
Our family has a certain blessing to have “dual citizenship” in both Israel and the USA. This has several benefits. We have passports from both nations; we can vote in both nations; and we have legal standing in both.
It also has certain disadvantages, such as dual income tax reporting, dual addresses, names, identities, and so on. There is a different culture, language, worldview, social standard, and behavior pattern in each.
Sometimes we feel we have the best of both worlds; sometimes we feel we have the worst of both worlds.
But here I am writing about dual spiritual citizenship: heaven and earth. I use the USA versus Israeli citizenship just as an example to show the paradox of being part of two worlds.
Acts 22:28 – The commander of a thousand answered, “With a great sum I obtained this citizenship.” And Paul said, “But I was born in it.”
The word for citizenship here is politeia. It is used just two times in this form in the New Covenant. It is the root for several words, such as “politics” or “polis” – meaning “city.” Here it means ordinary civil citizenship in an established nation.
The second time, Paul uses it to describe membership in the ancient Israelite covenantal community.
Ephesians 2:12 – At that time you were without Christos, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
The word “commonwealth” here is again politeia. Paul has compared the idea of Roman political citizenship to a higher level of being citizens in the nation of Israel, included in that biblical covenant community.
In verse 12, he says that all Gentiles were excluded from that community. But then in verse 19 he says that through faith in Yeshua as Messiah, King of Israel, any believer in any nation can become part of the covenant nation, with equal citizenship rights.
Paul does not mean this as a replacement of ethnic Israel. He is widening the concept to a greater Israel, which embraces multiple nationalities as part of the people of God. A commonwealth is an extension of the home nation. It is a very appropriate description.
Ephesians 2:19 – Therefore you are now no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow-citizens with the saints of the household of God.
Here Paul is raising the idea another step higher in the ladder. The word for “fellow-citizens” is sumpolites. It adds the prefix “sum” or “sym” to the same word for citizen or citizenship. This is a double up-grade.
First it offers equal standing to all human beings in the ancient Israelite covenant nation. Secondly, it refers to all saints, believers from any ethnic background, Jew or Gentile, to be part of the household of God.
This is not just co-citizenship in Israel; this is co-membership in God’s own house. We’ve jumped from political Roman citizenship to covenant Israelite citizenship to co-citizenship in God’s household.
There is yet even another “upgrade” in your citizenship standing. This one is really “first class.”
Philippians 3:20 – Our citizenship is in heaven; from where we also look for the savior, Christos Yeshua.
Spiritually, we are citizens in heaven. The word here for citizenship is politeuma, which means not only the standing of citizenship but also a type of behavior that goes along with such standing. We have a higher level of citizenship, and we are expected to act like it.
We should reflect a higher level of social interaction and moral values that would be appropriate for someone who had a passport and voting privileges in heaven.
Let’s summarize this “ladder” of citizenship:
Political national
Israelite covenantal
Ekklesia international
Divine heavenly
These multiple dimensions of citizenship affect how we see the political situation in any nation. We are all part of the political conflict in our own nations. Governments are in turmoil around the world. Yet we look upon those conflicts from a higher spiritual perspective.
We submit to our governments (Romans 13:1). We pray for our governments (I Timothy 2:2). We proclaim that the governments of this world will one day be overtaken by the kingdom of Messiah (Revelation 11:15). We give what is Caesar’s to Caesar, and what is God’s to God (Matthew 22:21). Ultimately our gospel message is proclaiming a better king of a better world that is yet to come.
May God give us grace and wisdom to walk out this paradox of our dual citizenship, both earthly and heavenly!