The Co-opted Rainbow

Everybody loves a rainbow. Young and old alike will stop to revel in the colorful display. There was a time when most people knew that the rainbow was originally assigned meaning by God as the token of His promise to Noah that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood. In that context, the rainbow became a symbol of hope. In ancient Irish folklore that idea was bastardized to mean a hope for wealth: the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That connection is probably more well-known today than its original biblical meaning.

I am writing this in June which has become gay pride month for many. The LGBTQ+ community has also coopted the rainbow and given it a significance of their own. When the gay pride flag was originally designed in 1978, each of the colored stripes was assigned a value. If you ignore the LGBTQ+ context, most of the values are innocuous: sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic/art, serenity, and spirit. Two raise some concern: magic and spirit. Magic is clearly off limits for Christians, and one assumes that “spirit” does not refer to God’s Holy Spirit.

I heard a teaching recently that suggested a more sinister relationship between the rainbow and homosexuality. When Ezekiel saw God’s throne in his vision at the river Chebar, there was a rainbow above it. When Satan’s pride drove him to attack God, he wanted that throne with its rainbow for himself. Look back at the values symbolized in the gay pride rainbow; except for magic, each of them might be employed in a way to glorify God. However, you can also see how each one has been perverted by the enemy of our souls and turned into an idol.

First of all, ever since the Garden of Eden, Satan has taken the good things of God’s creation and twisted them to serve his purposes. Sex is the most obvious one, and perhaps the most odious especially in June. I believe that God created sex to be a bonding agent for a man and a woman in marriage. In that context, it is a beautiful thing. Very early in human history, Satan began enticing men to fulfill their lust in ways that were not only damaging to themselves (AIDS, STD’s, etc.) but destructive to the purpose God had intended. De-sanctifying marriage and its restriction of sexual pleasure to one-man/one-woman for a lifetime has resulted in personal and social tragedy of mammoth proportions.

The other values represented in the gay pride flag have been similarly distorted or perverted. Life is certainly to be valued, but Christians recognize that true life comes from God and returns to Him; true life has a deeply spiritual component. The “life” Satan encourages is selfish and hedonistic. The Psalms teach us to glorify God for His creation of the sun and all nature. Satan leads men to worship creation in defiance of the Creator. Magic is simply the devil’s attempt to mimic God’s miracles; practicing it is plainly forbidden in Scripture. It is sad to see what the enemy has done to art. It was once a way to magnify God with beauty and order. Now, the atonal disturbing modern “music” and the emptiness of modern “art” reflect the hollow men who search for meaning in all the wrong places. Augustine was right when he said that there is restlessness in every man that can only be satisfied by God – a God of beauty and order, not ugliness and chaos.

Serenity is promised in God’s Word. We are counselled to meditate on the Word and recall God’s promises; as a result, we can have peace that passes understanding. The enemy’s brand of meditation encourages either completely emptying the mind or turning inward to focus entirely on oneself ignoring the divine image we bear. Finally, I suspect that the gay flag’s reference to “spirit” may have similarly twisted the truth. Satan, the prince of evil spirits, would have us elevate our own spirit and discount the Holy Spirit who represents the very presence of God in us when we give our lives to Christ.

A rainbow is visible because light is refracted, broken down into its parts. To me, this signifies the many aspects of God’s holy character spread before us in awe and wonder. There are some other physical aspects of light that I think are interesting to consider. God Himself is said to be light and to dwell in unapproachable light. The first thing God is said to have created is light. Throughout Scripture, light symbolizes goodness and knowledge. Darkness, represented by the Prince of Darkness, is evil and deceptive. What we call color is the reflected portion of the light spectrum. God’s creation is bursting with color. If his followers are any indication, Satan’s favorite color is black – the absence of color via light.

The Father sent Jesus to the world because “In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Jesus said His followers were to be the light of the world. John said if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another and forgiveness of sin. Paul told the Corinthians that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. It looks to me like that is exactly what he has done with the rainbow he tried to steal from God. Don’t be fooled by him. Jesus said that true life, the true light of humanity, was found in knowing God. Study His Word; meditate on it; get to know God intimately. Then you can take back the rainbow.

Related Posts: More about the nature of light: And the Light was Good; E=mc² in Genesis

Who Paid for David’s Sin

When I wrote “What Happened in the Fall,” I suggested that the worst damage done by Adam’s sin was the loss of intimate fellowship with God. Where once Adam could stroll throughout the Garden with his Creator at his side, suddenly the Garden was off limits and the relationship between Creator and creation was altered dramatically. Of all people, Adam could surely feel the distance between himself and God caused by his disobedience. That distance was still there when David wrote his psalms. “My God! Why have you forsaken me,” was the psalmist’s lament over the broken fellowship which Adam caused.

David did not always feel isolated from God though. Throughout his psalms, he reveled in the reality of God’s presence and provision. If all we knew of David was prior to his dalliance with Bathsheba, we might understand why God called him “a man after my own heart.” Truthfully though, we begin to understand that heart-to-heart relationship after the sin with Bathsheba was exposed through the prophet Nathan. David wrote Psalm 51 sometime after the prophet called him out. He made a puzzling declaration to God in that psalm:

Against You, You only, I have sinned

And done what is evil in Your sight,

So that You are justified when You speak

And pure when You judge. Psalm 51:4

When we consider the totality of David’s actions, it is hard to believe that the sin was against God alone. The adultery, deception, and murder ensnared not only the couple at the center of the drama, but also Uriah (Bathsheba’s husband), Joab (David’s general), the child conceived in adultery, and eventually, most of David’s family. Even so, David recognized that ultimately, the sin he committed was against God; the consequences roped in the rest of the people who were affected.

Writing in defense of capital punishment, R. C. Sproul says, “There is a sense in which the commission of murder is regarded by God as an indirect assault on Him. Just as an attack on an ambassador of a king is seen as an affront to the king, so the act of murder is an assault against the very life of God, inasmuch as it desecrates one made in God’s image.” (How Should I Live in This World?, vol. 5, The Crucial Questions Series, Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2009, 75.) One could make a similar statement regarding any sin. By definition, sin is a deviation from God’s order as expressed in His character. David understood that, and so he said:

For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;
You are not pleased with burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Ps. 51:16-17)

David realized that the most important thing in his life was his relationship with God. In Old Testament Hebrew, the word heart refers to the innermost part of human existence. With Spirit led insight, David equated heart with spirit, a distinction the New Testament makes clear. David’s desire to have his relationship with God made whole is evident:

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
And sustain me with a willing spirit. (Ps. 51:10-12)

We don’t know exactly when David wrote Psalm 51. The initial consequences involving Bathsheba, Uriah, and Joab had surely taken place. Yet David could say his sin was against God only (v.4). I can’t imagine that he discounted the impact on those he harmed. However, he seemed to realize that the effects of his sin on others were less troublesome than the effect on his relationship with God. He also recognized the spiritual nature of things.

We sometimes speak romantically of giving our heart to someone. My wife and I have wedding bands that incorporate the Irish claddagh, a pair of hands offering a heart. Worn with the heart offered inward, it symbolizes our heart-to-heart commitment to one another. This is how David felt toward God, and it explains why he could say his sin was against God alone. You can only share your heart with one person.

Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” If we fail to keep His commandments, it casts doubt on the depth of our love for Him. The devil has done a good job convincing people, even some Christians, that Jesus’ commands are conditional. In certain situations, the tempter says, it is better to disobey a command for the good of someone or something. This is a damnalbe lie from the father of lies. Only God knows what is good in any situation, and it is a clear violation of His good Word to take His prerogative as our own. That is precisely what Adam and Eve did that threw us into the mess we are in. (See “The Knowledge of Good and Evil”)

Nothing I have said should be taken to mean that the consequences of sin are not important. Look at the widespread results of the HIV virus being shared through illicit sex. Another virus, COVID 19, ravaged our entire healthcare and economic well-being. The perpetrators there were careful to clothe their sin in false proclamations of the good of the masses. One man’s adultery can destroy a family, and if he is a public figure, the effects spread to the larger society. Look at the consequences of John Wilkes Booth’s single shot in Ford’s Theater. Or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914.

David couldn’t undo the results of his sin. What he could do was make a heartfelt confession. The word confess in the New Testament means to say the same. In verse four, David says what God says, and calls it justified. That is true confession. Although you may not have strayed as far from God’s commands as David did, you would be a liar if you said you have no sin, according to the Apostle John. There were those in David’s life, as in yours, who were made to pay for the sin of another by suffering the consequences.

Ultimately, Jesus paid for David’s sin and yours and mine on the cross of Calvary. That payment is available to all who are willing to confess, repent, and throw themselves into the merciful arms of their loving Savior. God stamps the balance due as paid in full. Then as debt-free children of God He restores to us the joy of our salvation. Just like David.

Related Posts: The Cry of Sin; David Stayed in Jerusalem; Despising the Downpayment 

Pure and Undefiled Religion

This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father: to look after orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27).

This verse in James describes religion that is pleasing to God. I would like to do a little exegesis from the Greek text to see if it will help to understand what James was getting at. Remember that although this was written in Greek, the common language of most of James’ readers, he was born and raised a Jew, and he addressed his letter to “the twelve tribes in the dispersion,” aka Jewish people. To follow the cardinal principle of trying to read the Bible as the original audience would have done, we must think like a first century Jew.

The word James chose for “religion” appears only four times in the New Testament. It is translated “religion” three times, and once as “worship,” although that occurrence refers to false worship. (Col. 2:18) According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (Vines), the word religion emphasizes concern for “the externals of divine service.” The Jews were very familiar with this type of religion. Think of the focus on the temple, priests, sacrifices, and hundreds of rules that defined their religion. It could easily become external; this is precisely why Jesus blasted the Pharisees. I believe that James used this word to draw a sharp contrast between pure religion and the external sham that Judaism had become for many.

The words pure and undefiled are similar in meaning to us, but there may have been a distinction for James’ audience. Looking at Vines again, the word pure means “ethically [pure], with the significance being free from corrupt desire, from guilt.” This is an internal evaluation – having a pure heart. The Jews would also recognize the allusion to the ritual purity required of all who served at the temple. The ceremonial cleansing of the priests and Levites with blood and water was the external picture of the internal purity God required.

 The word undefiled speaks more to the outward aspect. Vines says “undefiled, free from contamination.”  The Jews would have remembered that their sacrificial animals were to be spotless, free from imperfections just as the Old Testament law required. Something as simple as a scar or discoloration would render the animal unclean for the purpose of sacrifice. The application of these two words to Christian religion would suggest that both our inner motivations and our outward actions must be in line with God’s demands of believers.

The first of James’ two admonitions describing acceptable religion concerned widows and orphans; this is drawn directly from the Hebrew Scriptures. Time and again God chastised Israel for ignoring the needs of these people. Certainly, He hated their idolatry, but He expressed similar disapproval of their abuse of widows and orphans. We may miss the significance of this in our wealthy welfare society. In our day, orphans become wards of the state which feeds, clothes, and houses them until they reach eighteen in most cases. In ancient Israel, right up until the time of Christ, orphans were often left to fend for themselves unless someone in their clan adopted them. Barring that, they would have to sell themselves as slaves or starve.

The situation was not much better for widows. Although Levitical law mandated some care for widows, it was often forgotten or ignored. Jesus chided the Pharisees specifically for tithing their spices and ignoring their duty to others. The instructions that God had commanded through Moses regarding support for both widows and orphans were systematically disobeyed. This is one reason why God heaped such wrathful judgment on Israel through most of His prophets. God cared deeply for people in difficult circumstances, and His people were supposed to mirror His concern. They failed to do so much of the time.

In the early years of the Protestant Reformation, Christians began to rectify some of Israel’s failures. Schools, orphanages, and hospitals were built to care for the less fortunate. Beginning in the twentieth century, some of the wealth of the two-thirds-world began to be directed toward the poor. In the years following the Great Depression in America, a welfare structure was constructed that now accounts for almost 25% of GDP. To gain perspective on that, consider that military spending reaches only 3%, and between 5 and 6% goes toward education. In spite of the government’s largess, No Kid Hungry reports that “In the United States alone, an estimated 14 million children live in food-insecure households, meaning up to 20% of all kids face daily uncertainty about where their next meal is coming from.”

I realize these statistics do not represent widows and orphans specifically, but they represent the needy in our society similar to those in James day. I suspect that most sincere Christians believe the needs of the poor are taken care of by the safety net of government programs. The statistics disprove that notion. I have no trouble suggesting that people who fall through or disregard the government safety net are precisely the people toward whom Christians must demonstrate pure religion. If American Christians would simply tithe from their wealth, there would be enough money to feed, clothe and house every person who truly needs it. If only those Christians who wish to demonstrate pure religion by James’ definition set about to find the “orphans and widows” in their circles, a huge bite would be taken out of the problem.

The second element of true religion mentioned in James 1 is separation from the world. Keeping yourself “unstained by the world” is an important test of your spiritual condition. The Apostle John said, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Love for worldly things, otherwise known as materialism, may be the biggest “stain” James was referring to. When recommending proper Christian behavior, Peter warned his readers to “make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him” when the destruction of worldly people occurred at the end of the age.

I am going to quit preachin’ and go to meddlin’ as someone used to say. The use of our money is not the only way Christians demonstrate their religion. What we have to offer is time, treasure, and talents. I have dealt with treasure. We must also look carefully at how we spend our time. Employment and entertainment probably consume the lion’s share of Christians’ time these days. The question you must ask is whether your time is “unstained” by worldly things. The workaholic or the sports fanatic may want to consider how much time is stained by the world. One could ask what percentage of the 168 hours granted each week is spent in “pure religion.” For some, the answer would be embarrassing.

Look at your talents. I wrote several articles recently about spiritual gifts and natural talents. (See Related Posts) Natural talents and spiritual gifts are given by God with the understanding that they will be used in His service. Finding a way to use them in your local church is an essential part of your responsibility to the Giver. If your religion is “pure,” acceptable to God, it would seem reasonable to assume that a good share of your blessings from God (time, treasure, and talents) would be directed to the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth. Evaluate the purity of your religion by James’ standard. Then make the necessary corrections.

Related Posts: Natural Talents in Service to God; Spiritual Gifts

I Think I Love Jesus

This is going to be an autobiographical, philosophical ramble. If the thought of poking around inside my head is not a pleasant one for you, you are excused. My wife, Karen, regularly chides me for thinking too much. She is usually correct; when I imagine bad motives for someone’s action, or when I create a dilemma of my own making, I am probably overthinking. It is the latter case that I am going to sort through in this piece.

I want to start by defending philosophy. The word scares or bores some people because they picture dusty classrooms and boring lectures. That’s understandable but not fair. A philosophy is merely a way of seeing things. It is often called a world view. Everyone has one whether they know it or not. We all look at the world through a filter of some kind. If we didn’t, the jumble of unrelated data would drive us crazy. We make sense of things by choosing to see them through our world view – our philosophy. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I recommend examination. Commenting on James 1:25 John MacArthur says, “If you desire to be like Christ… you must continually examine your life in the light of Scripture.” (Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1993)

I am not going to categorize all the potential philosophies that people choose from. I will simply say that there are worldly world views and biblical world views. I choose the biblical. I attempt to make everything fit into a biblical framework. I hope to operate according to the truth as I understand it from God’s Word. This is how I sometimes stumble into a dilemma of my own making. Some things are easy to sort: murder is wrong, so abortion is wrong; hate is wrong, so homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, and a host of other things are clearly not biblical. Materialism places things above God, so that is idolatry – very wrong. Those are some of the easy ones.

There are many that are not so easy. For the last many months, perhaps years, I have been troubled by my lack of emotion when I consider my love for Jesus. I desire to love Jesus, but I find it difficult. I “feel” I am not worthy to love Jesus. I find it difficult to imagine Jesus wanting my love. If a cockroach expressed love to me, what would it mean? If that sounds outrageous, remember that in God’s Word humans are likened to worms. I love what Jesus did for me culminating in His horrible death on the cross. I understand what that means for me intellectually, but I don’t usually “feel” love when I consider it.

Here then is my dilemma. I put “feel” in quotes because my biblical world view places feelings in my soul. My relationship with Jesus is primarily spiritual, at least in my present state. If I love Jesus only for what He did for me, that is transactional love – love based on an exchange. He did something wonderful for me, so I love Him for it. It’s a trade. There are no feelings involved on my part; that worries me. I sense that something is missing because I believe the Bible teaches that humans consist of body, soul, and spirit. If my love for Jesus is merely transactional, I fear it is not genuine love.

Karen and I were discussing this the other day and she helped me to see that the love the Bible speaks of, agape love, is given to us by the Holy Spirit. It is even called a fruit of the Spirit. Paul says that kind of love is poured out in our hearts by the Spirit. That being the case, biblically, I might have genuine love flowing out of my spirit to Jesus and not necessarily “feel love” in my soul.

While I am comfortable with that thought, I still think I am missing something. I wrote “More Than a Feeling” some time ago to correct myself for thinking that agape love wasn’t supposed to “feel” like love. The Bible is full of examples of God’s pure agape love for His people that are fraught with feeling. Agape may not be primarily a feeling, but in its richest form, it is not devoid of feeling.

I remember reading years ago about Mother Theresa in her final years. She admitted that she had lost the feeling that drove her earlier ministry. Still, she persisted in her calling to the end. John of the Cross speaks of the dark night of the soul when one might wonder if God has abandoned him. What did Jonah feel in the belly of the fish; what did Paul think as his ship was dashed upon the rocks; what did Jesus Himself think in the Garden of Gethsemane or on the cross when He cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” I am beginning to think that one of our deepest human frailties is the imperfect interface of soul and spirit within us. One day, after our resurrection to eternal life, they will be perfectly united; until that day, philosophers like me will question the legitimacy of our love.

You don’t have to go there with me. Karen, bless her soul, does not. She is perfectly happy with her experience of loving Jesus without questions. I envy her. Jesus said unless I become like a little child, I will never see the kingdom of heaven. I parsed that through my biblical philosophy and came up with the idea that simplicity is the hallmark of true faith. I have a tendency to complicate things that are really quite simple. That’s the philosopher in me. Perhaps it is just as Karen keeps telling me: I have to stop thinking so much.

However, through this process, I have come up with another word that plays into the concept of loving Jesus: devotion. I believe devotion leans into the side of agape love that requires an act of our human will. Jesus didn’t shy away from it when He declared, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” In the same way that my devotion to my marriage vows demands sacrificial obedience on my part, my devotion to Jesus requires obedience driven by love.

John MacArthur, in his commentary on Jesus’ dismissal of those who claimed to serve Him but were rejected, says, “Matthew 7:21–23 records the tragic results of spiritual delusion…. Jesus made a clear distinction between those who merely claim to be Christians and those who truly are. The difference is, true believers do the will of the Father from a pure heart. In the words of James, they are doers of the Word, not merely hearers who delude themselves.” If my motivation to follow a biblical world view (aka to obey Jesus) is from a pure heart, I think I am safe within the fold. I think I really do love Jesus.

Related Posts: On transactional love: To Love Mercy; More on delusion: Are You Qualified? Also Weak-day Christians

You’re It!

The topic of the election of the saints is prickly to some people. As I have written previously, my view has evolved over the years. (See Related Posts.) Having been raised in the Restoration Movement and having attended one of their Bible colleges, I began my journey with an Arminian view, which is to say that human will plays a substantial role in salvation. Years of Bible study and exposure to other views caused me to gravitate toward a more Calvinistic understanding of election which elevates God’s sovereignty. (See Calvinist or Arminian)

I think part of the reason for people’s resistance to placing God’s will over human will is our innate desire for independence. Even though Paul makes it clear that salvation is a gift of God’s grace, through faith with no work on our own, some of us insist on taking credit. If the elect of God were chosen before the foundation of the world as Scripture declares, it is hard for me to see how my will had much to do with it. In addition, I think many Christians have a lopsided view of what salvation is. Salvation is not about going to Heaven when you die; it is all about bringing Heaven to earth while you live here.

I like the way Carmen Joy Imes put it in her book, Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters. “Too often we think of ‘election’ as a matter of ‘being picked to be saved.’ But in Scripture, election is more like a game of blob tag, where if I’m ‘it,’ and I tag you, then we’re both it. We run around together and try to tag as many others as we can, who join hands with us and continue tagging others until everyone has been tagged. In this game, the essence of ‘it-ness’ is to tag others. So, too, the essence of election, and therefore the essence of the believer’s vocation, is to represent God by mediating his blessing to others. Once we are ‘it’ we don’t lean back in our recliners, glad that someone picked us. No, to be ‘it’ is to tag others. And to be elect – to be His – is to bear His name among the nations, to demonstrate by our lives that He is king and to mediate His blessing to others. That is the whole point of being the elect.”

I said earlier that I have adopted a somewhat Calvinist view of election to salvation. The hardline view speaks of irresistible grace – I cannot not be saved if I am elect by God. I temper that thought with this: as God’s chosen one, I must surrender to His choosing. Like the game analogy Imes uses, many of us were running from God when He “tagged” us. I would like to say that once I was tagged, I joined hands with Jesus and ran with Him consistently. I cannot say that. I run; I fall; I get up to run again. Falling is okay in this analogy. If I trip involuntarily, God is there to give me a hand up.

If I purposely let go and run off on my own, a different set of rules apply. Either I was never really tagged in the first place, and I pretended to join the game. Or, and here is where I depart from pure Calvinism, I was tagged, but something caused me to tire of the game, or something bothered me so much that I rejected the whole idea of the game and walked away of my own “free will.” I don’t see a way to read the admonitions of Paul or Hebrews chapters six and ten without accepting that as a possibility. In the either scenario, going back to Bible language, I must assume that I was not “elect” at all. God will never lose one of His own.

I think the reason it is so hard for us to wrap our minds around this concept is because our minds are finite; God’s mind is infinite. I put “free will” in quotes before because I believe in a totally sovereign God: He numbers my days; He knit me together in my mother’s womb; He knows the end from the beginning. I only know what my five natural senses can tell me plus whatever the Holy Spirit shows me supernaturally. When I get up in the morning (if God grants me another day), I must decide what to wear, where to go, what to do, and that feels like I am exercising my “free will.”

But the Scripture says my steps are “ordered” by God. God allows me to make choices, but everything I “decide” is already programmed into His will for my life. This is how I can harmonize the total free will of humans with the total sovereignty of God. Back to the subject of election. The elect are revealed by their actions. “By their fruits you shall know them,” Jesus once said. The New Testament writers could speak to “the elect” because their fruit was obvious. In his first epistle, John said that some people had appeared to be elect, but their actions ultimately proved that they were not.

This makes being elect a matter of ethics; we reveal our ethos through our behavior. In his book, How Should I Live in This World?, R.C. Sproul reminds us that “The purpose of divine commandments is redemption. The law of the Old Testament and of the New Testament is fundamentally person-oriented. To isolate this law from its basic concern for people is to fall into the abyss of legalism. Christian ethics is built on the obedience of people to a personal God.” The elect will embrace that ethos and willingly choose to obey its demands. Those who are not among the elect will chafe at having anyone tell them what to do. This is how you can know whether or not you’re it.

Related Posts: Election: God’s Choice; God’s Choice or Man’s; More about Calvinism: Understanding the TULIP Doctrine; On sovereignty: Disrespecting God’s Sovereignty

Invisible Forces

We don’t usually think of air as having substance. But if you have ever stuck your hand out of a car window while traveling at speed, you have felt it. You may never have been in a hurricane, but you have probably seen on the news the devasting power of a one-hundred-mile-per-hour wind. I spent fifty years sailing Lake Michigan, and I can testify to the wonder of gliding across the water with nothing but a slight breeze in the sails. I also know that when a gale blows up, I had better get the sails down or it will get very uncomfortable.

You may not have thought about it, but when a bird flaps its wings, it is pushing against the substance of the air to gain flight; likewise, an airplane uses the magic of aerodynamic lift to soar through the sky. Air is a fluid much like the water we are familiar with. It too can be friend or foe. We kick against it and swing our arms to swim through it. You have probably seen the devastation a tsunami wreaks when it comes crashing ashore. The wind and the waves have incredible power even though it may not be immediately evident.

You may be asking how this matters to heaven. Look at Genesis One and see how God separated the “waters” below from the “waters” above. Change “waters” to “fluids” and you see what I am getting at. You will also notice that the Spirit is said to have hovered over the waters at creation. Curiously, both in Hebrew and Greek, there is only one word for “spirit” and for “wind.” You must use the context to discern which meaning is intended. Jesus played on this duality when He told Nicodemus about the workings of the Holy Spirit. It is like the wind, He said. You feel its effects, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.

Expand that thought. We know that God is spirit, and we know that He is everywhere present in His creation. Many times, we see the effects of His Spirit working, but we don’t consider where it comes from or where it goes. Now you are saying, for goodness’ sake, Clair, what is your point. It is this: spiritual forces are at work all around us, some working for good and some for not-good. Even though the Bible Old and New Testaments have much to say about the presence of evil spirits, we moderns don’t often consider them relevant to our lives. We dismiss them at our peril.

I began to consider this when reading the account of Ezra’s return to Jerusalem after Judah’s seventy-year captivity. He was among the second wave of returnees, and he encountered those who had come before him to rebuild the city and its temple. What he found upset him so that he tore his robes and fell on his face in mourning. The most egregious fault he discovered was that the earlier returnees, even the priests, had begun to intermarry with the multi-ethnic people who had been left in the land after the Jews were taken captive to Babylon. This practice was explicitly forbidden in the law of Moses.

The reason God gave for this restriction was that intermarriage would lead to idolatrous worship of the indigenous gods – gods who were outright enemies of Yahweh God. Of course, God was correct; the history of Israel is one of continual disobedience and serial idolatry of the worst kinds. Perhaps the saddest example is Solomon who had hundreds of wives and concubines who led him astray. His descendants, David’s line, had only a few kings who tried to remain faithful to Yahweh. Most worshipped other gods following Solomon’s bad example.

The Bible is clear that the power behind the gods (small g) that troubled Israel came from demonic forces – invisible but for their effects on the people of God. We can easily understand why God wanted the idol worshippers removed. But some people wonder why God often ordered the slaughter of the animals belonging to a conquered people. The answer may lie in the account of the Gadarene demoniac encountered by Jesus. When the Lord cast the many demons out, they begged to be sent into a nearby herd of pigs. Jesus consented. The pigs were then driven madly over a cliff to their death. The demons may have hoped for safety in their porcine hosts, but they most likely ended up where Jesus was going to send them in the first place. In any case, this account proves that demons can inhabit animals. God ordered the destruction of animals to rid the land of demonic hosts.

Just because we can’t see them does not mean that demons don’t still trouble us. When James says resist the devil, and he will flee from you, I suspect his advice applies to the devil’s minions as well. Peter’s warning that the devil is seeking to devour us likewise implies that sinister forces are at work to do us harm whether in the form of Satan himself or his host of evil spirits. Jesus warned His listeners that while demons might be swept out of a house, they could also return if adequate measures were not taken to protect it. Much of the church today has fallen prey to the atheistic thinking of the scientific age; we don’t consider how very present spiritual forces are in our daily lives.

We live in a spirit-filled world, and we are in the midst of a cosmic battle for control of this world. The spiritual wickedness “in the heavenlies” Paul warned against doesn’t stay in the heavenlies; it frequently visits us here on earth. Otherwise, Paul would not have admonished us to keepour guard up.

When Jesus gave His disciples His model prayer, He recommended asking for deliverance from “the evil one.” An important feature of His earthly ministry was delivering people from demon possession. Jesus saw the evil around us all for what it truly is: evil spirits bent on our destruction. Matthew Henry once said, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” Our failure to recognize this fact of life is worse than ignorance; it is dangerous. We are surrounded by invisible forces of evil; the sooner we wake up to that fact and take a stand as Paul recommends, the sooner we will begin to see the answer to our prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” That force will be visible.

Related Posts: About the battle we are in: Who Are the Other Gods? Also: Living in Zerubbabel’s Day

In Light of Grace

The history of the nation of Israel is a record of God’s constant grace toward His people. After He graciously delivered them from slavery in Egypt, they grumbled and rebelled numerous times. While it is true that He exercised His righteous wrath and punished them for their disobedience at times, He brought a remnant to the Promised Land nonetheless. After God empowered Joshua to conquer the land, the people repeatedly fell into disobedience. They were chastised by attacks from their enemies, but God raised up judges to deliver them every time. During the time of the kings, God delivered judgment when they strayed from Him, even removing Israel and sending Judah into captivity for seventy years, but He promised that David’s descendants would remain of the throne of Judah. That is grace.

In his Gospel, John records the coming of the Son of David: “And the Word became flesh and took up residence among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the one and only from the Father, full of grace and truth…. For from his fullness we have all received, and grace after grace.” John also said, “In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” From the beginning of time when God said, “Light be!” the opposing concepts of light and darkness have been woven into the fabric of Scripture. The light, which God called “day” is the symbol of created order, a symbol of grace; the opposite is darkness or night which represents chaos and ignorance.

When John paired grace and light in his introduction of the Messiah, he laid out a pattern that appears throughout the New Testament. In his first epistle, John said that to have fellowship with God, we must walk in the light. If we walk in the light, John says, “We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” In the light, we experience the gracious forgiveness of our sin. Grace and truth – light and fellowship. Paul says God has “Rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” He also warned that we will be entering a battle “against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Jesus came to bring the light, but the John’s sad declaration is that some did not receive it because they loved the darkness. You don’t have to be an evil person to be caught loving the darkness. Just let the rulers of this darkness place something closer to your heart than God Himself. I have recently discovered that my dance with the darkness involves wanting God to bless my dreams instead of waiting for Him to bless me with His dream. If I pray, “Thy will be done” I must not mean “Let Thy will affirm that my will be done.” If I fall into asking God to give me what I want instead of what He knows I need, I have succumbed to the influence of the kingdom of darkness. Why is misunderstanding God’s grace an evil, dark thing? It makes me satisfied (happy) with less than the best God has for me – namely, a deeper relationship with Him.

A dreadful disease has infected the church in America; it is darkness masquerading as light. It is the lie that says because God is a gracious Father, He wants to give us everything we want. It says God wants us to be happy here on earth. That is not biblical; it is a lie. Search the Scriptures from Genesis three to Revelation nineteen. You will find only a few moments when God deliberately allowed His people to be happy. In the Garden, yes; after Christ’s second coming, yes. But in the in-between where we live, not so much. We are promised joy as a fruit of the Holy Spirit in us, but that is not the same thing as happiness. Happiness is an emotion that comes as a result of good happenings. Joy, on the other hand, is a spiritual condition granted to us in spite of circumstances. We are admonished to crucify our fleshly desires (for happiness) and receive joy. (For more on happiness versus joy, see Related Posts.)

Psalm 37:4 is one of the verses popularly quoted to say that God will grant all our desires. The KJV says, “Delight thyself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” That is a fair translation of the Hebrew, but it can be interpreted more than one way. It is interesting to see how the Jewish translators of the Septuagint (LXX) phrased it in Greek. It betrays a different understanding than is popular today. The word they used for “delight” (κατατρύφησον) means to run down or chase after. The word the LXX uses for “give” (δώσει) can be translated cause, command, produce, or put. The Greek for “desires” (αἰτήματα) is described this way: “this noun highlights the content that is laid before a superior…. [It] sheds distinctive light on the dynamic between petitioner and authority.”

It would be perfectly legitimate to translate the LXX version of Psalm 37:4 as “If you chase after God, He will produce longings in your heart that are in line with your relationship to Him.” That is a long way from saying He will give you whatever you want. To expect God to grant all our desires without context is the epitome of self-serving arrogance. He is all about giving us what we need, and what we need more than anything else is to know Him better and to become more like Jesus.

God is too gracious to give us whatever we want. If He did that, we would end up as spoiled brats. Rather, He lovingly causes us to desire what is best for us in His opinion. He graciously prompts us to become more like His Son. His methods are not always pleasant. Read Hebrews: “For the Lord disciplines the one whom he loves and punishes every son whom he accepts.” The writer explains why this is grace: “Now all discipline seems for the moment not to be joyful but painful, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness for those who are trained by it.” Not all happy times! But in light of the rest of Scripture, in light of true grace, that makes perfect sense.

Related Posts: Happiness and Joy Part One; Part Two; More about bad things that are good: Working All Things for Good; also see The Goodness of God in the Bad Times

Solomon’s Temple; David’s Promises

We always call the temple that existed throughout the kingdom years of Israel Solomon’s Temple. I came across an interesting tidbit in 1 Chronicles 28: it says that David was given the plans for the temple directly by Yahweh Himself, and they were passed on to Solomon by David. Curious! God allowed David to see the grand design of the temple, but He died before it was completed as far as we know. That was not David’s first disappointment. Remember that Samuel anointed him as king when Saul was still reigning. David endured sixteen years of running and hiding before he finally ascended to the throne.

Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple shows that he had a clear understanding of Israel’s relationship with Yahweh God, something he doubtless learned from his father. Solomon believed that Yahweh would continue to give provision and protection for His people. It was also clear from his prayer that Solomon understood the conditions under which those promises were made. He knew that Israel had to remain faithful to Yahweh and His commands or the promises would be nullified. He also realized that the nation would undoubtedly fail to fully follow God because his prayer is full of “when” clauses: when your people fail, he said, hear their repentant prayers from this temple. Not if, when.

Obviously, the omniscient God to whom Solomon prayed also knew the people would be disobedient. Regardless of this, He answered Solomon’s prayer by consuming his offering with fire from heaven and filling the temple with His shekinah glory such that even the priests drew back. This is nothing but a demonstration of God’s abundant grace in spite of His people’s repeated rebellion. Christians sometimes mistakenly think that the Old Testament God was a God of law, but the New Testament God is a God of grace. That is not true. Grace was first displayed when Yahweh did not instantly take Adam’s life when he rebelled in the Garden. It is only by God’s grace that the people of Israel ever came into being.

Because all people are prone to failure, God’s plan of redemption had to be founded on grace. The redeeming Seed promised in Genesis three could not have come to earth apart from God’s gracious provision. In the end, God did not just overlook the murderous disobedience of the Jewish leadership in Jesus’ time; He used it to accomplish His gracious purpose. This was Peter’s message on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit made everything clear to him. According to Peter, Joel’s prophecy of the last days came to pass through the “determined plan and foreknowledge of God” who used “lawless men” to execute their Messiah.

The blessing under which Solomon ruled is called the Davidic covenant. Yahweh promised David that one of his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel “forever.” When they became disobedient not only to God but to their Babylonian overseers, the judgment promised through the prophets came to pass and the last Davidic king was taken captive. When Israel returned to the land after seventy years in captivity, Zerubbabel, a descendant of David, was the political leader, but he was never called a king. He was an appointee of the Persian government that released him.

The kings we read about in the New Testament are also appointees, the Romans having taken Judea into their empire. There were a few Jewish kings during the Maccabean period, who took the throne in rebellion against Roman rule, but they were not descendants of David. By the time of the Messiah’s coming, the Herodian dynasty had been granted the right to call themselves kings, but they were puppets of Rome. They were not even fully Jewish, let alone David’s heirs. This may help us understand how significant it was to have the people hail Jesus as “Son of David” when he entered Jerusalem for the final showdown. They were anxious for a rightful heir to take back the throne.

I think it is interesting that the Roman governor, Pilate, called Jesus King of the Jews on the sign he placed upon the cross. He unknowingly announced what the prophets had foretold centuries earlier: David’s true Descendant would be king. We often say that Jesus is at once prophet, priest, and king, and so He is. He came as the Living Word; He ministers in a heavenly temple which no doubt is the pattern that was shown to David; and He reigns forever as King of kings. Although Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world, the day is coming when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of Our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.

The old covenant promised a land flowing with milk and honey – flocks, herds, abundant harvests. That covenant also required continual bloody sacrifices to atone for the inevitable sins of the people. The new covenant is built upon better promises according to the Hebrew writer. The atonement for our sins was accomplished once for all when Jesus took His own blood into the true temple in Heaven and offered it to the Father on our behalf. Jesus’ resurrection from the grave is the testimony that the offering was accepted. The torn temple veil testifies to the ending of God’s presence in the temple. That was no real loss, though. The Herodian dynasty had built a magnificent temple, but Jesus called what it truly was: a den of thieves.

The threefold nature of Jesus ministry – prophet, priest, and king – is mirrored spiritually by His body, the Church. His words, which are spirit and life to us, are prophetically passed on to us so we may share His message as ambassadors of the kingdom of Heaven. We become a kingdom of priests under His high-priestly role sharing the good news of redemption through Jesus. We enter the kingdom through His blood and rule at His side as vice-regents of that kingdom. We even share in David’s lineage because we become brothers and sisters of the true Son of David. None of this requires that we wait for the Jews to build another temple for Jesus to come. He has come, and we are His temple. We may still have disappointments as David did, but we need to learn what it means to be living in the light of David’s promises. We rule!

Related Posts: I highly recommend Where is King Jesus? And also Merry Priestly Christmas; For more on the kingdom see Thy Kingdom Come; on trials see Confidence or Craziness

Forget Not His Benefits

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been too long since I last confessed my sin. This is inexcusable because I use the ACTS prayer prompter daily in which the “C” is for confession. (See “Pray Like You Mean It”) My “A” prayers are Adoration, Acclamation, and Affirmation, so I do express my love for Jesus because He gave His life for me; I proclaim Him as Lord; I affirm His worthiness to be my all-in-all. Still, I seldom come right out and admit that I fall short of His perfection on a daily basis. I don’t really confess.

That is unforgiveable. I enjoy the unspeakable benefit of having all my sins washed away by Jesus’ blood, but I don’t often confess the ones I am aware of, let alone all the trespasses committed in ignorance. There is one I have been made aware of recently by reading a book by Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams. Crabb points out how easy it is to imagine we are trusting God with our lives when what we are really doing is trusting God to make our lives pleasant – to make us happy by granting our desires. I have said for years that God is more concerned with our character than our comfort, but when building character makes me uncomfortable, I question God’s intentions. I forget to thank Him for His benefits.

I have yet to achieve Paul’s attitude as expressed in his statement that he had learned to be content in whatever state he was in. Remember that Paul went through some very uncomfortable situations, yet he could say was content with the way God dealt with him. He was stoned but not to death; he was beaten but was able to heal; he was hungry but not to starvation; he was shipwrecked but not drowned. That was the state in which Paul found contentment. I have been discontented because I live in Arizona but wish I was in Michigan.

I have always struggled with contentment. I have a nice car, but I want a different one, or maybe I just need to do a little of this or that to improve the one I have. I have a nice little home with pleasant amenities, but I want to change the door and put up an awning and…. I have a wonderful wife, but if she would just stop bugging me about…. I have a retirement income that keeps me fed and housed, but with a little more…. You get the idea. God has given me physical benefits galore. There is another line from Paul that I don’t follow: “Give thanks in everything.”

Occasionally, I do get a glimpse of a benefit God has been preparing behind my back. I remember Mordechi’s word to Queen Esther when she was about to save the entire Jewish population. “Perhaps you have been brought here for such a time as this.” My wife and I felt strongly that God brought us to our current place in Arizona for a purpose known only to Him at the time. That was five years ago, and we are not sure we know why we are here. This winter I began to substitute at a Christian school. I loved it. They surprised me by asking if I would consider teaching full-time. At first, I declined; then, I relented.

Immediately, I learned that one of their teachers is training to become an educational therapist; she is working with the National Institute for Learning Disabilities (NILD). My wife is a certified therapist through NILD. That alignment is too precise to be a coincidence. For such a time as this? I am not too proud to say that my connection to the school may have been arranged so that Karen could provide her special experience. In any case, I am thanking God this benefit; it’s a two-way blessing: we find out why we are in Arizona, and the school gets the benefit of a highly trained special education veteran.

Before you say, “Pshaw!” I will say I recognize that our discontent was nothing compared to what some Christians are going through. We haven’t been threatened with instant death because of our beliefs as many believers are today. Our physical maladies are paltry compared to what many people are suffering with. We are not on a steak and caviar diet, but we have enough to eat so that overindulgence is the problem. I don’t have a new truck, but God provided a 25-year-old with low mileage that does exactly what we need. I could go on, but my point is one of confession: I don’t thank God daily for all His benefits.

In today’s McArthur devotional, he counsels us to thank God for the good and the bad that happens to us because we must believe it is all from His hand. (See “The Meaning of Sovereignty”) It is as Paul said, “In everything give thanks.” Everything! Job, a true suffering servant, said, “Should we receive the good from God, but not receive the evil?” Whatever you go through, God is using it to advance His plan, to build His kingdom, to make you more like Christ. These are benefits we must not forget.

Related Posts: Can You Praise God?

The Meaning of Sovereignty

To be sovereign means to have ultimate authority over something. The term is typically applied to a monarch who rules over a population in a distinct geographical area. This is easy to understand when applied to our physical world. Most modern examples have evolved into constitutional monarchies with a governing body such as a parliament taking on much of the actual rulership, and the monarch is merely a figurehead. Many modern Christians have adopted that picture of their Monarch, King Jesus. He has become a symbol of rulership with no real authority over their daily lives.

I can think of at least two reasons why modern Christians balk at the idea of a totally sovereign God: Old Testament history and the spirit of independence. To our modern sensibility, the Sovereign of the OT is distasteful. Yahweh slaughtered thousands of His own people as punishment for their disobedience. He ordered the annihilation of entire populations during Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. It is not enough to say that this was a common practice in ancient times. We know that God ordered it whereas He told His people to abstain from many other things that were common at the time, child sacrifice, for example.

For the last 250 years in America, we have come to think of government authority as granted by the consent of the governed. We become citizens by our own free will. Prior to America’s founding, authority usually rested with a king who declared people to be his subjects. This is precisely what the Founders set out to change. The Declaration of Independence is such an integral part of our consciousness that we allow it to bleed into our understanding of God’s authority. It is true that we “consent” to become His children through our voluntary union with Christ, but we may forget that we are giving our allegiance to a Father/King and not an elected representative. Scripture is clear: we must subject ourselves to King Jesus.

The fact that some people squirm under the sovereign authority of our Creator should not surprise us. Adam and Eve forced us into our rebellious situation when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden. Biblical history reveals that doing “what was right in their own eyes” became the repeated mantra of the children of Adam. We sometimes refer to pride as the original sin, but it has its roots in a desire for independence. That root has rhizomes that creep into every generation of humankind. The only escape from its stranglehold is to die to Adam and be born again in Christ Jesus.

There are people, myself included if I am being honest, who understand the intellectual concept of a Sovereign God, but fail to live fully with its implications. Like all Christian disciplines, it is not enough to understand sovereignty; you must apply it rigorously. Submission to God’s authority is the most obvious application of His absolute sovereignty. Repenting of our innate tendency toward independence and submitting to God’s ultimate authority is essential to genuine Christian faith. Sincere believers will always align themselves with the will of God as found in the Scripture.

I think one of the most common failures of Christians is believing that God is sovereign but not trusting His work on our behalf. I know that is my biggest problem. I have a sincere intellectual commitment to the sovereignty of God, but I am emotionally detached from that truth. I believe that is the source of my occasional worry. It also reveals a streak of independence trying to surface. If things aren’t going according to my plan, I prove that I don’t trust God completely by worrying. If I was fully committed to His total sovereignty, I would trust that His plan will be better for me than my plan. No worries.

In his book, Shattered Dreams, Larry Crabb makes the case that our innate drive for independence often leads us to sinful positions in the most insidious ways. He suggests that even when we think we are succumbing to God’s will, we imagine that His response will be to bring our plans to fruition. Crabb says this displeases God greatly, and He often adds to the discipline He has begun because of our stubbornness. We must be fully broken of our tendency toward independence; God wants us to be exclusively dependent on Him. Until we hit bottom, as it were, we will never fully trust God’s sovereignty.

I know some people struggle like I do because of a misinterpretation of Romans 8:28. There was even a popular song a while ago that encouraged the misunderstanding by saying “God works all things together for my good.” While the ultimate outcome of “all things” will be for our good, we may have to go through some serious “not good” things to get there. There was much good that came from Paul’s God-ordained ministry to the Gentiles. To arrive at the good outcome, he had to endure stoning, beating, near drowning, imprisonment, and more. His understanding of what he told the Romans was that he was privileged to suffer for Christ’s sake. There is not a hint of worry in Paul’s writings that he doubted God’s good plan for his life.

Study the lives of Noah, Job, Moses, Joseph, David, and more. I could mention that our Lord Himself had to endure terrible not-good in His totally human self in order to accomplish the best good imaginable. Yet, like Job, He said, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane proves His humanness. He showed His willingness to fulfill the plan He and His Father had initiated before the world was made, even though it meant suffering the most brutal torture and death man has ever devised. Worse that that, He had to be separated from His Father during the hours he bore the sin of all mankind. That is truly a fate worse than death if you understand what it really entailed.

James implied that if you truly believe, your behavior will show it. I the case of our belief in God’s sovereignty, our unbelief might be hiding behind our protestations of belief. As Crabb says, it is not easy to trust God when a friend dies of cancer, a wife departs a marriage, a job is taken from you, people treat you in horrible ways, or any one of dozens of not-good things that must be a part of God’s plan. They must be; that is what it means to say He is Sovereign.

Related Posts: Necessary Obedience; What Happened in the Fall

The Greatest Miracle of All

When Jacob awoke from the dream where he saw the stairway to heaven, he said, “Surely Yahweh is indeed in this place, and I did not know!” I think many Christians who are sleepwalking through life could say the same thing. To use medical terminology, they are awake and alert times zero – spiritually unconscious. Literally, not conscious of God’s presence or His activity in their lives. This is a sad state of affairs. They are missing the greatest miracle of all: the God who created them is present with them.

It all started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with God. We read that they walked with Him in the cool of the day. Sadly, God’s arch enemy tricked them into thinking they were missing something by being forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (See Related Posts) The penalty for their indiscretion was banishment from the Garden and the tree of life. They traded the pleasure of tending trees that would yield their fruit naturally for ground that would bear thorns and thistles. They would have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. Alone.

They didn’t realize it immediately, but perhaps their greatest loss was the presence of God. This is what God meant when He told them that they would surely die if they disobeyed Him. Certainly, losing access to the tree of life meant they would die eventually, but their rebellion caused death of a more disturbing kind: their close relationship with God died the day they chose to defy Him. While God did not totally abandon them – He promised a day of redemption – He would no longer be a friendly presence in their daily lives.

In the centuries that followed, people forgot the God of the Garden and became so wicked that God destroyed all but eight souls in a devastating flood, finding only Noah who truly sought Him. When earth’s population began to swell again, people tried to manufacture a godlike presence by building a tower to reach the heavens. Again, God intervened and confused their language which caused them to disperse into rival clans and nations. None of them sought His presence. He chose one person to be the father of His chosen nation: Abram.

God made Himself known personally to Abram, later changing his name to Abraham, which means father of nations. I already mentioned his grandson, Jacob/Israel, who only recognized the nearness of the God of his grandfather after the wrestling match. Little is written about the presence of God until Jacob’s family was forced by a famine to rely on the wisdom of the brother they tried to murder: Joseph. He recognized God’s hand in his two-decade sojourn in Egypt with his rise to power second only to Pharoah himself. To his repentant brothers he said, “What you meant for evil, God used for good.”

The record is silent for nearly four hundred years until Moses comes on the scene. Having become slaves to the Egyptians, the Israelites were sorely pressed. Like Joseph, Moses was serendipitously propelled to power in Pharoah’s house, only to lose his temper and murder an Egyptian causing him to run for his life. It is in the desert of Midian that he encounters the God of creation who had been mostly forgotten by His people. At the burning bush, God, who announced Himself as Yahweh, chose to present Himself to Moses in order to call him for a monumental task: delivering His people from slavery. (Exodus 3)

Yahweh’s presence with Moses was validated in two ways. First, He spoke directly to Moses and empowered him to do numerous miracles. Second, Yahweh instructed Moses to construct a special tent where Yahweh would make His physical presence known. The pillar of fire and smoke signaled His presence with Israel as they trekked through the desert. It was not a warm fuzzy presence, as we see in the people’s frightened response at Mount Sinai. Nevertheless, the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant became symbols of God’s presence with His people.

Joshua inherited Moses’ mantle and led Israel through the conquest of the promised land. After Joshua died, Israel’s history reveals on again, off again knowledge of the presence of Yahweh among them. Many generations later, when Solomon builds a magnificent temple to replace the tabernacle, he admits that a stone edifice, no matter how great, cannot contain the Creator of the universe. Still, Yahweh deigns to occupy Solomon’s temple as long as the people remain faithful to Him. That doesn’t last very long, sadly.

Yahweh literally withdrew from the temple after countless warnings and allowed His people to be taken as prisoners to Babylon. Ever mindful of His promise, He limited their captivity to seventy years, after which they were allowed to rebuild the temple. Zerubbabel’s temple, a sad reflection of Solomon’s glorious building, never held quite the status of former times. Five hundred years later when Israel’s Messiah came, Herod’s rebuilt temple had size and grandeur, but it didn’t have the shekinah glory of Solomon’s. Nor did the Jews seem to place much stock in it as God’s dwelling place on earth. Rather, it had become a marketing tool; a den of thieves, Jesus called it.

The Jewish leadership did not realize that God’s presence was again in their midst in the form of Yahweh’s incarnate Son. Isaiah had said Immanuel, God with us, would come, but they missed His appearance. The angel had told Matthew to call his son Immanuel. Jesus validated His status through His teachings and miracles. Still, only a few Jews believed He was who He said He was. Then, when the time for His sacrificial death came, He told His disciples that He would be leaving them. They were distraught. Strangely, He told them it would be to their advantage for Him to leave. He promised to send a Comforter in His place, the Holy Spirit of God to be not just with them but in them.

They didn’t really grasp the full meaning of Jesus’ promise until the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit fell upon them in power. (Acts 2) This represents the greatest miracle of our age. Not only does the Creator God dwell with us, He lives in us. It gets even better; the Spirit grants gifts to each believer so that God’s work may be accomplished. Unfortunately, there are too many believers who are awake and alert times zero concerning this. They pay little attention to the notion that God lives in them, and many make no effort to discover what gift He has blessed them with. (See Despising the Downpayment)

Too many Christians are clueless about God’s presence in their lives. The Apostle Paul encourages us to set our minds on things above where Christ sits on the throne, ruling over His kingdom on earth. Paul also says that our true hope of glory rests on the truth that Christ is in us. The miracles of Moses or Elijah or even Jesus pale by comparison with the miracle of God making His dwelling place in believers. If you are joined with Christ, you have resurrection power within you. Why aren’t you doing miracles or at least recognizing them all around you?

Related Posts: The Knowledge of Good and Evil; Spiritual Gifts

Taking the Name of God in Vain

Almost everyone can quote the third of the Ten Commandments in its traditional English form, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain.” The majority of those who can quote it think it forbids cussing. Over the years, people have come up with some creative euphemisms for the phrase God damn: gosh darn, golly gee, doggone, dadgum, or just G-D. They think that by substituting a word for “god” that they have met the requirement of the commandment.

Carmen Imes in her book, Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai still matters, says that the word “take” is better understood as “bear,” as in bearing a load or an image. Young’s Literal Translation comes close with “Do not take up the name of Jehovah thy God for a vain thing.” Imes suggests that bearing the name means being identified with the named One. A modern understanding of vain in this context would be empty or useless. In other words, if you are going to bear the Name, call yourself a follower of the Name, you had better be sure the things you do honor the Name you bear.

A quick review of where the Name comes from will be helpful. Several times in the Old Testament, “The Name” appears to people as God in human form. When Moses asked what he was supposed to call the being he encountered in the burning bush, he was told to use the name Yahweh. Numerous divine epiphanies are identified as Yahweh throughout the history of Israel. In her book, Imes asks where we find Yahweh in the New Testament. She frankly states that it isn’t there unless you follow the root of the name the angel told Mary and Joseph to call their miraculous baby boy: Yeshua.

Our Savior’s parents would have spoken Aramaic, a version of Hebrew, in their daily lives. Thus, it is likely that the angel who announced His birth would have told Mary, “You shall call His name Yeshua.” We got “Jesus” from the Greek translation where Yeshua becomes Ἰησοῦς pronounced Yaysous, hence Jesus in English. If you translate directly from the Aramaic to English, you have the name Joshua. Our Saviour’s given name was Joshua. Since God regularly gives descriptive names to His special people, it is no surprise to learn that in Hebrew, Joshua/Yeshua means God saves. He does, indeed!

According to Imes, there are two reasons why the name Yahweh doesn’t easily carry over into the New Testament. First, by the time of Jesus birth, the Jews had over one thousand years of substituting “Lord” for the Hebrew name of God out of reverence for Him. Second, the writings of Moses spelled the name he was given for the God of the burning bush YHWH. In ancient Hebrew, vowels were added later to aid pronunciation; Yahweh is as close a guess as any. Jumping to Greek was difficult because there are no letters that correspond with Y, W, or H. The authors of the New Testament, who were mostly Jews, simply continued the long-standing tradition of referring to God as Lord.

Now we are back to bearing the Name. We know it is the only Name by which we can be saved, thanks to Peter’s defiant assertion. We also have a pretty good idea that many, if not all the appearances of God/Yahweh in the Old Testament were probably the pre-incarnate, eternal Son of God. So, it appears that bearing the name of Jesus in the New Testament means exactly the same thing as bearing the name of Yahweh in the Old Testament. One must take pains not to bear the name without effect. And the effect must be to glorify God.

There is another interesting sidelight to the discussion of important names in the Bible. God’s people were known as Israel because their forefather, Jacob, was given that name after he wrestled with the Angel of Yahweh. Jacob means grabber, overcomer, or usurper in Hebrew. That name is a good description of much of what occurred in Jacob’s life. After his bout with the Angel, Jacob the overcomer was renamed Israel, “He who contends with God.” In retrospect, that properly describes what the nation of Israel did throughout their existence. It has been suggested that, “[Israel] is a reference to the Jewish people's ongoing struggle with God, and the obligation they have to explore their faith.”

I can’t think of a better description of the plight of those of us who have named the name of Jesus. Paul made his own struggle plain in Romans seven. He told the Galatians that there would be a continual battle within them between the Spirit and their flesh. After commending the heroes of the faith, the Hebrew author encourages us to, “run with patient endurance the race that has been set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the originator and perfecter of faith.” That “race” by the way is a marathon not a dash.

Imes says that when Jesus asked His followers to pray hallowed be Thy name, “His is prayer implies a personal commitment to honoring that name through a life of faithful obedience. He fulfills Israel’s vocation to bear Yahweh’s name with honor.” So, in one sense, the church, the Body of Christ, is the Israel of God. Our obligation is to represent His interests on earth; we are encouraged to “contend for the faith.” The church is at once the temple of God and His Israel: His contenders. This lends credence to my belief that physical Israel isn’t getting a second chance to accept their Messiah in the last days. They had their chance, and they blew it royally.

This also explains Paul’s comment to the Ephesians that God’s purpose for the church is to “Display His wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was His eternal plan, which He carried out in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 3:10-11 NLT) It is our responsibility to bear the Name with all the best intentions and glorify God in the process. If we do that, we will not bear the Name of the Lord our God in vain. I would still recommend that you avoid cussing.

Related Posts: His Name Shall Be Called; There’s Something Fishy About that Name; In Jesus’ Name