Will History Repeat Itself?

Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, history is constantly moving forwards. We are all collectively heading towards the end of time, and the consummation of the ages, which will result in a new world, and a new heavens, (Revelation 21). But does the not so old saying that “history repeats itself” or in the words of philosopher George Santayana (1863—1952)“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. Scribner’s, 1905: 284).

What do these words mean in the modern era of the 21st Century? Because Christians believe history is progressive, based principally of the resurrection of the Saviour, what does the saying that ‘history will repeat itself’ mean in the Common Era? First, we need to acknowledge that we all learn from history. Society learns valuable lessons from our past, but if we as a society stop applying those lessons to our current society, we are condemned to repeat what we failed to apply in the here and now, no matter how advanced we ‘think’ we are.

Christians agree that history is connected, that there are lessons in the Old covenant that we learn from in the new covenant. Not only are individual people’s history connected, but because we believe that we are in the church age until the second coming of Jesus Christ, that this world’s history is valuable and will be judged on what we believe will be called the Judgment Day! So because the future isn’t fixed, we still have a lot to learn from history, and history books. Just because the past is in the past, doesn’t mean we all should collectively rewrite history, or forget it, or suppress it.

God doesn’t do this, so neither should “we his creation”. The past holds valuable lessons for us, to the effect that if we suppress our history, it will come back to bite us. To a certain degree, we should leave the past in the past, but that is only after we have learned our lessons from it. The past is like a teacher and even in our modern 21st Century, we still have much to learn as knowledge can be inexhaustible. Does this mean that you should pick up a history book tomorrow or today? Yes and no. We have the means to not forget our past with all of our modern knowledge, but not forgetting the past takes wisdom. Wisdom is applied knowledge, so it doesn’t matter how much knowledge we have, it means nothing to us unless we as a society are applying the knowledge that is so richly available to us all now in the 21st Century! This is Mike.

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