The Apostle Peter, writing to the churches of Asia Minor (i.e., Western Turkey) in the AD mid-60s, writes in his closing salutation, “She, who is in Babylon, co-elect with you, greets you” (1 Pet 5:13). Most commentators understand Peter to be alluding to Rome.¹ Since Peter calls Mark his “son” (figuratively), it does not seem like a great stretch to think that he was speaking figuratively when he referred to Rome as Babylon, but it would be a mistake to think that, for Peter, only Rome was Babylon. For Peter, as for the Apostle John (e.g., Rev 18), the fallen kosmos (κοσμος), the fallen world, is Babylon. At that time, Rome was the capital city of the world and the outstanding representative of the corrupt world system, much like Washington D.C. is today.

That is why the Apostle Peter says,

Beloved, do not think it unusual should a fiery trial come upon you, as though something strange is happening to you. But to the degree you share in Christ’s sufferings, rejoice in order that, at the revelation of his glory, exulting you may rejoice. If you are being mocked in the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you (1 Pet 4:12–14).

This is the nature of the Christian existence, in Babylon, between the ascension of our Lord and his return. This text makes complete sense to Christians in China, Iraq, and Nigeria, to name but three, but it is a hard and shocking reality for American Christians to accept and many simply refuse. They have made America their home. They do not see it as Babylon, but as Jerusalem. Their citizenship is on earth (cf. Phil 3:20). They are not looking for a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God (cf. Heb 11:10). I am not saying that they do not believe in Christ or that they have no hope of heaven, but I am saying that they are so earthly-minded that they are no heavenly good.

They are fundamentally confused about where Christians live. They have, as my friend and pastor Chris Gordon recently said, “dislocated us.” Indeed, they think we live in Jerusalem, and like the Jewish revolutionaries of the first and early second centuries, they see Jerusalem sacked by the infidels and they want a Messiah to drive out the infidels. This is the program of the Christian Nationalists. My review of the Statement published by the Christian Nationalists (most recently in May 2023) suggests to me that they do not see this world, wherever we may live, as Babylon nor us as exiles.

Peter, however, did see the Christians in Asia Minor as exiles. He called them just that: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect sojourners in the diaspora of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Pet 1:1). When he called them “exiles” and spoke of them as “the diaspora,” he was speaking figuratively.

As Christians in a predominantly pagan culture, which was by turns either ignorant of Christianity or hostile to it, they were “grieved by various trials” (1 Pet 1:6), which served to test the authenticity of their faith (v. 7). The testing was sometimes so severe that Peter says it might even be “by fire” (v. 7). When he exhorted them not to “repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling” (1 Pet 3:9), he was not speaking theoretically.

Twice Peter appealed to the example of Noah (1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 3:5) to help the Christians of Asia Minor understand where they were in the world: waiting for the Savior. As our Lord himself said, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of man comes” (Luke 17:26). People were conducting their life as if there were no judgment, as if this world is all there is. And then the flood came and took them all away.

As it was according to Peter (and in the days of Noah), so today we are preaching by the Holy Spirit to the spirits who are in prison—trying to set them free, as it were. In Noah’s day, the church was very small indeed. In light of the ascension of our Lord, the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, and his promises that he will gather all his elect, we hope for and have seen better things than in Noah’s time, but the parallel haunts.

The Christian Nationalists, the theonomists, the theocrats, and the Reconstructionists (i.e., the TheoRecons) do not see us living in a world parallel to Noah’s. They do not see us living in Babylon. To them, we are just a social collapse away from a great and lengthy golden age before Christ returns. What do they do with Christ’s parallel with Noah? Sometimes they exhaust it at the destruction of Jerusalem—as some of them do with the Revelation itself—thus negating the very purpose of the Olivet Discourse and the Revelation. These were intended as guides for inter-adventual life, but are an obstacle to visions of earthly glory, and thus must be got rid of somehow.

It is a seduction, a “mislocation,” and a mistake. Peter locates us in Babylon. Daniel is our pattern, not David or Solomon. The greater than David has come, and he is coming again. Til then, we fulfill our vocations in this life, love our neighbors, and give witness to anyone who asks:

But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. (1 Pet 3:14–17)

The TheoRecons are theologians of glory, selling conquest and dominion in this life, before Christ returns. But they cannot square that vision with the eschatology and ethos of the New Testament, and it is to the New Testament, not their vision of glory, that Christians are bound.

NOTES

1. Calvin rejected the traditional view. “Many of the ancients thought that Rome is here enigmatically denoted. This comment the Papists gladly lay hold on, that Peter may appear to have presided over the Church of Rome: nor does the infamy of the name deter them, provided they can pretend to the title of an apostolic seat; nor do they care for Christ, provided Peter be left to them. Moreover, let them only retain the name of Peter’s chair, and they will not refuse to set Rome in the infernal regions. But this old comment has no color of truth in its favor; nor do I see why it was approved by Eusebius and others, except that they were already led astray by that error, that Peter had been at Rome. Besides, they are inconsistent with themselves. They say that Mark died at Alexandria, in the eighth year of Nero; but they imagine that Peter, six years after this, was put to death at Rome by Nero. If Mark formed, as they say, the Alexandrian Church, and had been long a bishop there, he could never have been at Rome with Peter. For Eusebius and Jerome extend the time of Peter’s presidency at Rome to twenty-five years; but this may be easily disproved by what is said in the first and the second chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians.

Since, then, Peter had Mark as his companion when he wrote this Epistle, it is very probable that he was at Babylon: and this was in accordance with his calling; for we know that he was appointed an apostle especially to the Jews. He therefore visited chiefly those parts where there was the greatest number of that nation.”

John Calvin Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, trans. John Owen (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 154–55.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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