Are nations part of God’s plan?

The recent rise in the UK of what has been called Christian Nationalism has received a mixed response within the Church. Some welcome the call for a return to the nation’s historic Christian values, while others object to a perceived dialling down of democracy in favour of Christian dominance over society. There’s also a growing critique that not only is nationalism itself potentially racist but maybe even the concept of nationhood itself.  

The people of God are called to build their worldview on the Word of God and not on the shifting sands of public opinion. So if we are to build a sound theology of the nations, it must come from the Bible. 

But from where in the Bible? 

The Kingdom commission 

The obvious place to start is with the actual origin-story of the nation - the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). 

But I think it’s better to go back to the origin-story of all mankind, which we find in the Creation account (Genesis 1). It is here that we encounter the command that launches the whole Bible story: “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it” (Genesis 1:28). 

It is easy to assume this is merely a statement confirming humanity’s privileged status at the top of the food chain, but there’s a lot more to it than that. God wasn’t commanding Adam and Eve to fill and rule the earth in any way they saw fit, but specifically in his way and on his behalf. This verse announces God’s big project to fill the earth with his Kingdom rule, but only through willing partnership with humanity. It was a big project with an equally big risk. 

And of course it only took two chapters for this risk to be realised, as an imposter-god saw the opportunity to hijack God’s project and spread his own dark rule across the globe. That tragic chapter was ended by the Great Flood, but God’s big project thankfully wasn’t. Instead, it was soon relaunched through the one remaining righteous man, Noah. 

But what is conspicuous about God’s commission to Noah in Genesis 9:1 is that, though he repeated the command to multiply and fill the earth, he didn’t repeat the command to govern on his behalf. That is because God was now changing his approach to suit a fallen world: instead of humanity spreading and taking the Kingdom with them, this time the command was just for humanity to spread so that the Kingdom could be added to them later. This later stage would become known as the Great Commission. 

Filling the earth 

But when we get to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11, even this first stage of God’s new approach has run into a problem: the people refuse to scatter! Not only that, but to protect themselves from further flood judgments for such disobedience, they connive to build themselves a high tower. 

So what does God do? He doesn’t need another flood of water, just a flood of new languages. The one language between all people became many, and suddenly mutual trust turned to distrust. As it says in Genesis 11:8, “in that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world.” Job done! 

Except that God had done more than just fill the earth with people. By distributing languages by family groups, he had filled the earth with nations. Each with their own people group, territory and developing culture. 

So it is true that nations are inherently territorial, but the Babel story reminds us why: they were created by God to ensure the earth is filled, and stays filled, with people. 

Resisting empires 

But the Babel story also reminds us of another truth: the alternative to nations in this fallen world is not borderless freedom, but centralised control. Without boundaries, power does not naturally distribute across the many but tends to be drawn into the hands of the few, and that concentration of power rarely serves the many well. We see this throughout history where empires have more commonly been forces of oppression than of liberation.  

So nations are also God’s restraint on humanity’s fallen tendency to empire-build. 

Spreading the Kingdom 

But the third and ultimate reason for God’s creation of nations is that, as Paul put it to the Athenians, they might “seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him” (Acts 17:27).

That’s why the next thing God does after Babel is not just raise up and train a single individual in the ways of his Kingdom, but a whole nation. This would become his ‘Kingdom of Priests’ to model his ways to all nations. 

And when the day came for the King to send his representatives out to spread that Kingdom, they were not commanded just to make disciples of individuals but of all nations, teaching them to obey all he had taught them (Matthew 28:19-20). He also promised them that “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).  

But why will this signal the end? Because the earth will finally be ready for the King to return and bring God’s big project to completion, so that “as the waters fill the sea, the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory of the Lord” (Habakkuk 2:14). 

An inheritance of nations 

So in light of all this, is the concept of nationhood in conflict with the gospel? Well, it depends on what gospel we are talking about. If it’s Jesus’ ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’, then absolutely not. Indeed, the nations are an essential part of that gospel being fulfilled. 

But what about nationalism? Are there biblical grounds for that? If it is in response to the creeping forces of empire that seek to oppress nations in this fallen world, then I think a form of nationalism can be a righteous response in such circumstances. 

But what about Christian nationalism? Can that ever be valid? To the degree that it furthers the Great Commission to disciple all nations, then again yes. What that should look like in practice might be up for debate, but the need to practice it should not be. 

In Psalm 2, God promised his Royal Son an inheritance of all the nations, including our own. May we work towards nothing less.