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Citizenship in Heaven: So What?

If I went to sleep tonight in Ohio and woke up tomorrow at my in-laws’ place in Montana, I would immediately know the difference. Obviously, the voices echoing through the halls would be a sign. Once I walked outside, the feel of the air and sight of the landscape would be smoking guns that I am most definitely not home. The air is a little crisper, the sky is a little bigger, the hills are a little taller (If you grew up in Northwest Ohio and never left, your next question might be, “What is a ‘hill’?”). 

And that is to say nothing of the culture. Toledo, Ohio is not quite a vast, imposing metropolis, but compared to rural Montana it might as well be New York City. The pace of life is a little quicker. The patterns of thinking reflected in casual conversation seem to be from another world. The things that are important to people here would be non-issues there. Toledo prides itself as a melting pot of cultures; my friends growing up were black, Hispanic, Arabic, and Laotian. Montana is predominantly white, with the added influx of the small Native American community nearby. 

Suffice it to say, the overlap between urban Toledo and rural Montana is small enough that if I went to sleep in one and woke up in the other, I could tell the difference before my feet hit the ground.

We would do well to keep this idea in mind as we approach Philippians 3:20

Our citizenship is in heaven.
And we eagerly await a Savior from there,
the Lord Jesus Christ.

This verse is a very popular landing spot for Christians during an election season, especially if (a) you are completely disinterested in the entire political process (What difference does voting make? Our citizenship is in Heaven anyway!) or (b) you have an inkling that your preferred candidate might lose (I thought God had ordained my person but they lost! Oh well, my citizenship is in Heaven anyway!). Philippians 3:20 is reduced to a weak justification to disengage or to help soften the blow of defeat. 

But both are to miss Paul’s point.

Once upon a time, Caesar conscripted thousands of men to military service with the promise of Roman citizenship (complete with all the rights and privileges afforded to that very small elite) and tracts of land. When it came time for these soldiers to retire and the bills came due, there was a huge problem for Caesar.

First, there simply wasn’t enough space in the actual city of Rome to grant land tracts to some-odd thousand retired military veterans. The population already suffered from overcrowding; squeezing retired soldiers into the city limits simply wasn’t an option. 

Second, in light of the first problem, the last thing Caesar wanted was thousands of disgruntled military vets in his own backyard poised to rise up against him. 

The Solution? Philippi! 

Caesar founded the city of Philippi as a Roman outpost some 800 miles east of Rome. In doing so, he solved several problems. First, he didn’t need to find more space to house thousands of retired soldiers in an already over-crowded city. Second, should there be unrest among veterans, it would happen 800 miles away and not in his own backyard. And third, by making good on his promise of land and citizenship, Caesar saw a way to spread Roman culture to the farthest reaches of the Empire.

In spite of the fact that they lived in the city of Philippi, retired military vets were to consider themselves Roman citizens. It might be said of them, Your Citizenship is in Rome. With that in mind, the only thing Caesar asked for in return was that these retired military veterans use their Roman citizenship to transform the city of Philippi into a small, working model of Rome itself. They were to take the culture, values, attitudes, economy, and overall way-of-life that was true in Rome and make them a reality in the farthest reaches of the Empire. Ideally, they would turn Philippi into a new, smaller version of Rome itself.  

In this way, if Caesar fell asleep in Rome and woke up in Philippi, he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Paul knows this information and uses it to his advantage when writing to the church in Philippi—a church that may just as well have been founded by and among retired Roman soldiers. 

Your citizenship is in Heaven, and you are granted all the rights and privileges afforded anyone who lives in Heaven. So use your Heavenly citizenship to make Philippi a small, working model of the Kingdom of God right where you are. The culture, values, attitude, and way of life that is true in the Kingdom of God—live so as to make them a reality right there in Philippi.

Many Christians use Philippians 3:20 to justify an escapist mentality with respect to the world: We’re citizens of Heaven anyway, so what does it all matter? Someday Jesus will come and rapture us all away—why care?

I won’t get into all the flaws of rapture theology, other than to say this is a completely backward understanding of Paul’s instructions. Their citizenship is in Heaven. That does not mean they await a Savior who will come and suck them away when the world goes to hell. Heavenly citizenship means the exact opposite:

If the world is going to hell, why are you standing by and letting it? 

Your citizenship is in Heaven and your duty is to use your heavenly citizenship to make the world around you look more and more like Heaven every day. That way, if Jesus fell asleep in Heaven and woke up in Philippi, he couldn’t tell the difference!

That is no less true for us. Whether in rural Montana, urban Ohio, or anywhere in between, our duty is the same as that which was imposed on Roman military veterans in Philippi: Make Toledo a small working model of the Kingdom of God. Use your heavenly citizenship to create a heaven-on-earth in small-town Montana. We have no right to stick our head in the sand and pretend the problems of the world don’t matter to us “because rapture!” It is quite the opposite. God, through Paul, has let his expectations known. Our Citizenship is in Heaven. Precisely because of that, we ought to work hard at seeing the values, attitudes, way of life, and heart of Heaven reproduced and reflected in our own communities so that someone could fall asleep in Heaven, wake up in our neighborhood, and not tell the difference.

This almost sounds like, “May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…."

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