The Cry of Sin

Have you ever read Romans 8:22 and wondered why creation groans: “For we know that the whole creation groans together and suffers agony together until now.” Like many other curious passages, I have wondered about this one, giving it little thought. Recently I read the words of God to Abraham when He was about to judge Sodom and Gomorrah. “Then Yahweh said, ‘Because the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very serious, I will go down and I will see. Have they done altogether according to its cry of distress which has come to me? If not, I will know.’” (Ge 18:20–21)

I was struck by the phrase, “Its cry of distress.” I asked myself what was crying in distress. Pardon a brief grammar lesson, but I discovered that “its cry” used a feminine pronoun meaning the antecedent had to be feminine as well. Then I discovered that “outcry” is also feminine.  The cities are not feminine. The closest possible feminine antecedent is the word “sin.” The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was making a distress cry. Being a feminine, singular pronoun, the cry was not from the cities or the people which would be plural; it was the sin that cried out to God. Huh!

Something was happening in those cities that was so terrible that it raised an SOS to heaven. MAYDAY! MAYDAY! rang through the halls of heaven, and God felt it necessary to go down and see what was happening. I know, God is omniscient; He knew exactly what was going on. But as I have written before, God must make Himself human sized occasionally to make a point about His character and His actions. This is one of those frequent interactions between God and His creation that reveals the nature of His relationship. We know that God is holy, so we can imagine that “very serious” sin would concern Him.

When we look at what sin is in essence, we might understand why it bothers God so much. The original sin – the sin of Adam and Eve – was rebellion. At its core, that rebellion was an attempt to move away from the order God had established for His creation. Creation itself is an ordering of all things into their divine place. God spoke order into chaos, and the universe came to be. Anything that disturbs that order is sin – chaos.

A look at the Hebrew word God spoke to Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah shows this. Chata (חָטָא), means to miss; to go wrong.  The most frequently used New Testament Greek word for sin is hamartanō (ἁμαρτάνω) which also means to miss the mark. God’s “mark” is perfection; whatever misses that mark is sin; it brings chaos into the order God intends for His creation. If you think of creation as a symphony, as Scripture sometimes does, sin is a sour note in the otherwise beautiful music.

I played in band throughout my high school career. When a wrong note was played somewhere in the band, I couldn’t always detect it from my seat in the third row playing my horn. In one of the schools where I taught years later, I was drafted as the director of a musical ensemble. From my position up front, I could easily tell when a note was off, and I could usually pinpoint the location quite easily. I imagine this is what God experienced when the cities of the plain cried out in distress. I sounded off tune – chaotic.

Look again at Romans chapter eight. The two verses before the mention of creation’s groaning read: “For the eagerly expecting creation awaits eagerly the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation has been subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its servility to decay, into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” What happened to cause creation to be “subjected to futility?” Genesis 3:17 tells us: “And to Adam [God] said, ‘Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the tree from which I forbade you to eat, the ground shall be cursed on your account.’” Adam sinned and chaos ensued. Darn!

We generally tend to think that the salvation wrought by Jesus on the cross was for us. Of course it was, but now I see that human redemption is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a number of Bible passages that begin to come alive with this expansion of redemption. The stars sang at creation. The trees of the field clap their hands. The stones cry out at the coming of their Redeemer. The creation groans eagerly awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. These passages which personify creation force me to see that the Earth is not just a hunk of space rock with organic life struggling to survive on its surface. Creation itself communes with its Creator.

John Mac Arthur reminds us, “We sometimes flirt with sin, but God hates it. The price He paid to redeem us from it speaks of the seriousness with which He views it. After all, ‘[We] were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold … but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.’” (John F. MacArthur Jr., Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993, 24. Quoting 1 Peter 1:18–19).

As the crown of God’s creation, those created in His image, believers are foremost in the things God has redeemed. But let us not forget that sin stains God’s creation, and it grieves the Father deeply, especially when it is our sin. The next time you revel in a beautiful sunset, or enjoy the song of a mockingbird, or whatever you find precious in God’s creation, remember you are witnessing a foretaste of what it will be like when all creation is redeemed and its groaning ceases. Remember the price God paid for that blessing. Hopefully, that will stop you from making God cry again.

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What Really Counts

The first and most important principle of Bible interpretation is taking the context into consideration. I should say “contexts” because there are four aspects of context to consider: historical/cultural, literary/genre, linguistic/grammatical, and global/whole Bible view. There are quite a few popular doctrinal notions that are founded upon poor interpretation arrived at through failure to consider one aspect of context or another.

In our day, we have significant historical information about the people and cultures of Bible times. Because God’s chosen people, Israel, were Mesopotamian, the culture and practices of that time and region are of special importance. If we try to understand Abraham, for example, as a twenty-first century father, we will be mystified. We will never grasp the significance of God’s orders to Joshua for conquering the Canaanites if we disregard the cosmic religious circumstances. The story of Ruth, David’s family problems, Israel’s Babylonian captivity will all be impossible to understand without considering the cultural context. That failure leads to faulty interpretation and often, bad doctrine.

One important aspect of the culture of the ancient Mesopotamians is their use of numbers. Especially now in the digital age, digits, numbers are critical to our society. Our weights and measures, chronological ages, historical events, and our computer processes are all tied to numbers with specific numerical values. Seven is one more than six and one less than eight. One thousand is ten times one hundred or nine hundred ninety-nine plus one. But to the ancient Mesopotamian mind, the Hebrew mind, seven was a symbol of completeness; one thousand was a metaphor for a large, indeterminate quantity. Our modern Western mindset wants to attach numerical significance to things that were primarily symbolic to the original audience.

I realize that with the coming of Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, the Gentiles were grafted into God’s family. However, every Bible author (with the possible exception of Luke) was a Jew writing to a mostly Jewish audience until Paul was sent specifically to the Gentiles. But even Paul emphasizes his own Jewishness. And though the New Testament was written almost exclusively in Greek, it was still an extension of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. The only “Bible” the authors could quote was in Hebrew; the culture out of which Christianity sprang was Jewish. Jesus was a Jewish prophet. John, though a convert to Christianity, wrote Revelation as the last book of Hebrew prophecy; his heavy reliance on the Old Testament proves this.

Speaking of Revelation, there is a cultural/literary overlap that deserves attention. Jewish literary tradition included what we call apocalyptic literature. The name comes from a Greek word meaning revelation, hence the name of John’s prophetic book. The main characteristic of apocalyptic literature is its intense use of imagery and symbolism. The Jews knew better than to try to make literal sense of apocalyptic prophecies. They understood that the outlandish, figurative imagery represented something that existed in reality.

This unspoken understanding also applied to numbers in apocalyptic writing. The threes, the fours, the sevens, the twelves, and the thousands would not have been numerical values to them. In fact, in the linguistic context, each number had a corresponding character in the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew is a picture language like Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese Hanzi. This means the Hebrew letter has a meaning that transfers to its corresponding number. For example, the number six is represented by the Hebrew character vav which stands for man. Thus, repeating the number three times, a method of emphasis in Hebrew literature, 6-6-6 emphasizes the utter and complete humanness of the one being identified.

The same can be said for the number 1,000 we find in Revelation 20. Ancient Mesopotamian legends often attributed reigns of 1,000 years to their ancestral dynasties. They did not mean 999 +1; they meant to magnify the might and glory of the king with the symbolic 1,000-year reign. It is completely inappropriate to assume that there will be 1,000 periods of 365 days when Christ will reign while Satan is bound. Assigning the number 1,000 to Christ’s reign refers to its glory and power, and to Jesus’ complete victory over His enemies.

This same approach can be taken with the seven-fold cycles of judgment mentioned in Revelation 5-19. Some people see a literal application in the seven-year Roman siege of Jerusalem prior to its destruction in 70 AD. Whether that will be repeated at some future time is up for debate. It is worth noting that the number seven in Hebrew numerology is represented by the character zayin which is a weapon implying warfare or judgment. Seven also signifies completeness which may explain the three sevens of God’s judgment we find in Revelation (seals, trumpets, bowls). God’s judgment of apostate Israel was fully completed when the city and the temple were destroyed.

Three is another number that appears throughout Scripture. Gimel is the Hebrew character associated with the number three. It signifies being lifted up; it is the number of God Himself, the three-fold God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Man, created in God’s image, is three-in-one: body, soul, and spirit. Abraham had three visitors who are revealed as Yahweh Himself. There were three main feasts of Israel: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Jesus’ ministry lasted three years, and He was in the grave for three days, and so on. When a Jew saw three, he knew God was involved somehow.

One of the greatest dangers in Bible interpretation is assuming a text means something without seeking to understand it in all its contexts. This must include looking at the global/full Bible context of a passage. No one denies that the book of Revelation is a prophecy of God’s impending judgment. The Bible records that from the beginning of Israel’s establishment as a nation, God warned that disobedience would cause them to lose their land. The win/loss record in the book of Judges began to reveal how true this was. God foreshadowed how complete His judgment could be with the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. When the Jewish leaders executed the promised Messiah, God took their land and their temple from them as His final judgment on them.

On the other side of Israel’s prophetic judgment, God always promised a kingdom ruled by one of David’s descendants. Enter King Jesus. His reign will last a thousand years, but that doesn’t mean 999+1; it means a very long time – in this case, until the end of time. The Bible language literally says the kingdom will last until the end of the age – the church age. I believe after that comes the final judgment then the new heaven and earth. Scripture says we should number our days; that’s a reminder that life here will end someday. Whatever we believe about the countdown to the end, what really counts is what we do while we are here. God is watching us; you can count on that.

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Where is King Jesus?

We have just been through the Christmas season, and if our hearts were right, our reason for the season was the coming of the King. I must admit that the decorations in my house look more like a celebration of the coming of a jolly old elf from the North Pole. (My wife is a Claus collector.) There are a few shepherds and mangers in the mix, but like most Christmas decorations, they lean away from the true meaning of Christmas and into the shiny, silly, worldly version. In our defense, I can only say that our traditions and our memories are so thoroughly steeped in the tree and the presents and the colorful lights that even I have to remind myself what this celebration is all about: the greatest gift ever given in the form of the baby in the manger who became the King on the throne of Heaven and Earth.

Baby Jesus had to grow into His kingship. I know – He was with God and He was God from before the foundation of the Earth. But, in His unique expression as God’s earthbound Son, He had to be born and grow and ultimately become obedient unto death. It was only after His sacrificial death at Calvary that He could ascend to the throne of Heaven. The Bible reveals that because of Adam’s sin, the rulership of Earth was relinquished to God’s arch enemy, Satan. Divine justice required a human payment for Adam’s sin. That was the reason for the incarnation, the baby born in Bethlehem came to die to redeem mankind.

More than that, Paul told the Ephesians redemption was the reason for creation itself! It is truly a mystery, as Paul said, that God would create our universe knowing that His crown of the creation, us humans, would rebel and require redemption. But that is what the Book says. Paradise lost was to become Paradise regained, but only at great cost. The entire sweep of the Old Testament is a record of God moving in human history to prepare for the arrival of the Seed/Servant/Savior, Jesus. The road from Bethlehem to Calvary was posted with signs that the prophets had written centuries before.

One of the most important things the prophets foretold was that the One who was to come would be a king. So, when Jesus finally came, most of the Jewish people were looking for a conqueror king to free them from Roman oppression. They were ready when John the Baptist and then Jesus Himself announced the coming of a kingdom. It was most frequently called the Kingdom of God, but Matthew called it the Kingdom of Heaven. This implied that there was something unearthly about it. Jesus confirmed this when He told Pilate His kingdom was not of this world.

His disciples obviously missed the distinction, though. At the time of Jesus’ return to Heaven, they asked, “Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” I can imagine Jesus sighing deeply – maybe rolling His eyes – when He answered, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority.” Times (χρόνος) or seasons (καιρός) could be translated “dates or circumstances.” He gave them a marker for the date: “When the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” The circumstances would only become clear after the Spirit had, in fact, come.

What became clear after the Holy Spirit guided them into the truth was that the kingdom was to be a spiritual reality. I believe they finally understood what Jesus had meant by saying, “The kingdom of God is within you.” If I could paraphrase what Jesus told the Samaritan woman it would sound like this: “The King of Heaven is a spirit being who requires those who would honor Him as king to do so using their spiritual faculties; physical locations are no longer important to Him.” I think He was trying to make the woman (and us) understand that true human existence is spiritual, and true worship of the One who made us in His likeness must be “in spirit and truth.”

We humans are so bound up in our time/space universe that we fail to see how a spiritual reality can be more real than our physical one. The Apostle Paul encourages us to think of earthly things, material things as temporary (temporal: time-bound) and passing away to be replaced by more permanent things – spiritual things. His explanation to the philosophers in Athens was that the true God did not have a physical existence as represented by their idols and related sacrifices. Rather, he said the true God made the world and everything in it, and that it is in him we live and move and exist.

The teachings of Jesus and Paul are clear: we all exist in God in one sense, but God in us only applies to those who take their place in the Son. Jesus’ disciples must have been horrified when He told them He was going away; then they were mystified when He said it would be better if He went away. What could be better than walking through life in Jesus’ physical presence, they must have asked. The answer came to them with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Once they were filled with the Spirit, they understood what Jesus meant by fulness of life – completeness of joy. They soon learned that they also had been given power to do Jesus’ work – first twelve of them, then thousands, then millions of them.

We are among those millions, those of us who have given our lives to Christ, those of us who hail Him as King Jesus. We are ambassadors of the one true King speaking into the darkness of this world, “Be reconciled to your King; escape the darkness and enter the Kingdom of Light.” Today that kingdom is a spiritual reality, true enough. But we look forward to the day when all creation will be remade; heaven and earth will be reunited at the return of the King. But you won’t enjoy Him as King then if you don’t accept Him as King now. It is the question of the ages: where is King Jesus?                                  

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