What’s Normal
I don’t particularly care for the normal Christian life, at least, not what passed for normal among many Christian friends I’ve known. It had seemed to me for some time that the best to which many Christians can aspire is to be a genuinely nice person and to “win someone to Christ” from time to time. This does not especially interest me.
(I should say that evangelism is critically important to the Christian life; don’t get me wrong. I’m irked, however, by (1) the idea of “winning” souls, as if it were a game and I’m trying to capture as many as I can. I’d rather introduce someone to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has conquered death and pledged to covenant himself with us. And (2) I don’t like the notion that evangelism is the best possible thing we Christians could be doing.)
You don’t have to read too long in the Bible before you begin to realize that at every stage of the biblical record, God is doing things that people just can’t do. He is constantly performing the miraculous. Abraham and Sarah have their only child on the cusp of 100 years. Jacob seems to prosper materially beyond any of his own efforts. Joseph is seemingly swept through a tumultuous life up to the position of vice-pharaoh. He also happens to interpret dreams. Miracles seem to follow many of the judges. Jericho crumbles at the sound of shouting. I could go on, but the point is that the recorded history of God, as detailed in scripture, is filled with the actions of a God who loves to do the extraordinary.
I remember a time in college, as my junior year began, when a friend of mine invited me to a prayer gathering at his apartment. Several other men on campus would be joining us simply to connect with our God and lift one another up in prayer. Another classmate of mine, Steve, was there and Steve had torn a ligament in his knee that summer. Steve played on the basketball team, but doctors had told him the recovery time for his injury would keep him off the court that winter. The lot of us at the prayer meeting dutifully agreed to pray for Steve.
I remember being frustrated by the prayers my friends offered on Steve’s behalf. They were undoubtedly nice prayers. “Lord, bring him comfort.” “Lord, encourage him.” Still, I was frustrated.
At the time, I’m pretty sure I was reading a lot of the Old Testament, where there are several occasions in which the authors predict miraculous events. These wonders, they repeatedly declare, will enable all who witness them to know that Yahweh is God (see Exo 8:10; Jos 3:10; 4:24; 1 Kgs 18:37). These were all either bold prayers or bold prophesies.
So I prayed for Steve out of my frustration and out of what I had been reading in God’s Word. I asked that Steve would recover far faster than doctors anticipated. I prayed that Steve might still play basketball that winter, against all logic. And that by his presence on the court, he would carry in his body a testimony that declared to all that our God was indeed God.
See, I wonder if we’ve taken the very good Christian advice to live simply and applied it to our expectations of God. Of course, it is a good thing to live content with the things we have and to use only what we need. But a simple life ought not to keep us from asking our God for extravagance where He is involved. When Lazarus died, Jesus did not ask to comfort his sisters, Martha and Mary. Rather, he asked his Father for Lazarus’ life back – an opulent request (John 11). Peter and John came upon a crippled man at the Temple and did not pray for his encouragement, they told him to get up and walk home (Acts 3).
Several months after we prayed for Steve, he did indeed receive a few minutes of playing time before the end of the season. I had completely forgotten about my prayer and had to be reminded of it by another friend. Nevertheless, I was happy to see that Steve was actually comforted and encouraged, along with any number of others who witnessed his exceptional recovery and the work of our Lord. Now that’s the kind of normal Christian life in which I’d like to participate.
Hope, Briefly
I found these two verses the other day and I thought I’d share them.
“Son of man, what is this proverb you people have about the land of Israel, which goes: The days keep passing by, and every vision fails? Therefore say to them: This is what the Lord God says: I will put a stop to this proverb, and they will not use it again in Israel. But say to them: The days draw near, as well as the fulfillment of every vision” (Ezk 12:22-23).
I like being reminded that it’s God’s intention to complete each of his promises. I like hope.
Like Father, Like Son … Really
Not too long ago, a good friend of mine asked me if I could explain why Jesus looks so different from the God she read about in the Old Testament. How could they be the same God, she wondered, if Jesus looks so loving and compassionate and Yahweh of the Old Testament appears so mean?
Then the other day I read the insights of my friend Jon, who was trying to reconcile the same apparent tension.
Both of these friends are committed Christians and still find two very different personalities in Yahweh and Jesus. Is this the way it is for most Christians?
I have to admit, as I did to my first friend, that the more I read the Old Testament, the more I actually find that God to be exactly like Jesus. I’ll also admit that I can understand where the apparent discord comes from. On the surface, they don’t exactly look like two persons of the same Trinity (though this may have been where Jon was going with it – the yin & yang of the Trinity (excuse the metaphor) (and, oh yeah, what does that make the Holy Spirit?)).
So I figure I’ll try to explain the way I look at it.
First, is the God of the Old Testament really as loving as the Jesus of the New Testament?
Yes, I think so. Just this morning I was reading a little bit of Ezekiel, where the Lord says, “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?” (Ezk 18:23) And later He tells Ezekiel, “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (Ezk 18:32)
It reminds me of some other rather loving words that God shares again and again in the Old Testament. For example, in the middle of Hosea, where Israel is being compared to a cheating wife for worshiping the gods of the surrounding nations, the Lord says, “Therefore, I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. … In that day … you will call my ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master’” (Hos 2:14, 16).
Or you could simply look at some of the things God does. Like how after Adam and Eve reject Him in Eden, God did not reject them in kind, but rather made clothes for them (some have suggested that what the Lord does here is like welcoming them back into His family) in Genesis 3:21. Or look at what the Lord does for Cain after he kills Abel. God does not destroy the murderer, but places a mark of protection on him (Gen 4:15). Or what about the love He showed to Israel after they had spent 400 years in slavery in Egypt – you know the 10 plagues and the Red Sea and all (Exo 7-14)?
Continue reading through the Old Testament and you will find over and over God who burns with love for all people. You will find a God who gets rejected by the objects of His love again and again and again, and yet He still pursues them relentlessly.
But what of all that cursing and wrath business? Isn’t that what ties most people up about the God of the Old Testament?
Think about it this way. God creates an umbrella called “His blessing.” For as long as I live under it by trusting in the Lord and His way, there is abundant protection and blessing. If, however, I step outside of that umbrella by doing things my way, then I’ve taken myself out of His provision and I know what to expect. There’s trouble there, sure, but God’s promise of protection and provision and blessing haven’t moved. I did.
And really, Jesus works the same way. Jesus did indeed die and rise from the dead to remove the sins of the entire world (1 Cor 15:3; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 3:18). But if I don’t believe that to be true, I will live my life outside of the freedom he offers. The opportunity to live without the weight of my own failures is there, but I’ve chosen to refuse that gift and continue to reside under condemnation. Bummer.
So things never really changed. I mean, they did change in that Jesus showed us definitively what God has been wanting to do all along. But things didn’t change in that what we see in Jesus is the same heart that the Father had carried towards humankind since creation. And that warms my heart.
Dear Dog, Amen
Aside from a few minor quibbles, I like the reflections or my friend Jon. It’s not how I’d reconcile the God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New, but it’s good. And it’s well written.
How He Loves Us
Alright, this is going to be quick.
The song below more or less wrecked me the first night at Jesus Culture. I then bought the CD/DVD. Listening in my car, I was floored again, though I managed to maintain control of the vehicle. I popped the DVD into my computer the next day and wept as I watched this video. Geez, I’m a mess. I love it.
Oh yeah, also, Kim Walker possesses my new favorite voice.
Prophetic 101
Yesterday afternoon Erica Greve brought a brief but effective teaching on prophetic ministry. The core of the idea is that prophetic ministry is about being God’s voice to another person.
There many in the church today that question the viability of modern day prophecy. Yet everytime we bring a verse to someone or even say to another that Jesus loves him we are being prophetic, for that is the word of God.
At any rate, we tried a couple of brief exercises to practice hearing God. We paired up with someone we didn’t know and asked God, “If this person were a tree or a flower, what would she be and why?” We then tried a second exercise and asked “Lord, if this person were an animal, what kind of an animal would he be and why?”
It was remarkable to hear afterwards how the pictures and impressions I got for my partner, Rocky, really were. Just as remarkable were the images he had for me and their accuracy.
The other thing that struck me about it was how quickly and subtly the Lord spoke when I asked Him the questions. I didn’t have to get super deep into prayer and beg for a word. I just asked. But also, it felt like God’s voice was pretty quiet and soft, not booming at all. At one point I wondered if I had missed it – it was so subtle.
Nevertheless, God speaks. Try it and see. Praise Him.
Jesus Culture
I’m at Jesus Culture in Valparaiso, IN, all week. I’d like to post a few thoughts as we move through the sessions.
Last night Lou Engle spoke and he was, as always, inspiring and challenging. The piece that struck me most was a notion that I’ve been pondering for a little while. This world we live in is a world at war. Jesus came to bring peace to the world, but Satan and all other forces that oppose God’s will set themselves to do everything in their power to stop him. Thus, war.
I’ve been reading some Gregory Boyd lately too. A good portion of Boyd’s theology centers on the idea that biblical history (and all other history, for that matter) is a history of warfare.
The fact of the matter is that all people everywhere are in the midst of a war.
This seems so different from the way sophisticated Christians like to think about our world. We like to think that we’re supposed to be placid do-gooders who get walked over on our way to the heavenly kingdom and we’ll bring others with us because everyone will see how much better life is for us (or something like that). War, it seems, is taboo in the church because Jesus, as everybody knows, would never harm a fly.
But we don’t fight against people and we don’t fight with the weapons of this world. Nevertheless, it’s a battle, whether we like it or not, we’re in it. So the question is, am I going to fight? And for whom am I going to fight? Is it worth it to just stand in the wings? I don’t like that idea.
More later.
A Poor Motivator
My delightful brother commented on the hell post just now, and a sample of his comment deserves promotion to the main page.
While I was born into a world not of my own making, I hope (in vain?) to mature and retire into some cozy niche that is more of my own making. As I grow up, I am trying not to be motivated by the fear of hell. Being so motivated seems indecent and afterall, mostly fueled by internalized homophobia. I’m still scared to death, though.
He raises an interesting point on the subject, which I like. This was one of the issues that I was wrestling with a little bit as I prepared to consider this question. The fact of the matter is that the Bible really doesn’t have a whole lot to say about hell, whatever it may be. Instead, the Bible is much more concerned with our very planet and God’s process of making that planet to be more and more like heaven, where He resides.
The more I think about it, the more I start to think that perhaps the church has been going about some things very wrongly for some time. Fear of hell or damnation or eternal fires (eternal fires that don’t actually burn you up: would those hurt?) is not a biblical motivation. The more I read the Bible intently, the more I come to think that God’s preferred method of motivation (His only one?) is a blessed and prosperous future filled with love.
A small example: It seems that in first century Palestine you had a whole lot of self-righteous Pharisees walking around making judgments against people. Those who didn’t do as they did were sinners, sinners, sinners. Jesus walks into the midst of that milieu proclaiming to the very same “sinners” that they are forgiven, that God desires to heal them (and actually does), that they are not condemned but rather loved.
To my mind, the Pharisees sound a whole lot like much of the church looking out at the rest of the world. Jesus didn’t come preaching a whole lot of fire and brimstone, but he sure sounds like the kind of guy I’d like to hang out with.
Moreover, Christians in the Bible (Paul, Peter, John, Stephen, etc) do not seem to be the kind of characters who are afraid of anything. Read Stephen’s story, for example, and you’ll find a man who is falsely accused of a crime and, while being stoned in judgment, prays that God not hold the injustice against his accusers/killers (Acts 7:60). Not only is Stephen not afraid, he singularly effuses love at all times.
So I suppose that a good portion of the church needs to grasp this again, that it’s not about fear of something we don’t want that pushes us to restore wholeness to the earth. We need to grasp afresh that it’s about the simple fact that God adores this world – including all who live in it – and He simply wants us all well.
How Could You Let This Happen?: 20 Reasons, pt 3
3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
The BEattitude is right.
Take that, Job.
Well, mostly right.
Christians today (and probably of all eras) have a good many quick and easy phrases that we like to use when certain types of situations arise. Perhaps the most common cause for the spewing of stock phrases is when an inexplicable tragedy occurs. It doesn’t matter much if it’s of global impact, like Darfur, or something local, like an unexpected death in the family.
In hard times, we all want to comfort those most affected, so we say what we hope will meet that need. The BEattitude has alluded to two common phrases, but there are many others. “God has a bigger plan,” for example.
So, yes, the BEattitude is right. When faced with tragic events that we could not hope to explain, many Christians offer little more than cop out stock drivel. It is true, God often does work in mysterious ways, or, at least in ways unlike our own (Isa 55:8-9). And many things we don’t know now probably will make more sense in the presence of the Lord of the universe (1 Cor 13:9-12). But I am not convinced that this offers much in the face of tragic events.
Thankfully, the Bible offers better explanations.
This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
It’s true. God allowed the attacks on the Pentagon and on the World Trade Center eight years ago. God allowed the tsunami to pummel India in 2004. Hurricane Katrina struck on His watch. So did the Holocaust and the Gulag, American slavery and southeast Asian sex trafficking, the Crusades and jihad. He allowed it all.
But allowing something to happen is different than causing something to happen. And allowing something to happen is different than willing something to happen.
Today The Washington Post is reporting that the Taliban is purchasing young children in order to use them as suicide bombers. Is God allowing this to happen? Yes. But there are other important questions to ask as well. Is God causing this to happen or are the perpetrators responsible for their own actions? Does God want this to happen or is He grieved even more deeply than you or me over this ongoing tragedy? It may also be worth asking if God, having made humans free to choose how to act, would cause anyone to do anything. Would He not then violate His own creation?
The Bible is clear that death and destruction are not God’s domain, but only life. But the Bible is also clear that there are forces at work on this planet (including people) that fervently oppose His will for life (Jn 10:10).
Yet the Bible is also clear that, although atrocities will afflict the innocent and the guilty alike, God will work good out of events for those who continue to walk faithfully with Him. Note, for example, Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV). Or for a bit longer read, follow Joseph’s story in Genesis 37-50. Joseph was an innocent man if ever there was one. Yet his faith remained in God regardless of his circumstances and the Lord made good of it, though it took a lifetime.
In the face of tragedy, it may very well be a cop out to simply suggest that God works in mysterious ways or that it will make sense in time. But there are other cop outs, like suggesting that since evil exists, there must be no God (or at least, no good God). Or perhaps blaming those same events on God Himself and then claiming that as reason to doubt His existence.
Cop outs do no one any favors. We owe it to ourselves to wrestle with the problem of evil with honesty and resolve. And there is, of course, much more that could be said on the issue [1]. Suffice it to say in closing that God is at least as concerned with evil as any of us may be – probably more so.
[1] Among those who have said a great deal on the issue is Gregory A. Boyd, Satan & the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001).
What the Hell?: 20 Reasons, pt 2
We enter into part two of our 20 Reasons series, this one centered on the doctrine of eternal damnation. From The BEattitude:
2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.
Who goes there?
As I read this, I see two main points drifting to the forefront of reason #2. First, it seems the more basic question regards the actual existence of hell, or something similar, and its status as the reward for those who fail to do what God has commanded. (Sneaking just beneath the surface, perhaps, is the question of whether God actually has the right to make those commands.) Secondly, the BEattitude wonders why Jesus matters. Isn’t Jesus’ status in the salvation game arbitrary? At the very least, this is how I read reason #2, and that’s how I’ll address it.
First, a word about God’s right to judge the deeds of humankind, for on this notion all else rests.
A poster on 20 Reasons, pt 1 made note of the fact, that when we get right down to the point, it all comes down to faith. One can give all the reasons she wants, but in the final analysis, one either believes or does not. (The poster was arguing from an atheist’s standpoint, that he requires empirical evidence to believe something, which cannot be provided in God’s case. A true enough point, I suppose.) This question is no different from the first in this regard. The point of faith in Reason #2 is the belief that God is also the Creator.
If Yahweh is the Creator, as the Bible suggests (Gen 1-2), then He must also have been responsible for establishing the rules of the game, so to speak. This is not simply to say that He reserves that right, but that the act of creating the physical universe is simultaneously the act of creating the framework by which it will be governed.
If I were to build, for example, some variety of automobile, I must also say that I have built into the machine the “rules” by which it is driven. How it interacts with the driver and the road, how it accelerates, how well the brakes work – all of these are a function of the design.
We are used to this idea in the realm of the physical universe. For the most part we are even accustomed to this notion regarding the interactions between people, that certain actions will elicit a certain range of potential reactions from other people.
Modern humans, however, have a difficult time seeing the same sort of interrelation between the temporal and the spiritual. How could my actions during my lifetime, the question goes, have any effect on what may happen to me after I die? One may ask with equal validity, how can they not? Regardless, the Christian belief is simply that God created the earth and must also have established the basis for human behavior that leads to life.
Of course, as free beings, humans are welcome to choose to live in a manner that leads to death. Further, we may even convince ourselves that our actions do not matter, or that we may ignore any standards set by God. In response, biblical scholar Stephen Westerholm provides an important reminder:
We are born into a world not of our making, and incur thereby, and in the course of living, obligations that we may shirk or defy but that no human fiat can set aside. [1]
If Christians are to believe that this God created the world and, therefore, the framework for its government, does He really still have to send certain people to some variety of eternal damnation? As so many have asked, Why would a good God send people to hell?
Yet for God to set a law for the way His creation ought to run but not hold that creation accountable for its errors would be completely irresponsible. If you’ve seen “Nanny 911,” you know that if a parent makes a rule but doesn’t stick to it, her kids don’t go to hell, they become the kids from hell. The point is, for God to be just, He must hold His creation accountable.
But couldn’t God have made it so that no one would transgress the ways in which they ought to live? Couldn’t He have made humans so that they would always do the right?
I suppose this is possible, though to have done so would have been to eliminate a good portion of what makes us human. Would it have been better for God to have made a collection of beings that always did what was right without any choice in the matter? Or would it have been better for God to have created beings that could choose to do wrong yet may choose to delight in doing right? I’d take the latter every time.
Again I turn to Dr. Westerholm:
That God placed requirements on human beings was necessary if they were to act as moral beings, choosing between good and evil. God’s knowledge of what human beings would do … did not compel them to act in ways contrary to their own will. [2]
The problem the Bible describes has little to do with whether God the Creator was right in making the parameters for life, or whether He was right in making humans to be moral beings (able to choose rightly or wrongly). Rather, the problem for Scripture is no one ever does only what is right throughout their lifetime. The problem is that everyone everywhere is indicted under the law God has set for creation.
This, of course, is the problem that Paul addresses in his letter to the Romans. It did not matter to him if you had been a part of Israel, who had a history with this God, or if you were from among the Gentiles, who had little history with Yahweh. Your status was the same: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Basically, no body’s perfect.
Yet as we had explored above, failure to be perfect meant that God had to carry out some kind of sentence for the “crimes” one had committed in life. Well, that just sucks.
Had the Lord left it at that, leaving all people to His guilty verdict, without making any efforts to save humanity, then He most certainly not be a loving God. Adopting the BEattitude’s language, if God had known that no one could live perfectly, that this would result in the condemnation of all people, and if He then failed to remedy the situation, He most certainly would be cruel and sadistic.
And that is precisely why a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago matters. Without going into detail, one of the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection that the early Christians came to (and which all subsequent generations of Christians have held to) is that Jesus’ crucifixion was a representative judgment for all people. Since Jesus was the one person who walked the earth and played by all the rules of the game, his death was, in some sense, undeserved but he took it as the death everyone else deserved to die. Note, for one, 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This, in turn, is why faith in Jesus matters. It is through faith that a transaction occurs between Jesus and the one who believes in him. Jesus was the one who lived perfectly, so he carries that perfection as a sort of commodity (that’s a bit crude, but it works). At the same time he has provided a way to throw out the indictments we have accumulated for ourselves. And it is by faith – trust in what he’s done and his ability to do it for you – that believers obtain his perfection and simultaneously hand over their own errors.
To the Christian, then, Jesus is far from arbitrary.
So what’s the deal with hell? And for that matter, what’s heaven all about anyway?
The Old Testament, for one, has very little to say about any place like hell. Upon death, people are said to enter Sheol, though this is not described in much detail. (I can’t imagine many OT writers had been there and lived to tell about it.) In fact, the concept of an afterlife is addressed sparingly in the OT as a whole. It seems for the most part that the Hebrews expected death and little else, though as time progressed the notion of an ultimate resurrection of the righteous gained ground.[3]
The New Testament, however, has some notion of hell. Or rather, hell exists in English translations of the NT. If you’re reading the NIV, you’ll find the word “hell” 14 times, all in the NT. It represents three different Greek words: gehenna (12 times), hades (once), and zophos (once).
Gehenna, in my opinion, is the most interesting of the three. The word actually refers to a physical place, just south of Jerusalem in the Valley of Hinnom. As one would expect, the place has a history. Traditionally, this was the place where Ahaz and Manasseh sacrificed their own children to the god Moloch (2 Kgs 16:3; 21:6). And when I say “sacrificed,” I mean “burned alive.” Gehenna is also a site of judgment in Jeremiah 7:32 and 19:6. Put the two of these story lines together and you’ve got a place of judgment filled with fire. Sound familiar?
Hades is only used once in the NT, in Luke 16:23, and seems to be a place where people are actually conscious of their presence there. Gehenna, by contrast, seems to be a place in which everything that enters is completely burned up. Thus, the tradition has sprung up in which hades is the place to which the unrighteous (those who refused to play by the Creator’s rules) are held until the final resurrection, when they will be sentenced for their misdeeds and sent to gehenna.
For what it’s worth, zophos only appears in 2 Peter 2:4, and seems like a hades-like place for fallen angels, a holding cell for those angels that refused God’s sovereignty.
Anyway, we probably owe more to our visions of hell to Dante than we do to the Bible. For the Bible, those that enter hell (gehenna) know it, but they pretty much cease to exist.
As for heaven, well that’s another concept we’ve twisted about quite a bit over the centuries. Biblically, you can forget about some place high in the sky with angels roaming about playing harps and sitting on clouds. Throughout the Scriptures, heaven is a real and imminent place. It was almost tangible, even if it was always invisible. It was the place from which the Lord operated, and He might intersect terrestrial life at any moment.
As a place for the righteous dead, well, that’s a curious development. If Jesus is regarded as residing in heaven now since his ascension (Acts 1:11), then Paul expected that he would end up there upon his death (Phi 1:23).
But heaven was never meant to be the final resting place of the dead who had trusted Christ. Rather, the Christian expects to be raised to life again, just as Jesus was, and placed on the new earth to work and reside forever (1 Cor 15:51-52) [4].
OK, so back to the BEattitude’s reason #2. Is it cruel and sadistic for the Creator to establish a right way to live in His creation? Is it cruel and sadistic to hold people accountable for their actions? Is it cruel and sadistic for that same Creator to provide an undeserved way to escape sentencing? That’s a good question.
[1] Westerholm, Stephen. Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 266.
[2] Westerholm, 334-5.
[3] For an extremely extensive review of first century perspectives (Jewish, Christian, and otherwise) on the afterlife, it is well worth reading NT Wright’s Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).
[4] Read Wright’s Resurrection of the Son of God. Seriously.
