Mass Migrations, Nation States and the Coming Kingdom

The last few years in Europe and elsewhere have been characterised by mass migration; I know that this is a politically-charged topic and a Christian who deliberates on such walks on egg shells. Most working-class people in Britain now have colleagues from all over the world, especially Eastern Europe. This is in addition to the earlier, twentieth-century migrations from the Commonwealth- Pakistan and the West Indies in particular. Their descendants are no longer immigrants, being as they are third and fourth generation. Eastern Europe itself has received a great many migrants from the Middle East, especially Syria, on account of the terrible war that has been fought there.

Immigration does have many benefits, and it behoves a wealthy, compassionate country to admit seekers of asylum. Indeed, we have been doing so since the time of Elizabeth I when persecuted French Huguenot protestants fled to our shores. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the recent migrations have had significant effects upon our politics. The successes UKIP, Brexit and Donald Trump have all, in my opinion, owed a significant debt to mass migration and the fears this has created in the indigenous populations. Powerful men seem to acquiesce in these mass people-movements. EU leaders contrived a quota scheme to distribute migrants across all member states. Since 2014, about 1.7 million have tried to make new homes in the EU. When Hungarian and Slovakian Foreign Ministers objected to these huge increases in population, they were overruled. EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos tweeted: "Time to work in unity and implement solidarity in full." He lamented that some member states "continue to show no solidarity". When boats full of illegal migrants are sailing across the Mediterranean, Italian coastguards escort them safely into Italian waters where they are relocated across the continent. The immediate reasons for this may be humanitarian, at least on Italy’s part. But powerful people in Brussels seem quite quiescent at the disruption and strain on national resources that it causes.

Nationhood- the division of human beings according to ethnic and cultural similarities- was first established by God in Genesis 10 as Noah’s three sons go off and have families. In the next chapter, which tells of the Tower of Babel, we have God scattering the different families ‘across the face of the earth’. In other words, the scattering of the different family groups which emerged into different national groups, was God’s judgement on the human race as well as His ordained system for post-flood humanity. At Babel, humans had united into an ungodly alliance; God therefore resolved to split them up and separate them.

I cannot but wonder that in these latter days, the powerful people who run our world are delighting in the reversal of God’s decree. According to the UK’s Migration Watch in 2017, net migration was 282,000. This is high, but not unmanageable. In fact, 630,000 arrived at our shores. 80k of these were Britons returning from abroad, and 349k emigrated from Britain, which gives us the net figure initially quoted. So 551,000 non-British people migrated to Britain from other nations. I have no doubt that many of these were skilled professionals or hard-working people prepared to do the jobs that British loafers disdain. I therefore make no comment about these individuals, but the over-all numbers are rather concerning and, I suspect, part of some grand design.

Mass migration, except for genuine asylum, I believe is contrary to God’s design in Genesis 11; caring for asylum seekers, and migrants in general, is the duty of all people and Christians in particular. To steal the motto of the American Center for Immigration Studies: Low Immigration, Pro Immigrant. Consider Leviticus 19:33-34: 

‘When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’ Likewise reads Exodus 22:21: ‘You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.’

This recent blurring of national boundaries is in preparation for a last ditch, Babel-like uniting of the world, during which the man of sin will set himself up against God. Contrary to Proverbs 22:28, which warns us against Remov[ing] the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set, the old national boundaries will be ignored. When Jesus warned ‘For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom’ in Matthew 24:7, scholars have suggested it should be translated ‘ethnic group against ethnic group’. Like the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, mass immigration can create a disharmony and weakness:

And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 7:42-43)

Nations will be disunited and ill-at-ease with themselves, as recent terrorist attacks performed by some migrants have recently demonstrated. If only there was a strong ruler to unite us once more, people will soon yearn. Satan will provide him, but the real Christ is surely coming; His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and shall not pass away. Like Babel’s tower and Daniel’s fourth kingdom, Christ’s holy people will constitute people of all tongues, nations and languages. Unlike those pan-national empires, the Church is united by the gospel and the grace of God found therein. As ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation’, our earthly country of origin, skin colour and passport-issuer are entirely irrelevant. Mass migration does and will disrupt the status and stability of the old nation-states which will diminish them and pave the way for the Son of Perdition. On the other hand, people of all nationalities and colours mass migrating to Christ’s kingdom only brings more glory to God.

Then the kingdom and dominion,

And the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven,

Shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High.

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

And all dominions shall serve and obey Him.

Daniel 7:27

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay