed, (2) what they worship, and (3) what they take pride in. Their goal or “end” (τέλος) is destruction; their god is their “belly” (κοιλία); and their glory (δόξα) is their shame or disgrace (αἰσχύνῃ). Put differently, their lives are moving towards annihilation. It doesn’t get any worse than that. But while they move towards that end, what are they doing? Consuming. They are worshiping their bellies, or their inner self. They are feeding the flames of internal desire. In short, they have made themselves objects of worship. And so Matthew Roberts’s words ring true: “At the heart of what has gone wrong in man is a transfer of worship.” Lastly, the very things they are most proud of—unhindered self-fulfillment and consumption—are actually shameful. And here’s the final blow: anyone living this kind of life has a mind set on earthly things. In other words, such people are claiming with their very actions to belong to this earth, in all of its passing corruption. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul classifies this type of person as a dying breed, a lineage of dust (1 Cor. 15:47–49). Those who live as if they belong to this earth are doomed to pass away because they are detached from the life-giving Spirit of Christ (1 Cor. 15:45).
We need to keep this close to heart for the next sentence, which helps us grasp what it means to be a heavenly citizen. Paul starts this sentence with a holy conjunction: “But” (γὰρ), which defines heavenly citizens as polar opposites to earthly-minded people.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (vv. 20–21)
Instead of belonging to the earth that is passing away (Matt. 24:35), we belong in heaven. And heaven is the pure and perfect presence of God and his people. Notice how markedly different our goal, God, and glory is here. First, God’s holy and peace-giving presence is our telos, our goal. While the enemies of the cross of Christ are headed for destruction, we are headed for unhindered communion. Second, our God is not our belly, the satisfaction of our inner self, but the one true and sovereign Lord, whose grace and glory are forever praised (Rev. 19:5). That means we are fundamentally staring at God, not at ourselves. And yet, it is precisely by doing this that we find fulfillment. As Matthew Roberts wrote,
Worship, for images of the Triune God, is both the denial of self and the discovery of self. It is denial of self, because to worship God is all about abandoning our admiring thoughts about and preoccupations with ourselves. Instead, we focus our heart and mind on the God whom we love and seek to glorify. It is discovery of self, because this magnifying and rejoicing in God is reflecting His glory back to Him; and so is the very heartbeat of what it means to be His image. It is when, focused on our God and saviour, we cease to be concerned about who we are that we fulfil what it means to be who we are.
Lastly, our glory is not our shame; it is our Christ-conforming transformation. Our hope and pride are set not on what we are doing right now but on what God is doing to us, both now and in the future. He is transforming our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body. That is the consummation of our imitation of Christ, our mimesis. Contrary to popular assumption, imitation leads not to boring repetition but to blinding resurrection, as long as we are imitating Christ.
So, there you have it. A citizen of heaven, according to Paul, is someone who has the goal of eternally communing with God, joyfully worshiping the one who gives life, and transforming fully into the image of Christ, using our time on earth as a chrysalis.
The Chrysalis of Christ
It’s worth staring at that image for a bit: the Christian as a chrysalis. We used to catch Black Swallowtail caterpillars for our kids. They would feed them and watch them grow for several days until each began making its chrysalis. Bit by bit, a caterpillar would disappear behind an ossified green or brown shell stitched to a flower stem by a self-spun silk pad. For about two weeks, each one goes through a process called holometabolism—where its body breaks down into cells, which then reassemble to form a new shape. A butterfly emerges from the chrysalis at the end: a new creation (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17).
However, anyone looking at a chrysalis from the outside would consider it trash. It’s plain and stony, fossilized and faceless. It is clothing fit for a crawler, not a king. It’s only after a Black Swallowtail emerges—with deep silken wings dotted in yellow, blue, and orange—that we marvel. The crowning follows cruciformity. The glory follows grieving.
A citizen of heaven, according to Paul, is someone who has the goal of eternally communing with God, joyfully worshiping the one who gives life, and transforming fully into the image of Christ, using our time on earth as a chrysalis.
Such is the Christian life. Our glory is our transformation, which has already begun but will not reach consummation until we are with the Lord. In the meantime, we are sewing our chrysalis. And here’s the hard news for Christians to swallow: it’s not pretty—I mean, to the world. In the world’s eyes, we should not look appealing. That’s not because the beauty of God isn’t at work in us; it’s because the world cannot see what we truly are. The world cannot discern spiritual things. It sees, in Paul’s words, only “the natural.” He tells the Corinthians, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).
Building a chrysalis during our earthly days is an exercise in humility, in growing content with being misjudged, undervalued, and rejected. Ours is a mission of sharing in the sufferings of Christ (Rom. 8:17–18; Phil. 3:10–11). That’s a mark of Christ’s church. As Richard B. Gaffin Jr. put it, we are a people that “wins by losing,” that identifies itself by suffering with Jesus, that realizes the power of Christ’s resurrection precisely in our cross-bearing. In the weakness, in the waiting, in the dark chamber of our Christ-conforming chrysalis, we carry the unquenchable flame of resurrection life.
Stewards on Earth
Now, that doesn’t mean Paul is calling Christians to a hermetic life, closed off from the world in our happy little chrysalis. In fact, each of the marks of heavenly citizenship we’ve looked at has an external, witness-bearing component. If our goal is one day to enjoy full communion with God and his people, we are still working towards that goal today. We are thinking, speaking, and acting (God willing) in such a way that other people will witness our longing for communion with God, our hope-giving and joy-spreading destination. And if our God is the true and triune Lord, then it should be evident each day how we are worshiping and honoring him above all else. Put negatively, it should be clear that we are not self-focused, as “the enemies of the cross of Christ” are. Lastly, if our glory is Christ-conforming bodily transformation, ushered in by the sovereign King who will subject all things to himself (Phil. 3:21), then people should see our daily commitment to that self-giving glory and our trust in God’s sovereign rule through Christ. Perhaps this comes through our Spirit-driven efforts to suffer with Christ in ten thousand tiny ways.
The point is that people are watching. And we need to keep living as citizens of heaven sojourning on earth. We can give this job the name of stewardship. A steward is a faithful caretaker of what is entrusted to him, knowing that another Lord is reigning.
So, what has been entrusted to us? Many things, but focus on “the truth.” This was Paul’s message to a young Timothy:
I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. (2 Tim. 1:12–14)
Paul was entrusted with the gospel of the crucified and risen Savior, according to the word of God. And he entrusts the same message to Timothy. The “good deposit” is the sound teaching of the gospel. And we are recipients of the same deposit. We have received the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the fullness of God (Col. 2:9; Eph. 3:19). All of the beauty and goodness and truth of God come to us through Jesus Christ. And ours is a world that desperately needs that beauty, goodness, and truth. We steward what has been entrusted to us by faithfully testifying to what God has done in Christ and by the Spirit for his people. And that faithful testament has countless applications—in the ways we raise our children, engage with the environment, and conduct ourselves in the public square as citizens of our respective earthly countries.
This view of stewardship as witnessing to the gospel entrusted to us makes much sense of Romans 13:1–3, a passage often referenced in distinguishing the church and the state. But in that distinguishing, we might overlook the relationship between church and state. Paul says,
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad (Rom. 13:1–3).
Notice two points about this passage, given our discussion of Philippians 3:17–4:1. First, God is the true King, even as Jesus is the true Sovereign who will subject all things to himself (Phil. 3:21). Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a purely secular government. All earthly governments stand under the authority of God—whether they confess his Lordship or not. Second, how is the government supposed to know what warrants “judgment”? How is it supposed to know the difference between “good” and “bad” conduct? Common grace can only be a partial explanation. If true justice and goodness are rooted in the character of God, then the state would only learn what those things are by looking at the church. Hence, as stewards of the gospel, we are duty-bound to witness to the world concerning who God is, what he is like, and why we are here.
So, while we are certainly citizens of heaven, we are still stewards of the earth. And I believe our primary role is to be witnesses for the world concerning . . . well, everything. The blood of the gospel percolates every crease and crevice of life. There is nothing left uncolored by crimson grace. The gospel shapes our approach to family life, literature, the arts, technology, environmental engagement, and, yes, even politics. It cannot be otherwise.
A Christian Nation
So, does this mean that I want a country such as America to be labeled a “Christian nation”? Well, if by that, people mean a nation that largely affirms that God’s nature and work as revealed in Scripture lead to the greatest and most fulfilling life possible, then yes. One of my recent books, Insider-Outsider, was about how people are made to be fully known and fully loved. But there’s only one being who can do that for us: the triune God. I have the core conviction that this is true—not just for me, but for everyone. God is the only one who satisfies our deepest longings and offers us a meaningful life of love through Christ. Life with Jesus is the best life. I have no intention of even suggesting that it’s okay for people to think, speak, and act as if that weren’t the case.
The crowning follows cruciformity. The glory follows grieving.
But if by “Christian nation” people mean a country that is materially governed by Christians whose main focus is to make this earthly life easier on God’s people, then no. Why? Because if material or political success becomes the main metric for Christians in any country, then they are dangerously close to taking up a different goal, god, and glory. The same ones, in fact, that Paul spoke against in Philippians 3. In this case, we would be throwing the principle of our Christian chrysalis by the wayside, trying to be butterflies when we lack wings.
We cannot really be dual citizens of heaven and earth. In that sense, my father’s analogy needs mending. We can be a citizen of only one kingdom. We can only have one highest love, one greatest allegiance. This principle comes out clearly in the words of Jesus himself concerning material prosperity: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matt. 6:24). We cannot claim dual allegiance to heaven and earth, any more than we can claim joint rule for Jesus and Satan (John 12:31). We can have only one primary allegiance. Paul calls us to be citizens of only one kingdom—heaven. That means we are, at our best, stewards of the earth. And a steward’s main goal is to guard and proclaim what has been entrusted to us, not just inside the church but outside it. This is the only thing that can help any government straining to piece together a value system apart from God.
The Greatest Love
I said at the outset that the key to understanding our heavenly citizenship is our greatest love. This helps us order our priorities when it comes to engaging with people in the public sphere. If God is our greatest love, then we love other things in the world—including enjoyment or exercise of country-specific rights—for God’s sake. We love partaking in a discussion about freedom of speech, for instance, not because we love freedom of speech on its own and for our benefit, but because we see in that discussion an opportunity to witness to the true freedom found only in Christ, of which every earthly freedom is only a shadow. There’s a difference between loving things in the world and loving God through the things of the world—political and civil service included. Saint Augustine began a tradition of doing the latter. In his Confessions, he wrote, “He loves you less who together with you loves something which he does not love for your sake” (Confessions, 10.28.202). As Christopher Watkins put it,
If I pay my taxes in a way divorced from my giving to God, I do not give to God as I ought. Like a child receiving a Christmas gift from her parents and greedily taking it to her room, locking the door behind her, and refusing to say, “Thank you,” loving things and doing our civic duty in a way unrelated to God snatches the lesser gift and ignores the greater giver.
We have a sad history of loving earthly things more than we love our heavenly Giver. And that’s precisely where dual allegiances come into play.
Conclusion
Being heavenly citizens and earthly stewards is a matter of keeping our first love first (Rev. 2:4). Paul portrays our heavenly citizenship as diametrically opposed to the goal, god, and glory of earthly-minded people. Being heavenly-minded means that we live out a witness—both in private and public—to the goal, God, and glory of the crucified and risen Christ. Until we meet him face-to-face, we weave our chrysalis and proclaim God’s entrusted truth to a watching world, even if that world rejects and despises us for doing so. In fact, especially when the world does this. For that is the gospel, isn’t it? “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Our dying for others is a testament to our living for heaven’s King. May our citizenship with him continue to be a light for those still clinging to the goal, god, and glory of a fading earth.