Do God’s Will, He Says

In our series on the patristic writings, we return to 2 Clement 10-11. Our series uses for its text Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers.

This series began because of the challenge given by Kenneth Stewart’s wonderful book, In Search of Ancient Roots. We need to read the patristics, and that is what I’m doing with you on this blog — inch by inch!

What’s 2 Clement about? It’s an exhortation to faithfulness to the way of Christ in the face of threats like gnosticism, false teachers and rebellion against leaders. It reads like a sermon, and it is relentlessly a call to Christian behavior.

Do God’s will and “abandon that evil mindset” or a “life of evil,” which is the “forerunner of our sins.” Like so much of the Bible, the promise is that doing God’s will leads to peace — a peace or joy that knows God’s future and learning to live in light of God’s future and not the human present.

2Clem. 10:1    Therefore, my brothers and sisters, let us do the will of the Father who called us, so that we may live, and let us pursue virtue now more than ever; let us abandon that evil mindset, the forerunner of our sins, and flee ungodliness lest evil things overtake us.  ² For if we are eager to do good, peace will pursue us.  ³ This is the reason why no one is able to find peace: they instill human apprehensions, preferring the pleasure of the present to the promise of the future.  ⁴ For they do not know what great torment the pleasure of the present brings, and what delight the promise of the future brings.  ⁵ Now if they alone were doing these things, it could be endured; but now they persist in teaching evil to innocent souls, not knowing that both they and their listeners will receive double punishment.

Doing God’s will or serving God — the same thing. Again, the future becomes the warrant for living now. This emphasis on future is characteristic of the church and far too many today want to live now as if all that exists is now. I hear many abandon talk of heaven and talk of the future kingdom as if that is speculation. For such persons heaven and hell are about life now and not life then. This is not the way of 2 Clement, nor is it the way of the church.

To live for now while supposedly believing in the future kingdom is double-mindedness:

2Clem. 11:1    Let us therefore serve God with a pure heart, and we will be righteous. But if we do not serve him because we do not believe God’s promise, we will be wretched.  ² For the prophetic word says: “Wretched are the double-minded, those who doubt in their heart and say, ‘We heard all these things even in the days of our fathers, and though we have waited day after day we have seen none of them.’  ³ Fools! Compare yourselves to a tree, or take a vine: first it sheds its leaves, then a shoot comes, and after these a sour grape, and then a full ripe bunch.  ⁴ So also my people have had turmoil and tribulation, but afterward they will receive good things.”  ⁵ So, my brothers and sisters, let us not be double-minded, but patiently endure in hope, so that we may also receive the reward.  ⁶ For faithful is the one who promised to pay wages in accord with each person’s works.  ⁷ Therefore, if we do what is right in God’s sight, we will enter his kingdom and receive the promises that ear has not heard nor eye seen nor the human heart imagined.