Slaves and Masters

In twenty-first century America, the average citizen has more freedom than anyone, anywhere, at any time in history. We have the freedom to go just about anywhere, do just about anything (within certain legal limitations), and to be whatever we have the determination to be. I just completed a 2,000+ mile trip across the country, and there was not one border check, no language barrier, nobody questioning what I was doing. (OK, some of my friends thought it was crazy to drive that distance alone in three days.) I witnessed the freedom others expressed with their disdain for speed limits and simple traffic courtesy; I was exposed to a few music choices at extreme volume in the middle of the night at rest stops; I watched people leave their cars blocking the gas pumps while they dallied in the store. These were people doing what they wanted. Regardless.

Maybe they want to be rude, lawless, inconsiderate boors. There are few people who will stop them in twenty-first century America. Fortunately, there are also people who have decided to do something with their lives to improve the condition of their fellow citizens. I was reminded of this by a random post on my Facebook page. The post noted that President Trump has surrounded himself with an entourage of pretty regular folks. He didn’t choose the usual elite snobs and self-important pooh-bahs that most Presidents have surrounded themselves with in the past. They are everyday folks willing to step in and help a President whom they believe has the best interest of the American people at heart.

I may be more sensitive to this at the moment because of a series of novels I am reading written by Cap Daniels. On the surface the heroes appear to behave like every other shoot-em-up, black ops mercenary team. But Daniels lets his patriotism and Christian belief in giving help to those who cannot help themselves come through loud and clear. Bad guys get dead and good guys get rescued, but Daniels lets the psychological and spiritual struggle come through loud and clear. One of the main characters epitomizes this dichotomy: he is a Baptist preacher when he is not using his sniper rifle to rain judgment on the villains. Daniels writes in his afterward that he detests the evil that is everywhere in our world, but he also lauds the patriots who risk their lives to make our lives a little safer.

Heaven matters most in this because every human being is a slave to something or someone. Paul writes: “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.” (Rom. 6:16-18 NLT) We commonly think of this as referring to slaves to drugs, or sex, or money. Sinful things. Think again. Anything we do with our “freedom” that removes God from the center of our lives is sin.

Whenever we choose to fulfill our desires instead of seeking God’s desire for our lives, we become slaves to our desires. It could be a job, a hobby, or just plain laziness that enslaves us to something that is not God’s best for us. Paul says we choose to be enslaved to sin, or by choosing to give our lives to Christ, we become slaves to righteousness. We must not think of that too narrowly. It does not mean we have to give up everything and become a missionary. It does not mean we have to abandon a secular career and join the clergy. It may be those things for some, but for the vast majority of us, it is something far more mundane and, at the same time, more wonderful.

The “slave to righteous living” Paul applauds is someone who makes the effort to live according to God’s righteous principles. Jesus identified the sine qua non of His followers: that they love one another. If you have been a Christian for more than a minute, you know that the love Jesus recommended is a selfless, sacrificial love; it means caring for the other person more than for yourself. If you want to see it demonstrated, look at the Cross of Calvary. You could translate John 3:16 like this: “God loved the world in this way: He gave His Son so that anyone who believed in Him would be free from slavery to sin.”

Paul said slavery to sin leads to death; God said slavery to Christ leads to eternal life. Those of you who are as old as I am might remember a folk singer named Bob Dylan who came to Christ after a long career in secular music. One of my favorite songs of his post-conversion repertoire is “You Gotta Serve Somebody.” His lyrics list about every imaginable lifestyle and circumstance, and in every case, Dylan insists you are going to serve somebody. His theology is right there with the Apostle Paul. You may serve the devil, or you may serve the Lord, but you are going to serve somebody. And the truth is clear: there are only two choices.

The biblical concept of freedom is foreign to our modern way of thinking. N.T. Wright speaks of the paradox of Christian freedom. “We become more truly human, more genuinely free, when we are giving ourselves away. That, I think, is the clue to a whole new way of looking at the world, and perhaps at freedom itself….  Humans are made for a purpose. Only when we find and follow that purpose will we be ‘free’…. The gospel sets us free to love, to live to God’s glory, to be wise stewards of his creation and wise agents of his new creation. And at this point human freedom and divine enabling mysteriously come together.”

That is the truth, and Jesus said that the truth would set us free. He also said, “[God's]Word is truth.” For the last ten years or so I have had the blessing of “free time” every morning to read the Bible and pray. I could almost say I have become enslaved to that devotional time to the point that I am unwilling to start my day without it. Martin Luther famously said, "I have so much to do [each day] that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer." Like Luther, I read to hear God’s will; then I pray for His assistance to accomplish it – whatever it is. He is my Master; I am His slave. And I am free.

 

The Fall as Death

I have become increasingly disturbed by the number of Christian authors and church leaders who express a muddled view of Biblical salvation. It is no wonder then, that the average person in the pew is confused as well. Semi-Pelagians will disagree with my Augustinian view of God’s sovereign role in the process. However, if we can agree to respectfully disagree on that issue, there remains a common need to be clear about the true plight of fallen humans and the real nature of sin.

Michael Wittmer’s book, Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough proposes to answer some of the controversial questions of our day. By way of explaining his approach to the issues the author says, “But the most basic question, the one which determines to a large extent how we answer the others, is whether people are good or bad.” I believe statements like this one of Wittmer’s are misleading.

There is a more basic question than Wittmer asks. Goodness and badness are relative terms needing a standard from which to evaluate behavior. Problems arise immediately when we attempt to determine how good is good, or how bad is bad. Yet even this argument is specious because the Bible teaches throughout that no one is good enough to merit salvation. Being good or bad is not basic, but secondary to the real issues at hand.

The question that really determines how we answer the others is whether people are alive or dead. The Fall recorded in Genesis is referred to as death: “in the day you eat… you will die.” (Genesis 2:17) The death intended here is not a cessation of existence, rather a separation from God. Paul says humans are dead in sin, but made alive in Christ. He also calls us strangers and aliens separated from the life of God. (Ephesians 2:12, 19; 4:18

Humans don’t cease to exist when they die; they change their state of being. Note that theologians speak of the fallen state. The rebellion of Adam brought about the severance of his communion with God; the new state of existence for humans became one of separation from the Creator. The death Adam suffered was passed on to all his offspring; as the Apostle Paul explains, we inherit death from Adam and life from Christ (1Corinthians 15:22)

Discussing sin as behavior or action misleads; sin is state of being. Sin is a near synonym for death; to be in sin is to be dead. Getting saved is not as much about changing behavior as changing affiliation. To ask if homosexuals can be truly Christian misses the point. If we are not saved by our actions we are not unsaved by them either. This is not to say that sin is acceptable, but rather it is irrelevant to this discussion. Can a regenerated person sin? Clearly, yes. Can a regenerated person continue habitually in what he/she knows to be sin? Probably not. Why not? Because the attitude of rebellion (no remorse/repentance) indicates lack of regeneration.

Wittmer continues his explanation: “Because we start life totally depraved, it is easy to see why we need the dramatic rescue of regeneration. And since Scripture says that the Holy Spirit uses truth to do this job, it logically follows that only those who know and rely upon the basic facts of the gospel can be saved.”

Again, Wittmer misleads. “Depraved” is a theologian’s word; it is not frequently used in Scripture to describe fallen humans. The word “depraved” comes directly from a Latin word meaning to make exceptionally crooked or bent.. The idea of being bent leaves open the option to correct by straightening. Yet the Bible presents no such option for our condition post-fall. Humans don’t need straightening, they need remaking.

The Scripture word for our condition is “dead.” A dead person can’t know anything; a dead person can’t be corrected or bent back to life. The only cure for death is regeneration, a word meaning rebirth, just as Jesus told Nicodemus in John chapter three. Jesus told the Pharisee he had to be born a second time, from above to see or enter Kingdom. Jesus did not instruct his midnight pupil to study more to learn how to come to faith. In another place, in fact, Jesus told the friends of Nicodemus that they studied the Scriptures in vain, for He was revealed there not to them, but only to those of faith. (John 5:39-47) He implied that belief precedes saving knowledge.

Humans are not regenerated because they know something; they know something because they get regenerated. “There is no one that seeks after God…” (Romans 3:11) Scripture does not say that the Holy Spirit uses truth to regenerate us as Wittmer suggests. Scripture says that we cannot know or see or understand the truth until the Spirit regenerates us. Paul told the Corinthians that the carnal or natural (Greek: psychical) man can not understand the things of the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:14) We do not come to belief because we learn something we didn’t previously know; we learn things about God because we come to believe that He is and that He has previously sought, bought, and re-wrought us.

Salvation, in the final analysis, is a unilateral act of God saving human beings from death, i.e. separation from His presence eternally. Humans are born into this world “dead” because we are children of Adam. David said, “In sin my mother conceived me…” (Psalm 51:5) The only way to escape the fate of Adam’s curse (death) is to be reborn as a child of the Second Adam, Christ Jesus. Neither knowledge nor actions play any role whatsoever in the process of human rebirth through the Holy Spirit of God. We can not choose our spiritual birth parents any more than we can choose our physical parents. One is either in Adam or in Christ; either position is dictated by the sovereign will of God. (Romans 9)

All our bickering about behavior must be at the level of church discipline if corporate, or about fellowship with God if personal. Debating about certain sins as if they are relevant to salvation is to surrender the field to a faulty presumption. Let us have a healthy debate, but let us debate from right premises. The so-called post-moderns Wittmer cites in his book are really post- Christians because they are post-Biblical. A true reading of Scripture reveals that humans are not hell bound because they sin; they sin because they are hell bound. They are hell bound because they are dead. Our only meaningful offering to these lost ones is to make them aware that their Creator has provided an alternative. They must make the ancient choice: remain dead, or choose life through Christ. By God’s grace, through the gift of faith, the elect are enabled to choose life.

Living like Jesus is not enough, as Wittmer’s title suggests. Living in Jesus is the necessary and sufficient cause to warrant confidence of salvation. This condition is brought about by the effective work of the Holy Spirit and creates a state of being: being in Christ, as the Scripture puts it. It is not initiated by nor sustained by anything any human can do; “not by works, lest any one should boast.” (Ephesians 2:9) The question is not about doing, but about being.

Choose Life

In my last post, I mentioned some of the blessings of obedience that we have as Christians. While all the Old Testament promises don’t transfer directly to us, we can learn an important lesson from Moses’ last words to Israel: “I invoke as a witness against you _⌊today_⌋ the heaven and the earth: life and death I have set _⌊before you_⌋, blessing and curse. So choose life, so that you may live, you and your offspring, by loving Yahweh your God by listening to his voice and by clinging to him, for he is your life and the length of your days.” Break this out: “Choose life so that you may live… by loving God and listening to His voice… for He is your life.”

Lest you think this too is uniquely an Old Testament truth, hear the words of Jesus, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Whereas Moses may have brought up images of literal, physical death (which the Israelites suffered repeatedly), the Apostle Paul carried the message into the New Testament by using death as a symbolic state of being – symbolic, yet just as dire in its consequences. He says time and again that all of us were dead in trespasses and sins before we were made alive in Christ. He also uses the metaphor to encourage Christians to put to death the things of the world that remain part of our nature after we have been redeemed. Like Moses, the Apostle sets before us life and death.

Here is a blessing of obedience I failed to mention in my last post: life. I don’t mean brain waving, heart beating warm flesh type of life. The Greek language of the New Testament has several words that can be translated life. The one most often used for life in Christ, indeed, the one Jesus used in John 17:3 is the word zoe (ζωή). In our English versions, this word is often preceded by the word “eternal” to indicate its unique characteristics. While the eternal nature of zoe is part of its meaning, we miss an important aspect of zoe-life if that’s as far as we take it. It has immediate benefits for those who choose it.

When Paul was explaining to the Romans why they should abandon their former lives of sin, despite the fact that grace covered those sins, he used the picture of baptism to make his point. “Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we may live a new way of life.” The life he referred to was zoe, and he qualified it with the word “new.” Greek has two words for new; one refers to time – new as in not old. The other one, the one Paul used here, speaks of new as a different quality. The life we have after being rescued from death (after baptism into Christ) is a different kind of life. Zoe life.

There are several aspects to this new life we have. One I have so often repeated that my regular readers may be tired of hearing it, but it is so essential I must say it again. It’s found in Jesus’ statement: “This is life (zoe): that they may know You.” Knowing God is essential to new life. When we were dead, we couldn’t know God. Paul made this clear when chastising the Corinthians for being too unspiritual (Soulish is the word he used.). He told them the things of God are spiritually discerned, and the human mind – the dead mind, the soulish mind – is unable to grasp them. So, one indispensable blessing of life in Christ is the ability to hear and know the truth – the spiritual truth contained in Scripture as well as the whispered truth in our inner being (our spirit).

The benefits of this blessing cannot be overstated. Without the ability to hear from God we are left saddled with the results of our own devices. Paul details these consequences for the Corinthian believers in the next chapter. The Apostle tells them that soulish works – things done in the flesh (aka not Spirit led) – would not earn any eternal reward. In fact, he uses the imagery of the fires of judgment which everyone must go through, even Christians, to picture soulish works being burned up while works done in the Spirit are purified like gold, silver, and precious stones.

Thankfully, Paul does not say that believers who work in unspiritual ways will perish. He says that their misguided efforts will be burned up, but that they will enter eternity smelling of smoke. I would much rather soar into eternity on the wings of a Dove than to scrape by with singed tail feathers. Notice also that the unspiritual actions Paul referred to were not wicked; the Corinthians behavior may even have seemed righteous. They were arguing over relative status of the preachers they knew. It almost sounds like typical church disagreements today: what color carpet in the auditorium, what type of music in the services, stained glass or plain windows, are the people in the church down the road truly our brothers? I like the way J.B. Phillips words Paul’s rebuke: “For you are still unspiritual… you are living just like men of the world.”

Paul said elsewhere that believers are all baptized into one Spirit. If we are all listening to that one Spirit, there can be no dissention. Agreement to disagree maybe, but that is done in a loving way without rancor. And the other blessings of zoe-life come into play. Paul listed some for the Ephesians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self control. The fruit of the Spirit is a benefit of life in the Spirit –zoe-life. The next time you are about to make a decision, whether it is in the church or in the grocery store, pause to consider its backdrop. Does it flow from the Spirit, or does it come from things of this world; are the results likely to be gold, silver, and precious stones or wood, hay, and stubble? Remember: things of this world lead to death; things of the Spirit are life – zoe-life.

 

The Awkward Funeral

A friend recently asked me to suggest some Scripture to comfort a mutual acquaintance who had lost his son in an accident. To our knowledge, neither the father nor the son had trusted Christ. I was stymied. The harsh truth will be no comfort; the son is gone and there is no hope for a blessed eternity for him – not if you believe the Bible. I am certain this type of situation is what makes the idea of reincarnation popular. It may also explain why annihilation appeals to some. If my departed loved one will come back in some pleasant form, that is comforting. Likewise, if death is the end of life and not a beginning as the Bible teaches, annihilation erases the painful thought of eternal punishment.

Regardless of what a non-believer thinks, as believers we have a responsibility to share truth. After giving it some thought, I recommended my friend share Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 for starters. It is biblical truth that death is part of life, and though it offers no comfort, at least it states the inevitability and universality.

“To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven:

² A time to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck what is planted;

³ A time to kill,

And a time to heal;

A time to break down,

And a time to build up;

⁴ A time to weep,

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn,

And a time to dance.”

I suggested she follow that up by saying that our Christian faith teaches us to weep with those who weep. It is a Christlike thing to show sympathy for those who are mourning. I suggested that at some point, it would be appropriate to ask the grieving parent if he was comfortable with his own idea of the afterlife. She might try something like the Evangelism Explosion tactic of asking why God should let him into Heaven – assuming he believes in Heaven. If that’s too harsh, she could simply ask what he thinks comes after death. It may sound heartless to push this kind of thing on a mourner, but that state of mind is often where we make our most dramatic descoveries.

Sadly, this situation is going to become more the norm than the exception as our society becomes more fully pagan. It is surprising how quickly we have traveled down this road. My parents’ generation either professed Christianity or at least used biblical language to excuse or accuse their behavior. There was an undercurrent of Judeo-Christian thought that provided a basis for conversation with almost any American. Even the people who spurned Christianity would often admit that they were probably going to Hell, but they pretended not to care. “Foxhole prayers” were common among those who otherwise had no relationship with the God of the Bible.

It has taken less than fifty years to almost fully erase God-consciousness from our society. We often point to the removal of the Bible and prayer from schools as the cause of this tragic situation, but I suspect that was more a symptom than a cause. Had the parents of the 1960’s and 70’s been more concerned and involved with such decisions, the move to secularize education might have been thwarted. Many of those who were concerned did what I did: withdraw from public education and join the Christian school movement. That was a fine thing, but I feel a little guilty that we didn’t do more to fight against the ruination of public schools. The late twentieth century concepts of values clarification and situation ethics has morphed into what we see today: WOKE attitudes toward gender and morality, critical race theory, and outright enmity against anything Christian.

As believers, we need to prepare for more of those awkward funerals. The best way to do that is to talk to our pagan neighbors before we have to attend their wake. I have previously alluded to W.B. Yeats poem, “The Second Coming.” I am surprised at how prescient his observations were. We have witnessed his prediction:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity…

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand…. 

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

The Bible predicts that things will get worse and worse before the end comes. That fact is not a reason to hunker down and wait; it is rather the very reason we should redouble our efforts to spread the news that God’s kingdom has come and to make every effort to see His will done on earth as it is in Heaven. Everyone we reach with the good news is rescued from the awkward funeral. Everyone we bring to the Savior born in Bethlehem will be safe from the rough beast whose hour seems to be coming round at last.

Related posts: Why Witness; Hell? Yes!; Today’s Chaldean Chastisement; I Pray for America

Why Witness?

R.C. Sproul, a well-known reformed theologian, once told of an experience he had in a seminary class. The professor asked why Christians should bother with evangelism if God’s sovereign election was responsible for choosing the saints. As he went around the circle asking each student individually, the professor didn’t hear one acceptable answer. When he came to Sproul, the student hesitated, then said almost as a question, “Because Jesus commanded it.”

That is the only right answer. No matter what you think about sovereign election, the command remains as recorded in Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus said to His disciples: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus gave a command based on His divine authority over all things. But the primary command was not to “Go.” Without getting too deep in the weeds of Greek grammar, let me just say that “Go” in this verse is a participle. As such, it cannot be the main verb in the sentence. What is the main verb? “Make disciples.” “Make disciples” is in the imperative voice – the voice of command. You might think that doesn’t matter, but it does. If the main command of Jesus was to “go,” that would make evangelism – making disciples – something we go off to do as a special activity. If going is the command, we can sit back most days and ignore disciple-making because we are not “going” at that particular moment. If I go to Africa or I go door-to-door, then I can be about making disciples. Otherwise, I am exempt from the command.

However, if the main verb, the imperative, is “make disciples,” “go,” the participle, tells me how to make disciples. Strictly translating it as a participle, it would be “going.” But there is more to the Greek than that. A text on Greek grammar says this about the participle used in Matthew: “[The participle] conceives of action not as in progress (Present), nor as an existing result (Perfect), but as a simple fact.” Out of 16 translations on my computer, there is the only one not saying “GO;” it is Young’s Literal Translation which renders it as “having gone.” I would translate it as, “as you get on with your life….”

If you are thinking that this all belongs in some graduate level linguistics course, let me explain why it belongs right here, right now. I believe in something called plenary verbal inspiration of the Bible. Basically, that means every word in the original text was given by God. As such, I believe Matthew was given the Greek words in the particular tenses that God wanted him to use. So, it does matter if “go” is an imperative or a participle. The proper translation gives us the proper instructions for how we are supposed to evangelize aka make disciples. How is that? By living our daily lives as disciple makers.

Now let’s move on to the rest of Jesus’ command, “baptizing them… teaching them.” The baptizing part is pretty clear. Paul says that when we are baptized, we are identified with Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. There have been arguments over the centuries about how much water to use and when to administer it, but baptism as a concept is fairly simple. “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” is more complex. Truthfully, teaching is implied in the making of disciples; a disciple is literally a learner – that’s what the Greek term means. So, where there are learners, there must be teachers. What did Jesus teach?

I am going to suggest that there is a basic teaching of Jesus that is the focus for His command to make disciples. If you boil Jesus’ ministry down to one main theme, it would be that the Kingdom of God or Heaven had come. The Sermon on the Mount was instruction for kingdom living. Many of the parables taught specific kingdom principles. The ideal prayer He taught His disciples opens with, “Thy kingdom come,” and it ends with, “Thine is the kingdom.” He told believers that if they would seek the kingdom, all other things would be theirs. On the day He was crucified, standing before Pilate He admitted the existence of a kingdom, though not one of this world.

I should explain at this point that the Greek word for “kingdom” is more about what the king does than where he does it. In other words, the word didn’t conjure up geographical spaces; it was more about the idea of ruling or reigning. If you were under the rule or reign of a king, you were in his “kingdom.” So, the kingdom of God was a reference to God being the ruler of your life.

The word “kingdom” appears 127 times in the Gospel records. Jesus used it often. But there is another word that appears almost three times more often than kingdom: that word is father. Before Jesus came, the Jews were comfortable with the idea that God was the father of Israel; a common term for the nation was “children of Israel.” Calling someone a child implies a father. But when Jesus called God “My Father,” the Jews became incensed. They tried to stone Jesus on one occasion because they said calling God “my father” was a claim that He and the Father were equal. The Jews couldn’t accept that. Yet, Jesus spoke of the Father over three hundred times in the Gospel accounts. Why so much emphasis? (For more on this, see “Through the Bible in Seven Minutes”)

If you think about it, the message is pretty easy to understand. God made us, and He has plans for us. The kingdom we enter when we trust Christ is the Kingdom of our Father. It’s not a nation; it’s a family. Redemption is about God getting back what is rightfully His as creator. Redemption is about a cosmic battle between forces that operate at a level far above your pay grade. Granted, we play a role demonstrating God’s grace to His heavenly host, but we are the pawns, not the kings in the cosmic chess match. As Paul says to the Ephesians, we can take part in the battle if we choose. We have also been offered the chance to take part in the victory celebration when the battle is finally over. In that final glorious day, we will take all our righteous accomplishments, those things the Bible symbolizes as crowns, and gladly place them at the foot of the throne of God.

If you ever wanted to get involved in something bigger than yourself, this is your best chance. This is what we have to share with our fellow travelers on this fallen earth. There is a reason to live, and it not only gives us purpose now, but it promises an eternity of peace with God. That’s a story you can share happily. That’s why we witness.

Related posts: Two Pressing Questions; Understanding Salvation; What Happens to People Who Never Hear About Jesus?

I’m Not Afraid to Die

I was having a conversation with a friend recently about a person’s attitude when death comes calling. She believed that everyone would cling to life in hopes that death could be avoided as long as possible. She had recently lost a loved one, so her thoughts were deeply personal and based on her own ideas about death and the afterlife. When I told her that I would welcome death because it is the door to a better life, she told me I might think differently if I were the one facing a terminal diagnosis.

I think she is wrong; I hope she is wrong. I haven’t heard the grim reaper’s steps in the hall, but I have a deep, abiding faith in what Scripture teaches about life after death. I think it is an expression of that faith that allows me the confidence to say that I will welcome it when it comes knocking. This position touches a subject I have covered previously: Confidence versus Arrogance. When I express absolute confidence (aka faith) in the Word of God, it sounds arrogant to unbelievers and believers who have not yet accomplished the renewal of their minds recommended by Paul.

What are the Scriptures that should renew our mortal fear of death? The first that comes to my mind is Paul’s poetic echo of the prophets in 1 Corinthians. “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” Because I no longer bear the penalty for my sin which was taken by Christ on the cross, I have confidence that the sting of death is gone, and it is replaced by my joyous victory over it.

So then, death becomes a stage in life, a life everlasting with great expectations of continued joy. While I don’t pretend to know exactly what or how the transformation from this life to the next will be, I have numerous Scriptural clues about it. For one, Jesus told His disciples just before His death and resurrection that He was going away to prepare a place for them where they would join Him later. The place Jesus referred to (His Father’s house) is in that realm or dimension where God is said to dwell, often called Heaven.

This raises a question about exactly what Heaven is or where Heaven is. Curiously, in naming the disciples’ future destination, Jesus used a word that might well be translated “hotel.” This tempts us to think that the place Jesus referred to is not our permanent eternal dwelling, but rather a waystation between life on this earth and life on the new earth which will be created in God’s good time. Whatever or wherever the place is, we get a sense that we will have a consciousness that we will carry from this life to the next; otherwise, Jesus would not have suggested that His disciples would be joining Him there. His subsequent death and resurrection revealed a new body that bore recognizable marks of the old but with capabilities that were new.

Although many people believe that Christians go to Heaven when they die, this is not exactly what the Bible says. When the word heaven is used, especially by Jesus, it is in the context of the “Kingdom of Heaven.” In those instances, Jesus was not referring to a far distant place, but rather to a condition of God’s sovereign rule. The rule of Heaven is a metonymy much like the modern reference to the authority of the “White House.” What’s in view is a matter of control or reign; it’s what Jesus taught His disciples to pray for: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” We are to pray that “Heaven” would have complete control over the events of our earthly existence. Jesus repeatedly said that the Kingdom of Heaven, the sovereign rule of God had already burst onto the earthly scene with His incarnation. He never suggested it was the place we go when we die.

The fact is the Bible says very little about where we go when we die. One of the most encouraging passages is Paul’s declaration that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Paul does not elaborate on where that presence is, but he is confident that he will share a relationship with the Lord he serves. Jesus seems to have hinted at this reality when on the cross He told the penitent thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” No description or explanation is given as to what or where “Paradise” might be. Suffice it to say that it will be more than pleasant, particularly if that is where Jesus dwells.

Some of the most detailed hints we get about the afterlife are in Paul’s long dissertation on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. We learn there that at some point after death, we receive a different kind of body. We are not going to be resurrected with the same body we died with. Paul makes the point that when you bury a seed, the resulting growth is far different from the seed with characteristics and capabilities far surpassing the mere seed. That will be the case with our resurrection bodies.

We see hints of that in the body Jesus returned with after His death, resurrection, and ascension. He could pop in and out of rooms without bothering with doors; He could transit between the realm of God’s dwelling (Heaven?) and our earthly plane at will. He was recognized by His disciples even to the point of showing them the wounds caused by His crucifixion. The apostle John says that we don’t know precisely what form our bodies will take, but he says with confidence that we will be like Jesus because we will see Jesus as He is. We will have spiritual eyes enabled to see the spiritual bodies Paul says we get upon our resurrection.

This is not to suggest that our new bodies are not corporeal—physical in some sense. We are not to go the way of the Greek philosophers or the Gnostic Christians who believed flesh was evil, and our ultimate goal was to attain a spiritual existence devoid of the physical form in which we occupy space on earth. Paul assures us that we will be resurrected in a body; his point is that it will be a body of a different sort, though it will be recognizable as who we were.

When God created the earth and put humans on it, He declared that it was good. Sin stained that goodness, but God has promised to recreate it once again. That is why I am not afraid to die: I want to experience that Edenic perfection and intimate fellowship God intended for His children. The truth is I am looking forward to it. But I say with Paul that it is better that I remain on earth until my Lord is finished with me. The God who created everything and everyone has a family to gather; when it is complete, we are all going home. I am ready whenever He is.

Rebuking the Darkness

My daily Bible reading had me in Matthew eight and nine today. In this passage, Matthew records several miraculous deeds Jesus performed early in His ministry: healing a paralytic, healing Peter’s mother-in-law, calming a stormy sea and casting demons into a herd of pigs. This list of miracles was probably written by Matthew to convince his mostly Jewish readers that Jesus is the Son of God. Something in the way Matthew presented these struck me today.

When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he found Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever. Matthew says he touched her, and the fever left her. I have always been fascinated by the way Dr. Luke describes what Jesus did because it seems to take a more scientific tone. Luke says Jesus “rebuked” the fever, and it left her. I don’t know if the rebuke was spoken or not, but I like to imagine Jesus saying, “Fever! Get out! You don’t belong here.” I think Jesus knew what we now know: the fever was caused by something in the woman’s body that did not belong. (Maybe it was an early form of the corona virus.)

The reason Luke’s version popped onto my radar this morning is the word, “rebuked.” When I read in Matthew that Jesus “rebuked” the stormy sea, I double-checked to see if it was the same word Luke used in reference to the fever; it is. The Greek word these two men used (ἐπιτιμάω) has a wide range of meaning, but in essence it means to put something in its place. When Jesus encountered the fever in Peter’s mother-in-law, He put it in its place: out of Peter’s mother-in-law. When Jesus was awakened to the stormy sea, He put the wind and waves in their place: they stilled.

Matthew’s point – and mine too – is that only God has the right to put such things in their place. Jesus could rebuke these elements because they are part of the world He created, and He still has power over them. The case with the paralytic is equally interesting because what Jesus did was put sin in its place: forgiven. Paralysis, fever, windstorm – all are elements of earth which exist because of the curse brought upon Creation by Adam’s rebellion. I think it is safe to say that there would never have been disease or destruction in the Garden had Adam not eaten the forbidden fruit.

You may be asking how this matters beyond establishing Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God. Here’s how: the same Jesus who was in the boat on the Sea of Galilee in first century Palestine is in the boat with us today. The kingdom rule He was exercising then is still being exercised today. I am not going to tell you that you have the power to rebuke a fever and expect the same results Jesus got every time. It could happen, but you have to get really close to Jesus to know if that’s what he would have you do. Remember the seven sons of Sceva who tried to use Jesus’ name inappropriately and how they got whupped by the demons.

What we can do without doubt is stand where Jesus stands: put the sin-wracked world in its place. It’s all about the attitude, the perspective. We need to see things the way Jesus sees them. Remember what happened to Peter when he foolishly jumped out of the boat to walk on water then took his eyes off Jesus. He sank. Ephesians says we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies right now. From that vantage point, sin is already conquered; the enemy is already defeated. But notice, in both stormy stories, the disciples were in fear; in both stories, Jesus chided His disciples for having little faith.

I find the most valuable lesson in Peter’s water-walking episode. Jesus called Peter’s faith small AFTER Peter stepped out of the boat. Really? What did the water-walking disciple do wrong? He took his eyes off Jesus. There it is: no matter what you are facing, keep your perspective – the heavenly perspective. We are not alone in this boat; Jesus is right here as promised. Whether it’s disease, destruction or death, put it in its place. It is not for nothing we are said to be, “More than conquerors.” We are assured that nothing, “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We walk by faith, not by sight. So, fear not, little flock; it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

And the Light was Good

If you are a regular reader, you know that I am fascinated by many things, but few interest me more than the intersection of science and faith. I am not one who sees contradictions or disagreements between what God’s Word says and what science asserts. I firmly believe that where such differences appear to exist, the problem is either in our interpretation of the biblical text or in our understanding of the science. The problem is never in the biblical record itself.

Some of the most heated debates concerning science and the Bible center on the first few paragraphs of Scripture. Naturally, many unbelievers argue that the concept of an omnipotent deity creating the material universe is a pre-scientific myth. The best approach to that position is to pray that the Spirit who gives faith to the fallen would open their hearts (and then their minds) to the truth.

There are other issues that even believers struggle with. Did God create all things ex nihilo (out of nothing), or did He begin with a pre-existing something, perhaps an earlier creation of His? Does the Bible in fact claim that God completed His creative work in six twenty-four-hour periods? Did all the creatures survive on a vegetable diet as originally created?  How could God create light (Day One) before light-makers (Day Four)?

I would like to suggest a possible answer to the last question. Know that the theory I propose stems from a deep reverence for the biblical text and a desire to treat it as literally as the context will allow. In that framework, I suggest that when God spoke light into existence, His creative act included more than just the visible spectrum of electro-magnetic (EM) energy which we call “light.” Light is the only part of the spectrum that would be sensible to the first readers of the text, so the idea would be coherent to them. Science has since discovered that visible light is a miniscule part of the full EM spectrum (on a linear scale it is 0.0035%).

We have also learned that much of what was thought to be “matter” is really not matter but energy. As science has bored deeper into the nature of all material things, it has become clear that what we call matter is in fact organized energy. I mean that the building blocks of “matter,” such things as protons, neutrons, electrons, etc., may actually be packets of energy. The science beneath this assertion is still in its infancy. Einstein began the discussion of whether light is a particle stream or an energy wave. Strangely, scientists have discovered that light behaves as a stream of particles when studied as particles, and it behaves as a wave when studied as a wave. As far as I know, there is still no clear explanation for this phenomenon.

Elementary logic insists that if A and B are different, A cannot be B and B cannot be A. Therefore, light cannot be both a material particle and an energy wave. If I set that dilemma aside for the moment, I can still see how God could have brought energy into existence initially and then organized it into the forms we know as matter. The text of Genesis lends itself to that idea.

According to the Faithlife Study Bible, “The Hebrew word for “create” (bara or בָּרָא)…. conveys the idea of ordering or determining function, suggesting God’s creative activity consists of bringing proper order and function to the cosmos.” In other words, God spoke the building blocks of the material universe into existence and then organized them into the organic and inorganic things we perceive as matter and energy. Chaos first; then order.

Curiously, the Hebrew words for evening and morning to delineate the days of creation also lean toward the idea of organizing. For reasons of His own, God chose to begin His day with “evening” and end it with “morning.” We know the Jews have historically followed this order; they begin the day with sunset. When you consider that according to Genesis 1:2, God started creating when “darkness was over the face of the deep,” it makes sense that evening would be the beginning of the creative day

The New Testament continues support for this concept. The Greek word for the material universe is “cosmos” and has a basic meaning of “order.” The opposite of order is chaos. Sin, by the way, is stepping out of order into chaos. “Walk in the light,” John says, “and we have fellowship….and the blood of [Christ] cleanses us from all sin.” Interesting. God started it all in darkness; then turned on the light. Chaos first; then order.

There are additional New Testament passages that lend support to this theory. In Colossians 1:17, Paul asserts that Christ “holds all things together.” Years ago, when scientists discovered that the nucleus of an atom has an unknown force holding it together, they dubbed it the Colossian Principle. I suspect it was tongue-in-cheek for the secular mind, but I find it quite descriptive. Christ, by the Word of his power (Hebrews 1:3), does indeed hold the material universe together.

For an explanation of what will happen if He ever releases His hold, read 2 Peter 3:12, “and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” (KJV) Splitting the atom has uncovered an energy source like no other. We refer to “nuclear power” and “nuclear bombs” to explain the awesome power that results from releasing the force that holds the nucleus together. Imagine the energy that will be generated when Christ calls an end to this material universe in preparation for the New Heavens and New Earth. Imagine the energy (heat) that will be generated when every atom in the universe expends is nuclear energy. Fervent heat indeed!

According to the Faithlife Study Bible, “God calls His handiwork good seven times in [Genesis 1]. The Hebrew word used here [for “good”]… generally describes what is desirable, beautiful, or right. In essence, God affirms creation as right and in right relationship with Him.” I picture God sitting back on the seventh day and saying, “All right!” Sadly, things went all wrong shortly thereafter, but God promised to bring things back to “right” when He sent the Word (His organizing principle) to be the Light of humanity (John1:4 LEB) One of the many things Jesus called his followers was “the light of the world.” The church, as Christ’s body, is the light shining in the darkness as many Old Testament prophecies proclaimed.

As believers, we are rescued from the power of darkness and relocated in the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son, who is the Light. (Colossians1:13) In response, we let our light shine like stars in the universe so that our fellowman may see God’s goodness (order/righteousness) and turn from their darkness (chaos/sin) to the Light of the World. It all began when God said, “Light! Be!” And it was good!

Ask the Right Question.

Yesterday I attended the memorial service for a young man who died from a drug overdose. One of the speakers suggested that given the deceased’s religious belief, one might ask why God allowed such an evil to occur. The speaker suggested that a better question might be why anything good ever happens given the fallen state of Creation and the deplorable condition of humanity in general.

Believers and unbelievers alike wonder why a supposedly good God would allow bad things to happen. Both camps will sometimes suggest that the Bible has been misinterpreted, and either God is not good, or that He is not powerful enough to stop the spread of evil. A true reading of the Bible does not support either one of these options; God is good, and He is all-powerful. This leaves the believer with an unanswered question.

The unbeliever is really asking a question that has no meaning if he honestly thinks there is no god. Since most unbelievers, and sadly, some believers, think that Creation is a myth, and that the material universe came into existence as the result of time and chance, asking a moral question is illogical. If there is no design to the universe, no moral imperative behind it, there is no such thing as good or evil.

Creatures that evolved through eons of time and chance mutation from ever lower life forms would not have any moral qualities. When a worm dies under to hoof of a passing cow, there is no question of evil; it’s just life. When a squirrel is snatched from a tree and eaten by a hawk, there is no question of evil; it’s just life. When a baby seal dies from exposure because he was separated from his mother, there is no question of evil; it’s just life. When tens of thousands of people die in the aftermath of a tsunami, there is no question of evil; it’s just life.

The other side of the coin for the unbeliever is the existence of fortuitous circumstances. (Notice I did not call them “good.”) If the cow misses the worm, or the hawk goes hungry, or the seal reunites with his mother, or someone escapes the raging ocean, there is no question of good; it’s just the time for chance to allow another day of life. A true agnostic or atheist cannot ask a moral question because it reveals a hidden belief that there is a standard of good and evil that can only come from an outside source.

Granted, the unbeliever may propose that society creates moral laws as a function of a higher level of intellectual evolution. This is an unsatisfactory explanation since there is a core morality that is evident in all societies in all eras that bespeaks an underlying code that preceded the supposed evolution of the human intellect. The framers of the US Constitution recognized this when they supported their cause based on certain unalienable rights drawn from what was then known as natural law, or as they believed, rights granted by a Creator: sanctity of life, freedom of operation, and property rights. I would add that familial loyalty is another moral quality also evident everywhere across the ages.

The real question is why any moral standards exist which incorporate the concept of good and evil. The unbeliever may resist an explanation that proposes a moral being of higher power than humans, but the believer realizes that therein lies the only acceptable answer. God created everything and declared it good. It was only after the creatures He created rebelled that evil entered the equation. The operative question then becomes, why God allowed rebellion. The easy answer is that humans were created with the freedom to choose not to obey. This is necessary if freedom of will is to mean anything. If His creatures had no possibility of disobedience, obedience to His standards would be meaningless.

Now I am ready to go back to the better question posed by the speaker at yesterday’s memorial service: why do we experience moral good in this fallen world? The answer is easy for a believer: God gives grace. There is something called general grace which provides rain for both the just and the unjust, the believer and the unbeliever. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat all come from the gracious provision of the Creator God. The concept of Earth as the “privileged planet” makes it clear that the very existence of life is only possible because of multiple exact “coincidences” which support life here. General grace is available to all.

There is another kind of grace, specific grace, which is only available to some. This grace is given as a gift to those who believe in the Giver, to those who place their trust in His graciousness. The family and friends of the deceased were told they would see him again because of the promise that those who trust God will spend eternity with him after life on Earth is over. It is tragic that the young man we were remembering yesterday had his life cut short (by our measure, not God’s) due to the evil that consumed him. That young man died struggling with an imperfection; he is now perfect.

That is the promise of grace. Imperfect people (the only kind that exist) are promised perfection on the other side of the grave. There is no sting in death because it is the door to perfection. There is no victory in the grave because the All-Gracious One overcame the grave and promised His followers the same thing. Today the young man we remembered sees that clearly rather than through a glass darkly as we do. By grace, evil is eventually overcome. The real question is whether a person will accept the grace that is freely offered or reject it. It is really that simple.

The Goodness of Wrath

If you follow my blog regularly, you know that recently I confessed to some waywardness in my daily Bible reading due to an overwhelming sense of the wrath of God as expressed in the Old Testament. (See “Daily BibleReading” and “Not Our Fathers’ God.”) I came to the somewhat snarky conclusion at one point saying, “He’s a God of wrath; get over it.” In my procession through the Old Testament, I am now at Jeremiah, the weeping prophet as he is sometimes called. I note that the God of Israel is also said to weep over the condition of His wayward children. This opened my eyes to something I had forgotten.

Jeremiah 9:24 says, “Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” While it is true that “justice” which can be translated “judgment” is prominent, and I note that it is executed in “righteousness,” both words are preceded by another, softer phrase.

The phrase “steadfast love” as in the ESV or “lovingkindness” in the KJV is where I want to focus. Neither translation fully captures the essence of the Hebrew word “hesed.” The King James Bible Word Book has this to say about it: “Hesed is a covenant word. Its original use was to denote that attitude of loyalty and faithfulness which both parties to a covenant should maintain toward each other…. When the word came to be used predominantly of the Covenant between Jehovah and Israel, it was realized by the prophets that such a covenant could be maintained only by that persistent, determined, steadfast love of God, which transcends every other love by its nature and depth.… The most important of all the distinctive ideas of the Old Testament is God’s steady and extraordinary persistence in continuing to love wayward Israel in spite of Israel’s insistent waywardness.”

God chose to love His children in spite of their “insistent waywardness.” The Hebrew word, hesed, is frequently translated “mercy” in recognition of the fact that because of His love, God does not give Israel everything she deserves, but chooses mercy over complete annihilation. The theme of a remnant to be saved appears throughout the prophets. So while the God of Israel does exercise righteous judgment, He also commends His merciful love to His people.

This is a comfort to me also. God does not give me what I deserve, but shows mercy in the gift of righteousness purchased by the precious blood of His only-begotten Son. I deserve wrath; I receive mercy. Someone has said that we only appreciate light because we know darkness. If God did not pour out His wrath against sin, His merciful love would be meaningless. Because He does judge the wicked, His love of the redeemed is more significant.

I am going to retract my snarky comment; I don’t think we should “get over” the wrath of God. I think we should revel in its significance. There but for the grace of God go I. God emptied His wrath on Calvary’s Savior so that I could enjoy eternity basking in His merciful love. The Old Testament is still bloody awful, but I am prepared to make the defense that it was bloody necessary. 

True Lies

I am tired of being lied to. I just scanned my spam blocker's contents and found two I thought were not spam. One had UPS in the address and the other something about Mail Delivery; both had suspicious looking links in the text and multiple recipients even though they were supposedly personal information. I dumped them both back into Spamland without opening them.

Truth bending advertisers have been tricking gullibles into questionable purchases since advertising was born, I imagine. Fliers circulated in 17th century Britain lured adventurers with promise of untold wealth to be had in "Virginia," the generic name for the New World of North America. The history of Plymouth or Jamestown reports the scoop on that story. Early American snakeoil salesmen promised elixirs that would cure everything from gout to shyness. Some were herbal potions with potential healing effects, but many were little more than colored water with a shot of liquor for taste.

Today claims are shouted from all around us, from late night TV to endless email spam blasts. The ones that upset me the most, though, come from advertising driven by politics. One should not be surprised; again, history is replete with examples of less-than-truthful politicians. If one examines the root of the word, there is no surprise. A dietitian specializes in diet; an optician specializes in eyes; a politician specializes in the "polis," the people. They know how to work the crowd, con the mark and fleece the pilgrims.

Even knowing this, I still hate being lied to. There are too many examples to count, but I will offer three. George H.W. Bush emphatically declared in his presidential campaign that he would propose, "No new taxes! Read my lips," he famously said. We all know how that played out. Then there is Clinton's infamous, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Right. Today it is Obama decrying the partisan spirit in politics, saying repeatedly that he dislikes party rancor. Yet he is the one who insults Republican Congressman Paul Ryan who is sitting on the front row of his budget speech. He is the one who insinuates that Republicans want to dismantle Medicare and Social Security. He is the one who brands Tea Party members as radical extremists. Etcetera ad nauseum.

Finally on my list of peevish liars are the atheists who claim to know there is no god. This cannot be true, logically, and I suspect Christopher Hitchens and the gang are intelligent enough to realize this. But they promulgate the lie regardless. They may think there is no god, and for that position I would say, "Bon chance." But to categorically exclude the possibility that a god exists is arrogant foolishness. The ground for many atheists belief is in fact their disbelief in the miraculous. They cannot imagine a being of higher intellect and power than their own inflated ego, so they deny such a being can exist. One wonders if worms slithering across wet sidewalks deny the existence of boot-shod feet.

I am thinking about miracles and truth just now because it is Resurrection Sunday. Many people, sadly even some who call themselves Christians (only God knows,) do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. The philosopher known as Apostle Paul body slams that idea by asserting that without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no Christianity. Sine qua non. Christ Jesus' return from the grave is the miracle of Truth in the flesh, or is it the truth of a fleshed out miracle? However you conceive it, because He died, I live; because He lives, I will never die. And I will always hate the lie.

Weep Now

Thousands upon thousands are dead following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Thousands more will die from related injuries, disease or radiation poisoning. Watching the video images of walls of mud and debris sweep entire communities from their foundations made my soul shiver. Pardon a Star Wars analogy, but I remember the reaction of Obiwan Kenobi when the Imperial Death Star destroyed the planet Alderaan. He said he felt a disturbance in the Force as if thousands of lives had been ended. I felt like that.

I wonder if God felt like that. Many thousands of his creatures lived in a town called Minami Sanriku in northern Japan. The tsunami bowled through the streets taking everything with it as it swept through town and headed inland. Large tracts of homes where children once did their homework and mothers cooked supper have given way to a newly formed ocean inlet. Dinner has been postponed; homework will not be handed in.

I wonder if God weeps over things like that. My theology tells me that tragedy like this is not what God originally had planned. I believe the doctrine that says humanity is doomed because our first parents made a choice to disregard their Maker’s instructions and to forge their own way in the world. I believe this act of human independence had cosmic consequences. To this day we reap the whirlwind sown in Eden’s soft breeze.

I wonder if God has I-told-you-so in His vocabulary. He did warn us that things would get ugly if His rules were not obeyed. Yet we still build small cities in coastal regions prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. We plant large cities in river deltas below sea level where hurricanes frequently blow. We build in flood plains all along the Mississippi River. Then we act surprised and blame God when stuff happens.

Or we turn our backs on Him by tossing the Bible and prayer out of schools and filling our kid’s heads with “value free” education then watch in dismay as the crime rate, teen pregnancy rate, and the divorce rate all climb like bottle rockets. We criminalize corporal punishment at home and at school then complain because there is no controlling our young people. We turn a blind eye to a politician’s private moral failures then act surprised when his public practices and policies turn out to be equally shady.

I despise the actions of people who would seek to gain by other’s tragedy; I remember Rahm Emanuel’s admonition not to waste a good crisis. Still I would like to take to my soapbox and make some use of the mood sensitive people acquire during tragic aftermaths. This is a good time to remind our neighbors that there is sound theology in the bumper sticker that says, “Sh** Happens.” We live in a fallen world. It is not just people who bear the consequences of sin; all of creation groans under its effects. Weep with those who weep for Minami Sanriku. Then tell them that a day of no more tears is coming. Share the hope.