A friend of a friend of a friend is a criminal. He has not been arrested yet, but it's just a matter of time. He has stolen cash and hundreds of dollars worth of goods. He's a compulsive liar. Alarmingly, he makes threats ("I'm going to slash his tires"; "I'm going to kill that guy"), and one wonders if it's just talk or if some day he will actually do it.
Here is the weird thing about him: he has girlfriend - pretty, lively, seemingly bright - who still has not left him. Other people have warned her about him, but she does not listen. She says she loves him. Until she got this boyfriend we all thought she was rational. But the fact that she keeps up a relationship with this clown proves otherwise.
When I heard about this case it reminded me of similar stories I have heard of or have had experience with. Many years ago when I was in college I fell in love with a girl, I'll call her Ellen, who, though not particularly beautiful, was funny, wise, godly, pleasant and extremely bright. Our relationship did not proceed to engagement and marriage because she made it clear she only wanted to be friends. Ok, fine, I dealt with that. But then not long afterward she fell in love with a young man (she told me so herself), and it was clearly someone she could never marry under any circumstances. I was mystified. How could Ellen - so wise, so well-grounded - fall for someone so wrong? I thought she was smart!
I have learned since that nothing makes a person dumber than love. Or maybe I shouldn't even call it love - more like affection, or infatuation, or the fear of being alone, or the raw desire to have somebody. This state of mind warps the ability to think well. The person whose character you are least able to judge objectively is the man or woman with whom you are falling in love.
That is why I want to offer this unbelievably simple advice to any young person who has not yet ruined his or her life with a bad relationship:
If anybody ever warns you that the person you are dating is no good, LISTEN!!! The odds are, they're right and you're blind!
I am not saying that such warnings are always on target. It is possible for a warning like that to come from someone who is jealous or delusional or just mistaken. But far, far more often these people who wave their red flags see something you don't see or are making excuses for. So listen. Listen to warnings. Never assume that the rank stupidity you have seen in others will not some day paralyze your brain too.
Years ago I knew a pilot who served in the first Gulf War. He told me that as part of his training he was put in a chamber and subjected to low oxygen - like that at high altitude - and instructed to monitor his thoughts so that he could recognize the symptoms of losing brain function so that, if it happened while flying a plane, he'd know instinctively to reconnect his oxygen mask or dive to lower altitude. He told me that the exercise didn't really work. He was given math problems to do, and though he thought he was getting the right answers, he found out later that he was writing gibberish. Only one thing indicated to him that he wasn't himself: he could not sign his name when asked to do so. I must be pretty far gone if I can't sign my own name, he thought.
A warning from a fair-minded person about a bad boyfriend or girlfriend is like that pilot's inability to sign his own name. It may be your only link to rationality. Take it seriously. Get to oxygen-rich atmosphere and dump the jerk.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
God's Conditional Love
In the course of just a few days I heard the following from four evangelical preachers, three of whom are influential pastors of megachurches.
J. D. Greear (Senior Pastor, Summit Church, Raleigh) "In Christ there is nothing I can do that would make You love me more, nothing I have done that makes You love me less."
Pete Briscoe (Senior Pastor, Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, Dallas) "There's nothing I can do to make him love me more, there's nothing I can do to make him love me less."
Andy Stanley (Senior Pastor, North Point Community Church, Atlanta) "Do you know what the root, the heart, the pull-back-the-layers is when it comes to following Jesus? This is uncomfortable, but it will change you. And it will change us. I think it will change the world. God could not love you more. And there is nothing you will do and nothing you could do that will cause him to love you less. And the corollary is this: Every person you're ever eyeball to eyeball with God could not love more. And there's nothing they could do to cause God to love them less. Nothing."
Lay Preacher (Name withheld, Chicago area) "His love for us is unprovoked by us. He loved us before we existed, and even the very best things we do will not increase the love that God has for us. God does not love us because of something we did, something we said, something we thought, something we felt... - he doesn't love us any more for that. God's love is not influenced by us. It has nothing to do with who we were. God's love for us has nothing to do with who we are. God's love has nothing to do with who we're going to grow to be. Our efforts, our constitution, our make-up, our behavior, whether we find it very loveable or very unlovable, is completely irrelevant when it comes to God's love for us. He doesn't love us because of who we are. And in that sense God's love is very unconditional...Our condition, our behavior, our thoughts, our deeds, are irrelevant to whether God loves us or not."
I am withholding the name of the last preacher because he is not a vocational clergyman, has no seminary training, and as a layman was merely (and commendably) responding to an invitation to preach. So he is less accountable for his biblical illiteracy than the ordained ministers quoted above. In his case, the accountable ones are the pastors who allow him to address their congregation.
The source of the evangelical slogan, "Nothing you can do can make God love you more, nothing you can do can make God love you less," is, as best as I have been able to determine, Philip Yancey's 1997 book What's So Amazing About Grace? The original full quote is,
Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more - no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity schools, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less - no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder.
In the last 15 years, Yancey's formulation - or some abbreviated version of it - has achieved near creedal status among American evangelicals. It would be hard to overestimate the enthusiasm with which it has been received. Andy Stanley, pastor of the second largest church in North America, says above that it represents "the root, the heart" of following Jesus. I have been asked to recite it out loud with other parishioners in a Sunday morning worship service. While in the church I grew up in we would say together, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord...", nowadays we are much more likely to affirm, "Nothing we can do can make God love us more; nothing we can do can make God love us less."
Is it biblical?
I will wait, while crickets chirp, for proponents of this doctrine to go fetch their Bibles and find even one verse in its 66 books that supports it. I should make plain that the issue is not whether God's love is great, patient, deep, kind, forgiving, full of mercy, eternal, prevenient (precedes ours), or beyond imagination. I happily grant all that. The issue is whether there are any conditions or degrees attached to it. Does the Bible say anywhere that God loves us all the same no matter what we do?
No. It doesn't. I can save you hours of vain searching. Or, if you prefer, go verify my flat denial by reading through the entire Bible at your leisure as carefully as you can. In the meantime, here are some Scriptures that teach the opposite:
Psalm 5:4-6: You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the Lord abhors.
King David would not have recognized as his Good Shepherd a god who loved the righteous and the wicked equally, unconditionally, and without regard for their behavior. David's God, Jehovah, though bounteous in mercy and slow to anger and quick to forgive, hated those who did wrong, and abhorred bloodthirsty and deceitful men. Can you imagine David enduring for one moment a sermon where the preacher maintained, "Our condition, our behavior, our thoughts, our deeds, are irrelevant to whether God loves us or not"? The shepherd king through whom Messiah came would have denounced such doctrine as a blasphemy against his holy God!
Psalm 86:5: You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you.
The Yancey doctrine would render this verse meaningless. How can the affirmation "God's love abounds to all who call to him" mean anything at all if God's love remains exactly the same whether you call to him or not? If nothing you do makes God love you more or less, then calling to him can have no connection whatsoever to his abounding love. The Yancey doctrine must regard this verse as odd as the assertion that the sun rises in the east on Tuesdays. Well, yes, I suppose it does. But why single out Tuesdays? The sun rises in the east every day. Chop off "on Tuesdays" and you have a meaningful sentence. In like manner, the Yancey doctrine needs to chop off "to all who call to you" in Psalm 86:5 in order for the verse to make sense.
Psalm 103:11: For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.
More of the same. Here David is trying to make a point about God's love being connected to our fear of him, which the Yancey doctrine must blunt by correcting it to read, "...so great is his love, period," or, "so great is his love for those who fear him which is exactly equal to his love for those who do not fear him, because, as we all know, fearing him won't make him love us more or less."
Psalm 37:27-28: Turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever. For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones.
I don't know how much plainer it can be. The Bible affirms that the Lord loves the just. To say that God loves the just and the unjust equally because his love is unconditional and nothing we do can make him love us more or less is absurdity to the point of farce.
Psalm 32:10: Many or the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.
Note the words, "the one who trusts in him." That's a condition. Those who do not trust in him are not surrounded with exactly the same amount of unfailing love.
There are plenty of verses like this in the Bible's wisdom literature, verses that stubbornly resist being shoehorned into the doctrine that God's love is unconditional, cannot be affected by us, cannot be increased or decreased by anything we do. How can such a doctrine stand when confronted by texts like the ones below?
Psalm 146:8-9: The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
Proverbs 15:9: The Lord detests the way of the wicked but he loves those who pursue righteousness.
Pardon me for resorting to cliche, but this isn't rocket science. If you want God to love you, pursue righteousness. If you do wrong and become wicked, God will hate you (Psalm 5:5) and your way (Proverbs 15:9). It is right there on the pages of Scripture, again and again and again and again. Painful as it may be to acknowledge, the truth is that those who teach the unconditionality of God's love either do not read their Bibles or do not pay attention when they read them. This includes the vast majority of evangelical preachers today. I'm sorry, but someone had to say it.
Please do not think for a moment that God's love became unconditional when BC switched to AD and the Old Testament gave way to the New. The cross changed many things, but not this. The same affirmations about the conditionality of God's love are found in the New Testament:
2 Corinthians 7:9:
God loves a cheerful giver.
Jude 21: Keep yourselves in the love of God.
This verse means, "Keep yourselves in the love of God."
An analogy might help. Imagine a commandment that said, "Keep yourselves fit and trim." We might not like that commandment, we might be fat and out of shape and want to stay that way - but there would be no doubt about what the words meant, and we would know exactly how to fulfill them. To keep ourselves fit and trim we must exercise and eat moderately. There would be things we would actually have to do and not do. But the Yancey doctrine must understand Jude 21 to be analogous to something more like, "Keep yourselves composed of atoms": an admonition to remain in a state from which you could not conceivably escape. And I think that's silly.
In this verse, Jude does not tell us how to keep ourselves in the love of God. But it wasn't necessary - his half-Brother had explained how to do that some years before:
John 15:10: If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.
Jesus did not say, "Whether or not you obey my commands, you will remain in my love." We remain in his love, or "keep ourselves in the love of God," by doing what he said. The condition is explicit and unmistakable.
Two more. In the following verses, Jesus expresses a cause-and-effect relationship between our doing something and God responding to it. The cause is our loving Jesus. The effect is God loving us.
John 14:21b:
He who loves me will be loved by my Father.
Again, there is no mistaking the condition. In these verses, God's love for us depends upon our love for Jesus. (It is also true that our love for Jesus depends upon God's love for us - see John 6:44, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:10: these two truths complement rather than contradict.) And loving Jesus is not expressed as having a warm fuzzy for him, valuable as that may be. Jesus' love language is always obedience: If you love me, you will obey what I command...Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me (John 15:15, 21a).
Maybe someday I'll go to an evangelical church and rather than being asked to repeat, "Nothing I do can make God love me more," I'll be asked to say together with my brothers and sisters in Christ, When I obey Jesus, God loves me.
Amen.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
What Did Jesus Mean By "Makes Her Commit Adultery"?
There are four passages where Jesus talks about divorce and remarriage: Matthew 5:31-32, Matthew 19:3-9, Mark 10:2-12, and Luke 16:18. I give these texts in full at the end of this essay. Much has been written about them. It would take a book to begin to cover all the issues. My purpose here is modest: to explain just one phrase in those texts - "makes her commit adultery" - which appears only in Matthew 5:32. The verse reads,
But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
How could you make somebody commit adultery? And if you succeeded in making her do it, would she still be guilty of sin?
Context means everything here. The texts in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 show Jesus responding to a question put to him by the Pharisees: "Can a man divorce his wife for any reason?" (See Matthew 19:3 and Mark 10:2). The question was not innocent. An agenda of self-justification provoked it. Pharisees prided themselves on their obedience to the law. The law said, "Do not commit adultery," and no Pharisee ever wanted to be accused of cheating on his wife. But what if you're married and get tired of your wife and someone new comes along? No problem, said some Pharisees - just dump the first wife, give her a certificate of divorce (a legal document declaring her free to marry someone else), and then marry your second wife. That way you have not cheated on anybody.
Jesus said, in effect, No. You can't just dump a wife for no good reason and marry somebody else. That is still cheating. Even if you say, "But I gave her a certificate of divorce! She can go marry anybody else she wants, I don't care. I did the right thing by her." No, Jesus insisted, you have still wronged her. That's still your wife. Whether you slept with someone else while still married to her, or dismissed her with divorce papers and then took another woman - it's all the same. Either way it is still adultery.
I believe that is the essential point in all four passages.
But there are always complications. For example, what if the first wife wasn't innocent herself? What if she was sleeping around? Well in that case, Jesus said, the principle does not apply. You can divorce her. See Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 where he says you can't divorce your wife except on the grounds of sexual immorality. In 1 Corinthians 7:15, St. Paul gave another exception - abandonment by an unbeliever: "If an unbelieving partner leaves, let him do so. The brother or sister is not bound in such cases." The Bible does not address other possible exceptions. For example, what should you do if your husband gets drunk all the time and beats you and the kids? Or what should you do if your wife tries to poison you or concocts false evidence against you so that you go to prison? I think in such cases we are expected to use the wisdom God gave us.
But then there are other kinds of complications. I believe the phrase "makes her commit adultery" - odd to our ears - arises in response to a linguistic complication.
At issue is the definition of the word "adultery." What exactly does the word mean? For us I think it usually means "cheating on a spouse" - sleeping with somebody while married to someone else. The potential problem with this definition is that it implies that the same act may be adulterous for one partner but not for the other. For example, if a married man sleeps with a single woman, this definition means that he has committed adultery but she has not. (What she has done is wrong, of course, but we would use some word other than "adultery" to refer to it.)
A wider definition specifies not so much the person but the act as adulterous. In this understanding, adultery is the act that takes place when a married person sleeps with someone other than his or her spouse - regardless of the marital status of the third party. With this definition, in the example above, both the man and his single paramour would be guilty of adultery.
In Jesus' day, did the word "adultery" refer to the person who was doing the cheating or to the act where cheating was done?
I believe that best evidence suggests that the word itself was in flux, and, by Jesus' day, was acquiring its present meaning of "cheating on a spouse." This is the way Jesus uses the word in Mark 10:11 where he says, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her." That is, such a man is essentially cheating on his first wife.
But for a precision-minded scribe or Pharisee, Jesus' point might lose force on the simple ground that that's not what the word adultery means! The original definition of adultery was wider in that it referred to the act but more narrow in that it was gender-specific. That is, adultery was the act that took place when a married woman slept with someone other than her husband. It didn't matter if that other man was married or not. He was an adulterer if he slept with another man's wife. In Leviticus 20:10 the death penalty is invoked both for him and the adulteress.
With this older definition in mind, a Pharisee might think, "But how could my second marriage be adulterous if my second wife was a virgin? Yes, I will have slept with two women, but in no case did I ever sleep with another man's wife. Even on Jesus' own terms, then, I'm still not an adulterer." (It must be emphasized again that we are not here contemplating the morality of the action but only what to call it. In the minds of some, if a married woman has not slept with another man, then - by definition - no adultery has occurred.)
I believe it was to accommodate this older definition and head off the objection it might provoke that Jesus said in Matthew 5:32 "makes her [the ex wife] commit adultery" rather than "commits adultery himself." The idea is that the abandoned ex-wife will surely remarry. When she does, then the older defining parameters of adultery will have been met: she'll be sleeping with someone other than her husband because her "real" husband, the first one, left her.
Does that mean that such an abandoned woman should never remarry, because by doing so she would become a true adulteress herself? No, that utterly misses Jesus' point. Jesus assumes that she will remarry. His point is that the guilt of this "adulterous" act is laid at the feet of her scoundrel ex-husband. He cannot finesse his way out of the charge of adultery by saying, "I never slept with another man's wife, so I am not guilty of adultery." Even if we grant the narrow point that he hasn't slept with another man's wife, he's still guilty of breaking the seventh commandment because of the situation into which he has forced his ex wife.
I believe the best parallel to this usage of "make," "force," or "make out to be" is found in 1 John 1:10, which says, "If we say we have not sinned, we make him [God] a liar, and his word is not in us." The Greek word here for "make" is the same in Matthew 5:32. Can anyone truly make God a liar? Of course not. God does not lie (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18 ). What St. John means is that when we contradict God we make him out to be a liar - it is as though we were saying, "God lies." But we are the ones in the wrong, not he. We bear the guilt, not he. In exactly the same way, a man who divorces his wife for no good reason makes her out to be an adulteress, even though in point of fact she is quite innocent. He bears the blame, not she.
I hope this helps.
Full texts are below:
Matthew 5:31-32:
31 It was also said, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce." 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 19:3-9
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Mark 10:2-12
2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” 5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Luke 16:18
18 Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
How could you make somebody commit adultery? And if you succeeded in making her do it, would she still be guilty of sin?
Context means everything here. The texts in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 show Jesus responding to a question put to him by the Pharisees: "Can a man divorce his wife for any reason?" (See Matthew 19:3 and Mark 10:2). The question was not innocent. An agenda of self-justification provoked it. Pharisees prided themselves on their obedience to the law. The law said, "Do not commit adultery," and no Pharisee ever wanted to be accused of cheating on his wife. But what if you're married and get tired of your wife and someone new comes along? No problem, said some Pharisees - just dump the first wife, give her a certificate of divorce (a legal document declaring her free to marry someone else), and then marry your second wife. That way you have not cheated on anybody.
Jesus said, in effect, No. You can't just dump a wife for no good reason and marry somebody else. That is still cheating. Even if you say, "But I gave her a certificate of divorce! She can go marry anybody else she wants, I don't care. I did the right thing by her." No, Jesus insisted, you have still wronged her. That's still your wife. Whether you slept with someone else while still married to her, or dismissed her with divorce papers and then took another woman - it's all the same. Either way it is still adultery.
I believe that is the essential point in all four passages.
But there are always complications. For example, what if the first wife wasn't innocent herself? What if she was sleeping around? Well in that case, Jesus said, the principle does not apply. You can divorce her. See Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 where he says you can't divorce your wife except on the grounds of sexual immorality. In 1 Corinthians 7:15, St. Paul gave another exception - abandonment by an unbeliever: "If an unbelieving partner leaves, let him do so. The brother or sister is not bound in such cases." The Bible does not address other possible exceptions. For example, what should you do if your husband gets drunk all the time and beats you and the kids? Or what should you do if your wife tries to poison you or concocts false evidence against you so that you go to prison? I think in such cases we are expected to use the wisdom God gave us.
But then there are other kinds of complications. I believe the phrase "makes her commit adultery" - odd to our ears - arises in response to a linguistic complication.
At issue is the definition of the word "adultery." What exactly does the word mean? For us I think it usually means "cheating on a spouse" - sleeping with somebody while married to someone else. The potential problem with this definition is that it implies that the same act may be adulterous for one partner but not for the other. For example, if a married man sleeps with a single woman, this definition means that he has committed adultery but she has not. (What she has done is wrong, of course, but we would use some word other than "adultery" to refer to it.)
A wider definition specifies not so much the person but the act as adulterous. In this understanding, adultery is the act that takes place when a married person sleeps with someone other than his or her spouse - regardless of the marital status of the third party. With this definition, in the example above, both the man and his single paramour would be guilty of adultery.
In Jesus' day, did the word "adultery" refer to the person who was doing the cheating or to the act where cheating was done?
I believe that best evidence suggests that the word itself was in flux, and, by Jesus' day, was acquiring its present meaning of "cheating on a spouse." This is the way Jesus uses the word in Mark 10:11 where he says, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her." That is, such a man is essentially cheating on his first wife.
But for a precision-minded scribe or Pharisee, Jesus' point might lose force on the simple ground that that's not what the word adultery means! The original definition of adultery was wider in that it referred to the act but more narrow in that it was gender-specific. That is, adultery was the act that took place when a married woman slept with someone other than her husband. It didn't matter if that other man was married or not. He was an adulterer if he slept with another man's wife. In Leviticus 20:10 the death penalty is invoked both for him and the adulteress.
With this older definition in mind, a Pharisee might think, "But how could my second marriage be adulterous if my second wife was a virgin? Yes, I will have slept with two women, but in no case did I ever sleep with another man's wife. Even on Jesus' own terms, then, I'm still not an adulterer." (It must be emphasized again that we are not here contemplating the morality of the action but only what to call it. In the minds of some, if a married woman has not slept with another man, then - by definition - no adultery has occurred.)
I believe it was to accommodate this older definition and head off the objection it might provoke that Jesus said in Matthew 5:32 "makes her [the ex wife] commit adultery" rather than "commits adultery himself." The idea is that the abandoned ex-wife will surely remarry. When she does, then the older defining parameters of adultery will have been met: she'll be sleeping with someone other than her husband because her "real" husband, the first one, left her.
Does that mean that such an abandoned woman should never remarry, because by doing so she would become a true adulteress herself? No, that utterly misses Jesus' point. Jesus assumes that she will remarry. His point is that the guilt of this "adulterous" act is laid at the feet of her scoundrel ex-husband. He cannot finesse his way out of the charge of adultery by saying, "I never slept with another man's wife, so I am not guilty of adultery." Even if we grant the narrow point that he hasn't slept with another man's wife, he's still guilty of breaking the seventh commandment because of the situation into which he has forced his ex wife.
I believe the best parallel to this usage of "make," "force," or "make out to be" is found in 1 John 1:10, which says, "If we say we have not sinned, we make him [God] a liar, and his word is not in us." The Greek word here for "make" is the same in Matthew 5:32. Can anyone truly make God a liar? Of course not. God does not lie (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18 ). What St. John means is that when we contradict God we make him out to be a liar - it is as though we were saying, "God lies." But we are the ones in the wrong, not he. We bear the guilt, not he. In exactly the same way, a man who divorces his wife for no good reason makes her out to be an adulteress, even though in point of fact she is quite innocent. He bears the blame, not she.
I hope this helps.
Full texts are below:
Matthew 5:31-32:
31 It was also said, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce." 32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 19:3-9
And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
Mark 10:2-12
2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” 5 And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Luke 16:18
18 Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
Friday, August 17, 2012
What Gays Should Have Done At Chic-fil-A on August 1.
I think my gay friends made a couple mistakes in pushing back against Christians who thronged to Chic-fil-A on August 1 in support of CEO Dan Cathy's opposition to homosexual marriage. The kiss-in on August 3 didn't work well - I think it was needlessly provocative, and the meager participation only contrasted with the committed show of force on the other side. Another misfire was a captioned photograph I saw of a long line at Chic-fil-A that read, "You'd never see that many Christians lined up to help at a food bank or homeless shelter." That strikes me as a frontal attack on a well-defended point. Food banks and homeless shelters are a staple of Christian charity, and thousands of Christians work at them and support them every week. Even the small church I attend (about 25 people) has prepared over 1700 lunches this year for day laborers - many of whom are poor and homeless.
So I am going to tell my gay friends what I think they should have done to counter what may have appeared to them like a conservative Christian onslaught. Yes, I'm handing them a club and pointing out a weak spot and inviting them to swing away.
Gays should have very politely passed out the following survey to every adult standing in the long line at Chic-fil-A on August 1:
I am conducting a survey of people who place a high value on moral purity. Your answer is confidential and anonymous. Please do not sign your name. Thank you for your cooperation!
Did you keep (or have you kept) your virginity till marriage, and, if married, have you had sex only with your spouse? Please check one.
1) Yes.
2) No.
3) I prefer not to answer.
Then having thanked kindly those who participated, all that my gay friends had to do was publish the results. For example (to make up data): "I handed out 100 of these surveys to people standing in line at Chic-fil-A. Thirty responded, and of those 30, 10 said 'Yes,' 10 said 'No,' and 10 said 'I prefer not to answer.' Of the 70 who did not return the survey, an unspecified but large percentage shifted about and looked uncomfortable. Only 10 percent of those who seemed to support Dan Cathy's disapproval of homosexual activity were willing to affirm that they themselves had observed Christianity's traditional code of moral behavior."
Try the shame approach. If you shout at a conservative Christian he'll probably shout back (he's only human). If you flaunt in his face behavior he thinks is wrong he may turn away in disgust and think he's better than you. But if you can shame him with the realization that he does not live up to the standards he professes he might just get very quiet and leave you alone. And if he's a good Christian he will thank you and go off to say his prayers.
I wonder if responding to such a survey would have stricken consciences and even gotten some people to leave the line at Chic-fil-A on August 1. Maybe not. But there is a story recorded in John 8 where some men bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, and they ask him about stoning her, and he says, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone." One by one they all walk away, presumably thinking, Who am I to condemn in another what I am guilty of myself? (It must be said that this story is of doubtful authenticity because it appears in virtually none of the earliest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and most Bible versions now rightly put it in a footnote - but no one disputes it is a good story!)
Even if the survey I recommend above would not have thinned the crowd at Chic-fil-A, maybe at least it would have set some Christians to thinking about the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:3, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" It is a good thing for Christians to consider whether they themselves have kept the teachings of Jesus. It is always better to look inward and grieve rather than outward and protest.
I am the first to acknowledge that Christian sexual morality is difficult, and that it is even - to the extent that our natures are corrupt - unnatural. Few people have lived their lives in consistent obedience to its rules, and even those who have managed to do so have found themselves stubbornly resistant to the will of God in some other area. But the difficulty of following Jesus Christ - the chafing, the going against our grain, the constant subjugation of our desires - should not surprise us. Jesus said that following him would be like picking up a cross daily and carrying it (Luke 9:23), and that anyone who was unwilling to do that was not worthy of him (Matthew 10:38) and could not be his disciple (Luke 14:23).
God alone knows how many true disciples of Christ waited for two hours on August 1 to get a politically-charged chicken sandwich. Their motives probably varied: some presumably saw it as a protest against gay marriage, others more as a support for Chic-fil-A in the face of the attacks it was enduring from politicians intolerant of Dan Cathy's convictions. But all the people in that line probably regarded themselves as Christians. And it is always fair for a Christian to be asked, by friend and foe alike, "Do you live by the standard you preach to others?"
So I am going to tell my gay friends what I think they should have done to counter what may have appeared to them like a conservative Christian onslaught. Yes, I'm handing them a club and pointing out a weak spot and inviting them to swing away.
Gays should have very politely passed out the following survey to every adult standing in the long line at Chic-fil-A on August 1:
I am conducting a survey of people who place a high value on moral purity. Your answer is confidential and anonymous. Please do not sign your name. Thank you for your cooperation!
Did you keep (or have you kept) your virginity till marriage, and, if married, have you had sex only with your spouse? Please check one.
1) Yes.
2) No.
3) I prefer not to answer.
Then having thanked kindly those who participated, all that my gay friends had to do was publish the results. For example (to make up data): "I handed out 100 of these surveys to people standing in line at Chic-fil-A. Thirty responded, and of those 30, 10 said 'Yes,' 10 said 'No,' and 10 said 'I prefer not to answer.' Of the 70 who did not return the survey, an unspecified but large percentage shifted about and looked uncomfortable. Only 10 percent of those who seemed to support Dan Cathy's disapproval of homosexual activity were willing to affirm that they themselves had observed Christianity's traditional code of moral behavior."
Try the shame approach. If you shout at a conservative Christian he'll probably shout back (he's only human). If you flaunt in his face behavior he thinks is wrong he may turn away in disgust and think he's better than you. But if you can shame him with the realization that he does not live up to the standards he professes he might just get very quiet and leave you alone. And if he's a good Christian he will thank you and go off to say his prayers.
I wonder if responding to such a survey would have stricken consciences and even gotten some people to leave the line at Chic-fil-A on August 1. Maybe not. But there is a story recorded in John 8 where some men bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, and they ask him about stoning her, and he says, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone." One by one they all walk away, presumably thinking, Who am I to condemn in another what I am guilty of myself? (It must be said that this story is of doubtful authenticity because it appears in virtually none of the earliest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and most Bible versions now rightly put it in a footnote - but no one disputes it is a good story!)
Even if the survey I recommend above would not have thinned the crowd at Chic-fil-A, maybe at least it would have set some Christians to thinking about the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:3, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" It is a good thing for Christians to consider whether they themselves have kept the teachings of Jesus. It is always better to look inward and grieve rather than outward and protest.
I am the first to acknowledge that Christian sexual morality is difficult, and that it is even - to the extent that our natures are corrupt - unnatural. Few people have lived their lives in consistent obedience to its rules, and even those who have managed to do so have found themselves stubbornly resistant to the will of God in some other area. But the difficulty of following Jesus Christ - the chafing, the going against our grain, the constant subjugation of our desires - should not surprise us. Jesus said that following him would be like picking up a cross daily and carrying it (Luke 9:23), and that anyone who was unwilling to do that was not worthy of him (Matthew 10:38) and could not be his disciple (Luke 14:23).
God alone knows how many true disciples of Christ waited for two hours on August 1 to get a politically-charged chicken sandwich. Their motives probably varied: some presumably saw it as a protest against gay marriage, others more as a support for Chic-fil-A in the face of the attacks it was enduring from politicians intolerant of Dan Cathy's convictions. But all the people in that line probably regarded themselves as Christians. And it is always fair for a Christian to be asked, by friend and foe alike, "Do you live by the standard you preach to others?"
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
"A Personal Relationship With Jesus Christ" Part 2
Shortly after posting my objections in the last essay to the phrase "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," I read that pop star Katy Perry said in Part of Me 3-D, "I have a personal, one-on-one relationship with God, and it's continually evolving."
That comment pretty much sums up why I have lost all patience with evangelicals who talk about a "personal relationship" with God (or Jesus) while ignoring biblical terms like "holiness," "obedience," "submission" and "self-denial." Perry, like countless others, has learned to spout lame Christian jargon rather than Scripture. It would have been interesting if she had restricted herself to the Bible's own words in describing her connection to the Almighty. Then she might have said something like, "I show that I love Jesus by keeping his commandments" (John 14:21), or, "I deny myself and take up my cross daily to follow Jesus" (Luke 9:23), or, "I present myself to God as a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1). Or maybe instead she would have been moved to confess, "My lifestyle proves that I am an enemy of the cross of Christ" (Phillipians 3:18-19), or, "Because of behavior like mine the wrath of God is coming" (Colossians 3:5).
Perry - as most people know - writes and performs songs that celebrate sexual immorality. The Bible denies that sexually immoral people have a relationship with God. Instead it says that God will judge them (Hebrews 13:4), that he will exclude them from his kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:5), and that he will cast them into the fiery lake of burning sulfur (Revelation 21:8). Does that sound like a personal relationship to you? In the Bible it sounds a lot more like adversarial contempt!
But thanks be to God, all is not lost. If Perry - like any other enemy of Christ - repents of her sins and follows Jesus, she will be forgiven and will be received in love and will live forever. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand." (John 10:27). But if Perry persists in unrepentant sin, the Bible warns of a different destiny: "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
No, I'm not picking on Katy Perry. She's merely one among millions who think that "a relationship with God" is possible without holy living. It isn't. "Without holiness no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14).
I could tell you lots of stories of people who delude themselves into thinking they have a personal relationship with God when all they really have is his enmity and mortal opposition. An egregious example is my ex brother-in-law. When deserting my sister after telling her that he had had a long-standing affair, he explained, "I have this relationship with God that you just don't understand." It beggars belief - a man defies God's commands, commits monstrous acts of selfishness, dispatches his loving wife with cruel indifference, and still thinks he is on good terms with God! If he had only read what the Bible says, he would see there that God promises to sizzle his flesh in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. On Judgment Day, many who expect to indulge the delights of their "relationship with God" will instead hear him utter the terrible words, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness" (Matthew 7:23).
I'm afraid I am all too familiar with one source of the delusion that a relationship with God is possible without submission to his will. It's the bad preaching I hear in our cheap-grace churches and evangelical institutions, and the bad teaching I read in trashy evangelical literature. Some examples:
Alan Chambers of Exodus International, in a June interview for The Atlantic, denied that immoral lifestyles preclude a relationship with God. "Some of us choose very different lives than others," he said. "But whatever we choose, it doesn't remove our relationship with God...My personal belief is...while behavior matters, those things don't interrupt someone's relationship with Christ."
Donald Miller (author of Christian best-sellers Blue Like Jazz and Father Fiction) spoke of visiting a university frat house in order to talk to the students about faith and morality. One young man said to him, "I like sex. Do you think I'm going to hell or something?" (Context indicates that by "sex" he meant fornication, not marital union.) Rather than citing all the texts that affirm that fornicators will not make it into God's kingdom, Miller said, "I don't think having sex is the way you get into hell. Heaven and hell are about who you know, not what you do...Morality is more important and more beneficial than any of us know. But heaven and hell are something different."
The pastor of a church my wife and I used to attend recommended from the pulpit a book by Fil Anderson, Breaking The Rules: Trading Performance for Intimacy with God. This book is an abominable piece of filth straight from the pit of hell. It might more profitably have been titled, Defying The Commandments: Neglecting Goodness In Order To Have A Personal Relationship With God. Anderson seems unable to speak of disciplined submission to the will of God without belittling it with pejorative labels like "performance," "list-heeding," or "rule-keeping religion." He writes, "Consider the colossal burden of concentrating on the ought tos, shoulds, have tos and musts. It's time to leave that life behind...We no longer need to feel the pressure to do certain things in order to be in relationship with God." Really? We don't have to do certain things (like remain faithful to our spouses) in order be in relationship with God? My ex brother-in-law could not have said it better!
I will let these examples suffice. Time would fail me - and the effort depress me - to cite similar examples of cheap-grace rhetoric in the works of evangelical titans Max Lucado, Andy Stanley and Philip Yancey. So I'll leave it with this: the next time you hear an evangelical spout mindlessly unbiblical slogans like "It's not about rules - it's about relationship!" or, "Jesus invites you into a personal relationship with him just as you are," come back with the Bible's own words in 1 John 2:3-5a: We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. If we do not obey God's rules, not only do we not have a personal relationship with him - the Bible insists that we do not even know him!
Know the Lord. That is to say, obey him.
That comment pretty much sums up why I have lost all patience with evangelicals who talk about a "personal relationship" with God (or Jesus) while ignoring biblical terms like "holiness," "obedience," "submission" and "self-denial." Perry, like countless others, has learned to spout lame Christian jargon rather than Scripture. It would have been interesting if she had restricted herself to the Bible's own words in describing her connection to the Almighty. Then she might have said something like, "I show that I love Jesus by keeping his commandments" (John 14:21), or, "I deny myself and take up my cross daily to follow Jesus" (Luke 9:23), or, "I present myself to God as a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1). Or maybe instead she would have been moved to confess, "My lifestyle proves that I am an enemy of the cross of Christ" (Phillipians 3:18-19), or, "Because of behavior like mine the wrath of God is coming" (Colossians 3:5).
Perry - as most people know - writes and performs songs that celebrate sexual immorality. The Bible denies that sexually immoral people have a relationship with God. Instead it says that God will judge them (Hebrews 13:4), that he will exclude them from his kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:5), and that he will cast them into the fiery lake of burning sulfur (Revelation 21:8). Does that sound like a personal relationship to you? In the Bible it sounds a lot more like adversarial contempt!
But thanks be to God, all is not lost. If Perry - like any other enemy of Christ - repents of her sins and follows Jesus, she will be forgiven and will be received in love and will live forever. Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give to them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand." (John 10:27). But if Perry persists in unrepentant sin, the Bible warns of a different destiny: "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God" (Hebrews 10:26-27).
No, I'm not picking on Katy Perry. She's merely one among millions who think that "a relationship with God" is possible without holy living. It isn't. "Without holiness no one will see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14).
I could tell you lots of stories of people who delude themselves into thinking they have a personal relationship with God when all they really have is his enmity and mortal opposition. An egregious example is my ex brother-in-law. When deserting my sister after telling her that he had had a long-standing affair, he explained, "I have this relationship with God that you just don't understand." It beggars belief - a man defies God's commands, commits monstrous acts of selfishness, dispatches his loving wife with cruel indifference, and still thinks he is on good terms with God! If he had only read what the Bible says, he would see there that God promises to sizzle his flesh in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. On Judgment Day, many who expect to indulge the delights of their "relationship with God" will instead hear him utter the terrible words, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness" (Matthew 7:23).
I'm afraid I am all too familiar with one source of the delusion that a relationship with God is possible without submission to his will. It's the bad preaching I hear in our cheap-grace churches and evangelical institutions, and the bad teaching I read in trashy evangelical literature. Some examples:
Alan Chambers of Exodus International, in a June interview for The Atlantic, denied that immoral lifestyles preclude a relationship with God. "Some of us choose very different lives than others," he said. "But whatever we choose, it doesn't remove our relationship with God...My personal belief is...while behavior matters, those things don't interrupt someone's relationship with Christ."
Donald Miller (author of Christian best-sellers Blue Like Jazz and Father Fiction) spoke of visiting a university frat house in order to talk to the students about faith and morality. One young man said to him, "I like sex. Do you think I'm going to hell or something?" (Context indicates that by "sex" he meant fornication, not marital union.) Rather than citing all the texts that affirm that fornicators will not make it into God's kingdom, Miller said, "I don't think having sex is the way you get into hell. Heaven and hell are about who you know, not what you do...Morality is more important and more beneficial than any of us know. But heaven and hell are something different."
The pastor of a church my wife and I used to attend recommended from the pulpit a book by Fil Anderson, Breaking The Rules: Trading Performance for Intimacy with God. This book is an abominable piece of filth straight from the pit of hell. It might more profitably have been titled, Defying The Commandments: Neglecting Goodness In Order To Have A Personal Relationship With God. Anderson seems unable to speak of disciplined submission to the will of God without belittling it with pejorative labels like "performance," "list-heeding," or "rule-keeping religion." He writes, "Consider the colossal burden of concentrating on the ought tos, shoulds, have tos and musts. It's time to leave that life behind...We no longer need to feel the pressure to do certain things in order to be in relationship with God." Really? We don't have to do certain things (like remain faithful to our spouses) in order be in relationship with God? My ex brother-in-law could not have said it better!
I will let these examples suffice. Time would fail me - and the effort depress me - to cite similar examples of cheap-grace rhetoric in the works of evangelical titans Max Lucado, Andy Stanley and Philip Yancey. So I'll leave it with this: the next time you hear an evangelical spout mindlessly unbiblical slogans like "It's not about rules - it's about relationship!" or, "Jesus invites you into a personal relationship with him just as you are," come back with the Bible's own words in 1 John 2:3-5a: We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. If we do not obey God's rules, not only do we not have a personal relationship with him - the Bible insists that we do not even know him!
Know the Lord. That is to say, obey him.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
"A Personal Relationship With Jesus Christ"
Relationship rhetoric dominates the presentation of the gospel among Protestant Evangelicals today. I believe this is a bad thing, and we should adjust our rhetoric.
When I listen to the local Christian radio station, I often hear an announcer say, "If you would like to talk to someone right now about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, please call..." and they give the phone number. If you click on "Knowing Christ" at this station's website you will read, "The Bible, as God’s Word, proclaims how a person can come into a living and vital relationship with Jesus Christ." Later it says, "God invites you to come into a relationship with Him through faith in Christ’s death on your behalf." And it concludes, "If you put your faith alone in Christ alone, you will come into a loving and eternal relationship with Christ."
Where did this omnipresent word "relationship" (or the phrase "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ") come from?
It certainly does not come from the Bible. You can verify this for yourself very easily. Search the word "relationship" in an online concordance of the New Testament and you will get zero hits in all the literal translations - e.g. New King James, ESV, NASB, Holman and Young's. In the NIV the word appears just twice, but in neither case does it refer our relationship with God or Jesus.
Only in the free paraphrases (many, many steps removed from the Greek) do you see the word "relationship" connecting us with God. The New Living Translation uses the word this way eight times, and Eugene Peterson's The Message uses it 17 times. I have reviewed each of these texts carefully, and cannot find even one instance where the word "relationship" accurately reflects a close reading of the Greek text.
But does that matter? Just because a particular word does not occur in the Bible does not mean the concept isn't there. I believe in the Trinity even though the word "Trinity" never appears in Scripture, and I believe in plenary inspiration even though we have to cobble that doctrine together from several texts that never use those exact words. Maybe "come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is like that - a handy phrase that, while not strictly biblical, is nonetheless useful because it accurately communicates a truth that we otherwise could not express succinctly.
But I am afraid I am not convinced by this defense of "personal relationship" usage and rhetoric. To me there are two very sound reasons for discarding the phrase entirely.
First, we already have several words in the Bible that express clearly and powerfully what we are supposed to do with Jesus Christ. That is, there was never a gap in the Bible's own language that necessitated the crafting of "have a personal relationship" with him. I cannot agree that the Bible's own words were vague or unwieldy or in any dire need of a robust summary.
Here are two good words that the Bible uses very often with respect to our relation to Divinity: "follow" and "obey." In the New Testament I count 19 instances of "follow" and 26 instances of "obey" (along with its cognates "obedient" and "obedience.") These are conservative counts. I eliminated all duplicate occurrences in the gospels, all concrete usages of "follow" (e.g. "they followed him around the lake"), and all instances of "obey" that had nothing to do with obeying God or Jesus (e.g. "Children obey your parents"). That still leaves dozens of passages like these:
Matthew 10:38:
And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
1 Peter 2:21:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
John 3:36:
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
2 Corinthians 10:5:
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
There are other good words in the Bible that likewise tell us what to do with Jesus, words like "trust," "worship," "thank," "love," "glorify," "praise," and "bow the knee to." If there exists in the English language a summary phrase that contains all these elements, "have a personal relationship with" is certainly not it. We would need something far deeper and stronger than that.
So my first objection to "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is simple and procedural: We have plenty of good words in the Bible already - why not use them? My second complaint is more substantial and has to do with the weakness of the phrase itself. I'll be blunt: "have a personal relationship with" is mild, mushy, flimsy, non-committal, indefinite and so unclear that it is hard to see it as anything other than misleading. While "worship," "trust," "obey," "love," "follow," and "thank" are all meaty words you can sink your teeth into, "have a personal relationship with" dissolves on your tongue like verbal cotton candy. In the Bible's own words a man can read his mission clear, but our latter-day substitute is just a pastel blur.
And I believe that this lack of clarity provides for many people a fog of escape from the duty of submission to God's will. That is because "have a personal relationship with" says nothing about our position relative to God nor our obligation to serve him. We all have "personal relationships" with our spouses, children, parents, friends, coworkers and neighbors - but we do not worship, obey, follow, or pray to them. We do not seek to take every thought captive in obedience to them. That is, our standing before all others with whom we have "personal relationships" is qualitatively different from our standing before God. In all other instances where we use that phrase "personal relationship" there is an implied equal footing, an equality of status. (Our relationship with our children is no exception: though they must honor us as we honor our parents and as their children must honor them, our co-equal status as human beings provides the ground upon which the personal relationship is founded.)
I am afraid that the English phrase "personal relationship," is, in normal usage, so laden with the freight of ontological equality that it is difficult to keep that egalitarian inference from seeping into our minds when we use the phrase to connect us and God. I contend that this seepage is a real danger. Witness the alarming tendency even among confessing evangelicals to regard God as a personal friend who is free to make suggestions but is not the Lord of creation whose command is absolute. Jesus, in their view, is not someone to be obeyed but someone to pal around with. Lord willing, I'll write another essay soon with concrete examples that illustrate the ways in which "relationship" has replaced "obedience" for many modern evangelicals.
In the meantime let me tell you of a hope that I cherish. I have a dream that someday I'll turn on WMBI radio and the announcer will not be saying, "God wants to have a personal relationship with you," but rather, "God commands you to repent of your sins." And instead of, "If you would like to talk to someone right now about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," he'll say, "If you would like to follow Jesus Christ, please call this number." I'll rejoice and say, "At last! They are using Jesus' own words. Perhaps revival is near."
When I listen to the local Christian radio station, I often hear an announcer say, "If you would like to talk to someone right now about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, please call..." and they give the phone number. If you click on "Knowing Christ" at this station's website you will read, "The Bible, as God’s Word, proclaims how a person can come into a living and vital relationship with Jesus Christ." Later it says, "God invites you to come into a relationship with Him through faith in Christ’s death on your behalf." And it concludes, "If you put your faith alone in Christ alone, you will come into a loving and eternal relationship with Christ."
Where did this omnipresent word "relationship" (or the phrase "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ") come from?
It certainly does not come from the Bible. You can verify this for yourself very easily. Search the word "relationship" in an online concordance of the New Testament and you will get zero hits in all the literal translations - e.g. New King James, ESV, NASB, Holman and Young's. In the NIV the word appears just twice, but in neither case does it refer our relationship with God or Jesus.
Only in the free paraphrases (many, many steps removed from the Greek) do you see the word "relationship" connecting us with God. The New Living Translation uses the word this way eight times, and Eugene Peterson's The Message uses it 17 times. I have reviewed each of these texts carefully, and cannot find even one instance where the word "relationship" accurately reflects a close reading of the Greek text.
But does that matter? Just because a particular word does not occur in the Bible does not mean the concept isn't there. I believe in the Trinity even though the word "Trinity" never appears in Scripture, and I believe in plenary inspiration even though we have to cobble that doctrine together from several texts that never use those exact words. Maybe "come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is like that - a handy phrase that, while not strictly biblical, is nonetheless useful because it accurately communicates a truth that we otherwise could not express succinctly.
But I am afraid I am not convinced by this defense of "personal relationship" usage and rhetoric. To me there are two very sound reasons for discarding the phrase entirely.
First, we already have several words in the Bible that express clearly and powerfully what we are supposed to do with Jesus Christ. That is, there was never a gap in the Bible's own language that necessitated the crafting of "have a personal relationship" with him. I cannot agree that the Bible's own words were vague or unwieldy or in any dire need of a robust summary.
Here are two good words that the Bible uses very often with respect to our relation to Divinity: "follow" and "obey." In the New Testament I count 19 instances of "follow" and 26 instances of "obey" (along with its cognates "obedient" and "obedience.") These are conservative counts. I eliminated all duplicate occurrences in the gospels, all concrete usages of "follow" (e.g. "they followed him around the lake"), and all instances of "obey" that had nothing to do with obeying God or Jesus (e.g. "Children obey your parents"). That still leaves dozens of passages like these:
Matthew 10:38:
And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
1 Peter 2:21:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.
John 3:36:
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
2 Corinthians 10:5:
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
There are other good words in the Bible that likewise tell us what to do with Jesus, words like "trust," "worship," "thank," "love," "glorify," "praise," and "bow the knee to." If there exists in the English language a summary phrase that contains all these elements, "have a personal relationship with" is certainly not it. We would need something far deeper and stronger than that.
So my first objection to "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is simple and procedural: We have plenty of good words in the Bible already - why not use them? My second complaint is more substantial and has to do with the weakness of the phrase itself. I'll be blunt: "have a personal relationship with" is mild, mushy, flimsy, non-committal, indefinite and so unclear that it is hard to see it as anything other than misleading. While "worship," "trust," "obey," "love," "follow," and "thank" are all meaty words you can sink your teeth into, "have a personal relationship with" dissolves on your tongue like verbal cotton candy. In the Bible's own words a man can read his mission clear, but our latter-day substitute is just a pastel blur.
And I believe that this lack of clarity provides for many people a fog of escape from the duty of submission to God's will. That is because "have a personal relationship with" says nothing about our position relative to God nor our obligation to serve him. We all have "personal relationships" with our spouses, children, parents, friends, coworkers and neighbors - but we do not worship, obey, follow, or pray to them. We do not seek to take every thought captive in obedience to them. That is, our standing before all others with whom we have "personal relationships" is qualitatively different from our standing before God. In all other instances where we use that phrase "personal relationship" there is an implied equal footing, an equality of status. (Our relationship with our children is no exception: though they must honor us as we honor our parents and as their children must honor them, our co-equal status as human beings provides the ground upon which the personal relationship is founded.)
I am afraid that the English phrase "personal relationship," is, in normal usage, so laden with the freight of ontological equality that it is difficult to keep that egalitarian inference from seeping into our minds when we use the phrase to connect us and God. I contend that this seepage is a real danger. Witness the alarming tendency even among confessing evangelicals to regard God as a personal friend who is free to make suggestions but is not the Lord of creation whose command is absolute. Jesus, in their view, is not someone to be obeyed but someone to pal around with. Lord willing, I'll write another essay soon with concrete examples that illustrate the ways in which "relationship" has replaced "obedience" for many modern evangelicals.
In the meantime let me tell you of a hope that I cherish. I have a dream that someday I'll turn on WMBI radio and the announcer will not be saying, "God wants to have a personal relationship with you," but rather, "God commands you to repent of your sins." And instead of, "If you would like to talk to someone right now about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," he'll say, "If you would like to follow Jesus Christ, please call this number." I'll rejoice and say, "At last! They are using Jesus' own words. Perhaps revival is near."
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Make It Right
"He repented!"
"No he didn't."
"He stopped committing the sin."
"But he didn't make it right."
That's a tightly condensed summary of an argument I had with a friend some time ago. It recently popped back into my mind as I thought about what makes for true repentance. Real repentance is not just a matter of walking away from some sin you committed. There must also be reparation. You must clean up your mess as best you can.
An easy example is robbery. Suppose a man robs a bank and takes away $50,000. Afterward he feels remorse, pleads with God for forgiveness, and resolves never to rob again. And, in fact, he follows through on his resolution. From that point forward he leads an honest life and never steals a penny. Has he repented? It depends. What did he do with the $50,000? If he kept it, spent it on himself and avoided the consequences of his act, then he never really repented at all. He must bring the money back and turn himself in to the authorities. If a man can repair the damage done by his sin but refuses to do so, he has not repented but merely felt remorse.
A good example of incomplete repentance occurs in George MacDonald's The Minister's Restoration, where a narcissistic seminary student, James Blatherwick, toys with the emotions of Isy, a sweet and good-natured servant girl. Isy adores James, and he welcomes the attention. He even jokes with her about marrying her someday, though he is confident that the social gulf between them would prevent that from happening. Then one day when they are involved in a moment of great emotional intensity he suddenly takes her into his arms. MacDonald writes, "At the moment when a genuine love would have stopped, in order to surround her with arms of safety rather than passion, he ceased to be his sister's keeper." Afterward James is deeply ashamed, and though he knows he ought to marry Isy, he leaves her instead and cuts off all contact with her. He "repents" only in the shallow and inadequate sense that he does not keep fornicating with her or with anyone else. But he does not make it right; he does not take her hand in marriage. He does not even send her any letters. His "repentance" consists of abandoning Isy to her shame and disgrace while going on to bigger things in the ministry. It is not until a few years later that he discovers he is a father.
Sometimes it is not so easy to know what to do (return the money, marry the girl) to make reparation for your sin. Evangelist Luis Palau tells of the time he stole a set of colored pencils from another boy when he was just 10 years old. For years (decades?), that theft weighed on his conscience, and so as an adult he tracked down his victim and, yes, gave him some colored pencils. The guy just looked at him funny. Some of our sins and their consequences have washed so far down the river that our attempts to make restitution are more symbolic than anything else. But it is still worth the effort. Even a symbolic reparation says, "I take seriously what I did wrong, am sorry for it, and would make it right if I could."
A friend of mine has a violent past and has spent a lot of time in prison for it. He's a Christian now, and God in his grace has taken away the rage that fueled his brutality. Knowing him now you would not guess he's an ex con. The effects of his violence are far down the river of history, but he does his part to "make it right" by volunteering in a prison ministry and telling his story to inmates at chapel services. Along the same lines I think of a woman at the first church I pastored who raised huge amounts of money for the annual "Hike for Life" that supported local pregnancy centers. Becky became a Christian in her 30s; before that she had had three abortions. She told me that she knew that she would see her children in heaven, and that they had forgiven her - but she still wanted to do whatever she could to save other babies from the fate that befell her own.
Making it right is biblical. In Luke 19 a tax collector named Zacchaeus comes to Christ and shows he is serious about repentance by not merely shunning extortion in the future but by preparing refunds for past acts of fraud. "Look, Lord!" he says. "Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Jesus responds (not by saying "Stop trying to earn salvation with your good works!" but rather), "Today salvation has come to this house" (Luke 19:8-9).
In Ephesians 4:28-29 Paul tells thieves not to steal and potty-mouths not to say bad words. But he goes beyond that. A former thief should do more than just not steal, he should "labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." And people who formerly cursed blue streaks should now learn speech that is "good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."
Repentance is more than just stopping what is bad. You also need to fix it, make it as right as you can, and start doing the opposite good.
"No he didn't."
"He stopped committing the sin."
"But he didn't make it right."
That's a tightly condensed summary of an argument I had with a friend some time ago. It recently popped back into my mind as I thought about what makes for true repentance. Real repentance is not just a matter of walking away from some sin you committed. There must also be reparation. You must clean up your mess as best you can.
An easy example is robbery. Suppose a man robs a bank and takes away $50,000. Afterward he feels remorse, pleads with God for forgiveness, and resolves never to rob again. And, in fact, he follows through on his resolution. From that point forward he leads an honest life and never steals a penny. Has he repented? It depends. What did he do with the $50,000? If he kept it, spent it on himself and avoided the consequences of his act, then he never really repented at all. He must bring the money back and turn himself in to the authorities. If a man can repair the damage done by his sin but refuses to do so, he has not repented but merely felt remorse.
A good example of incomplete repentance occurs in George MacDonald's The Minister's Restoration, where a narcissistic seminary student, James Blatherwick, toys with the emotions of Isy, a sweet and good-natured servant girl. Isy adores James, and he welcomes the attention. He even jokes with her about marrying her someday, though he is confident that the social gulf between them would prevent that from happening. Then one day when they are involved in a moment of great emotional intensity he suddenly takes her into his arms. MacDonald writes, "At the moment when a genuine love would have stopped, in order to surround her with arms of safety rather than passion, he ceased to be his sister's keeper." Afterward James is deeply ashamed, and though he knows he ought to marry Isy, he leaves her instead and cuts off all contact with her. He "repents" only in the shallow and inadequate sense that he does not keep fornicating with her or with anyone else. But he does not make it right; he does not take her hand in marriage. He does not even send her any letters. His "repentance" consists of abandoning Isy to her shame and disgrace while going on to bigger things in the ministry. It is not until a few years later that he discovers he is a father.
Sometimes it is not so easy to know what to do (return the money, marry the girl) to make reparation for your sin. Evangelist Luis Palau tells of the time he stole a set of colored pencils from another boy when he was just 10 years old. For years (decades?), that theft weighed on his conscience, and so as an adult he tracked down his victim and, yes, gave him some colored pencils. The guy just looked at him funny. Some of our sins and their consequences have washed so far down the river that our attempts to make restitution are more symbolic than anything else. But it is still worth the effort. Even a symbolic reparation says, "I take seriously what I did wrong, am sorry for it, and would make it right if I could."
A friend of mine has a violent past and has spent a lot of time in prison for it. He's a Christian now, and God in his grace has taken away the rage that fueled his brutality. Knowing him now you would not guess he's an ex con. The effects of his violence are far down the river of history, but he does his part to "make it right" by volunteering in a prison ministry and telling his story to inmates at chapel services. Along the same lines I think of a woman at the first church I pastored who raised huge amounts of money for the annual "Hike for Life" that supported local pregnancy centers. Becky became a Christian in her 30s; before that she had had three abortions. She told me that she knew that she would see her children in heaven, and that they had forgiven her - but she still wanted to do whatever she could to save other babies from the fate that befell her own.
Making it right is biblical. In Luke 19 a tax collector named Zacchaeus comes to Christ and shows he is serious about repentance by not merely shunning extortion in the future but by preparing refunds for past acts of fraud. "Look, Lord!" he says. "Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Jesus responds (not by saying "Stop trying to earn salvation with your good works!" but rather), "Today salvation has come to this house" (Luke 19:8-9).
In Ephesians 4:28-29 Paul tells thieves not to steal and potty-mouths not to say bad words. But he goes beyond that. A former thief should do more than just not steal, he should "labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need." And people who formerly cursed blue streaks should now learn speech that is "good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."
Repentance is more than just stopping what is bad. You also need to fix it, make it as right as you can, and start doing the opposite good.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Who Hardens The Heart?
A friend asked if I'd comment on those Bible passages that talk about Pharaoh's hardened heart:
Did God harden Pharaoh's heart, or did Pharaoh harden his own heart (or both)? The Bible seems unclear about this. If God hardened Pharaoh's heart, how could Pharaoh be blamed for his actions?
There are 17 verses in the book of Exodus that speak of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. In three of them, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. For example:
Exodus 8:32:
But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.
In five verses, the text leaves unspecified who does the hardening. For example:
Exodus 7:13:
Yet Pharaoh's was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
In nine verses, God hardens Pharaoh's heart. For example:
Exodus 11:10:
Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land.
The texts clearly and unambiguously say that (1) God hardened Pharaoh's heart, (2) Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and (3) Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The question is how to relate these statements to one another.
As careful Bible scholars have long pointed out, the texts themselves never draw a causal connection between what God does to Pharaoh and what Pharaoh does to himself. The texts just say both. We never see a statement like, "Because God determined beforehand to harden Pharaoh's heart, therefore Pharaoh necessarily hardened his own heart." Nor does any text say, "Because Pharaoh hardened his own heart, therefore God confirmed him in that decision and hardened it just the way Pharaoh wanted." The second option seems more palatable, because the first sounds an awful lot like "God forced Pharaoh to sin." That can't be right, can it?
The Hebrew text may help us understand this better. The phrase "harden the heart" does not mean "compel to sin." There are three different Hebrew words used in these texts in Exodus, and all appear to be synonymous in context and used interchangeably. The most common is chazaq (found in 12 of the 17 hardening passages), and its primary meaning is "to strengthen, to be or to grow strong or firm." Often this strengthening is a good thing. For example, this word is used three times in Joshua 1:6-9 where God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous:
6 "Be strong (chazaq) and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong (chazaq) and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you...9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong (chazaq) and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
In Joshua's case, I believe he wanted to do the right thing but required chazaq (strength, toughness, hardness) to go ahead and do it. With Pharaoh it's the opposite: he wanted to do the wrong thing but may have lacked the chazaq to carry it out. If Pharaoh had let the Israelites go, it would not have been out of justice and wisdom and fairness and goodwill but out of mere cowardice. (Who wants to endure a bunch of plagues?) But God hardened, toughened, strengthened, emboldened him - and he hardened, toughened, strengthened, emboldened himself - to do what he really wanted to do in the first place, which was to be a jerk to the Israelites.
By analogy, we might think it would be good if every time a man wanted to commit adultery God made him impotent and unable to carry out what his will desired. But that is not what God usually does. God gives the adulterous man chazaq - hardens him - and he sins. God never forces a man to cheat on his wife, but often he empowers a man to do what his evil will would choose.
Does this make God responsible for a person's sin? No. See what you think of the following true story.
A seminary professor of mine once served a church where the previous pastor - I'll call him Adolph - had committed adultery and wrecked everything. It turns out Adolph had done the same thing in two churches he had pastored earlier. (Don't they do background checks?) The last anyone heard, Adolph moved to Ohio where he was now selling computer components. My professor said if you confront Adolph and ask him, "What went wrong? Why did you fall into the same wretched trap three times?" he answers, "I fell because God is a liar. God says, 'No temptation has seized you except what is common to man, but God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will provide you a way out' (1 Corinthians 10:13). I wasn't able to bear it. So God is a liar." And he will not pursue the conversation further.
What an evil son of hell.
I believe that Pharaoh and Adolph are equally responsible for their sins. "Hardening the heart" does not mean "hijacking the will." God did provide Adolph a way out, but he chose not to take it. I have never seen a text in Scripture that says that God forced a man to do something he didn't want to do. If Pharaoh had been a different kind of man, then he might have used the chazaq God gave him to do right by the Israelites no matter what the cost. Abraham Lincoln was a hard man too - but he used his chazaq to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.
In Scripture we find that a readiness to do the divine will meets with glad assistance from God. Those who desire goodness get it. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6), not: "Regardless of whether people hunger and thirst for righteousness, God may, in his sovereignty, harden their wills so that they succumb to wickedness." Jesus also said, "If anyone is willing to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (John 7:17), not: "If anyone is willing to do God's will, he will nonetheless find his quest for truth hopeless if God chooses to harden his heart." No Scripture anywhere shows God responding to a person who says, "I long to do your will" with, "Too bad - I am going to force you to disobey me."
But God often gives willful sinners what they want most: the ability to sin without the burden of conscience. Shakespeare's MacBeth, wanting to kill Malcom, prayed to the universe saying,
Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
He was asking, "Just let me do this wickedness without interference from the fire of truth or the light of conscience; let me enjoy the result of my sin without having to think of the corruption that brought it about." The Roman poet Juvenal called petitions like these "enormous prayers which heaven in anger grants."
I would love to leave the matter there, but there remains the difficulty of reconciling the ideas offered above with St. Paul's treatment of Pharaoh's hardened heart in Romans 9:17-21. There Paul writes:
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. 19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
There does not seem to be any wiggle room in that passage that allows for human freedom, does there? God shapes Pharaoh's heart like a potter shapes a lump of clay, and in the context of the metaphor it is hard to imagine the clay saying, "Mr. Potter, please shape me this way," and the potter responding, "Sure, I'd be happy to. Your will be done." Paul anticipates the very natural question my friend posted above: "If God hardened Pharaoh's heart, how could Pharaoh be blamed for his actions?" See verse 19: "One of you will say to me: 'Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?'". This strikes me as such a good question that I cannot help but feel some frustration that Paul bats it away with "Who are you, o man, to talk back to God?" (verse 20). Is the person really "talking back to God," or, like my friend, seeking a true understanding of God's ways with men?
My answer to this difficulty is to say that in the context of Romans 9 Paul presupposes a corrupt human will. While in another context Jesus may speak of a good man ("The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him" - Matthew 12:35), in Paul's argument there are no good men: "There are none righteous, no not one...All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:10,23). Here, man's will is neither morally neutral (seeing if it will be softened into obedience or hardened into rebellion), nor morally good (hoping God will not twist it into something bad), but morally depraved from the start. God's hardening then is not a matter of taking a good will and corrupting it but giving strength to a will that already opposes him. Perhaps this explains why, in verse 18, Paul does not set in opposition to the word "harden" its natural opposite "soften" but rather "have mercy on." All those who bow the knee to God are not, in the final analysis, good people whom God has rewarded, but sinners to whom he has shown mercy. May God be merciful to us sinners.
Did God harden Pharaoh's heart, or did Pharaoh harden his own heart (or both)? The Bible seems unclear about this. If God hardened Pharaoh's heart, how could Pharaoh be blamed for his actions?
There are 17 verses in the book of Exodus that speak of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. In three of them, Pharaoh hardens his own heart. For example:
Exodus 8:32:
But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go.
In five verses, the text leaves unspecified who does the hardening. For example:
Exodus 7:13:
Yet Pharaoh's was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said.
In nine verses, God hardens Pharaoh's heart. For example:
Exodus 11:10:
Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; yet the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the sons of Israel go out of his land.
The texts clearly and unambiguously say that (1) God hardened Pharaoh's heart, (2) Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and (3) Pharaoh hardened his own heart. The question is how to relate these statements to one another.
As careful Bible scholars have long pointed out, the texts themselves never draw a causal connection between what God does to Pharaoh and what Pharaoh does to himself. The texts just say both. We never see a statement like, "Because God determined beforehand to harden Pharaoh's heart, therefore Pharaoh necessarily hardened his own heart." Nor does any text say, "Because Pharaoh hardened his own heart, therefore God confirmed him in that decision and hardened it just the way Pharaoh wanted." The second option seems more palatable, because the first sounds an awful lot like "God forced Pharaoh to sin." That can't be right, can it?
The Hebrew text may help us understand this better. The phrase "harden the heart" does not mean "compel to sin." There are three different Hebrew words used in these texts in Exodus, and all appear to be synonymous in context and used interchangeably. The most common is chazaq (found in 12 of the 17 hardening passages), and its primary meaning is "to strengthen, to be or to grow strong or firm." Often this strengthening is a good thing. For example, this word is used three times in Joshua 1:6-9 where God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous:
6 "Be strong (chazaq) and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong (chazaq) and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you...9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong (chazaq) and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
In Joshua's case, I believe he wanted to do the right thing but required chazaq (strength, toughness, hardness) to go ahead and do it. With Pharaoh it's the opposite: he wanted to do the wrong thing but may have lacked the chazaq to carry it out. If Pharaoh had let the Israelites go, it would not have been out of justice and wisdom and fairness and goodwill but out of mere cowardice. (Who wants to endure a bunch of plagues?) But God hardened, toughened, strengthened, emboldened him - and he hardened, toughened, strengthened, emboldened himself - to do what he really wanted to do in the first place, which was to be a jerk to the Israelites.
By analogy, we might think it would be good if every time a man wanted to commit adultery God made him impotent and unable to carry out what his will desired. But that is not what God usually does. God gives the adulterous man chazaq - hardens him - and he sins. God never forces a man to cheat on his wife, but often he empowers a man to do what his evil will would choose.
Does this make God responsible for a person's sin? No. See what you think of the following true story.
A seminary professor of mine once served a church where the previous pastor - I'll call him Adolph - had committed adultery and wrecked everything. It turns out Adolph had done the same thing in two churches he had pastored earlier. (Don't they do background checks?) The last anyone heard, Adolph moved to Ohio where he was now selling computer components. My professor said if you confront Adolph and ask him, "What went wrong? Why did you fall into the same wretched trap three times?" he answers, "I fell because God is a liar. God says, 'No temptation has seized you except what is common to man, but God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but will provide you a way out' (1 Corinthians 10:13). I wasn't able to bear it. So God is a liar." And he will not pursue the conversation further.
What an evil son of hell.
I believe that Pharaoh and Adolph are equally responsible for their sins. "Hardening the heart" does not mean "hijacking the will." God did provide Adolph a way out, but he chose not to take it. I have never seen a text in Scripture that says that God forced a man to do something he didn't want to do. If Pharaoh had been a different kind of man, then he might have used the chazaq God gave him to do right by the Israelites no matter what the cost. Abraham Lincoln was a hard man too - but he used his chazaq to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.
In Scripture we find that a readiness to do the divine will meets with glad assistance from God. Those who desire goodness get it. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6), not: "Regardless of whether people hunger and thirst for righteousness, God may, in his sovereignty, harden their wills so that they succumb to wickedness." Jesus also said, "If anyone is willing to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own" (John 7:17), not: "If anyone is willing to do God's will, he will nonetheless find his quest for truth hopeless if God chooses to harden his heart." No Scripture anywhere shows God responding to a person who says, "I long to do your will" with, "Too bad - I am going to force you to disobey me."
But God often gives willful sinners what they want most: the ability to sin without the burden of conscience. Shakespeare's MacBeth, wanting to kill Malcom, prayed to the universe saying,
Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
He was asking, "Just let me do this wickedness without interference from the fire of truth or the light of conscience; let me enjoy the result of my sin without having to think of the corruption that brought it about." The Roman poet Juvenal called petitions like these "enormous prayers which heaven in anger grants."
I would love to leave the matter there, but there remains the difficulty of reconciling the ideas offered above with St. Paul's treatment of Pharaoh's hardened heart in Romans 9:17-21. There Paul writes:
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. 19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
There does not seem to be any wiggle room in that passage that allows for human freedom, does there? God shapes Pharaoh's heart like a potter shapes a lump of clay, and in the context of the metaphor it is hard to imagine the clay saying, "Mr. Potter, please shape me this way," and the potter responding, "Sure, I'd be happy to. Your will be done." Paul anticipates the very natural question my friend posted above: "If God hardened Pharaoh's heart, how could Pharaoh be blamed for his actions?" See verse 19: "One of you will say to me: 'Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?'". This strikes me as such a good question that I cannot help but feel some frustration that Paul bats it away with "Who are you, o man, to talk back to God?" (verse 20). Is the person really "talking back to God," or, like my friend, seeking a true understanding of God's ways with men?
My answer to this difficulty is to say that in the context of Romans 9 Paul presupposes a corrupt human will. While in another context Jesus may speak of a good man ("The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him" - Matthew 12:35), in Paul's argument there are no good men: "There are none righteous, no not one...All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:10,23). Here, man's will is neither morally neutral (seeing if it will be softened into obedience or hardened into rebellion), nor morally good (hoping God will not twist it into something bad), but morally depraved from the start. God's hardening then is not a matter of taking a good will and corrupting it but giving strength to a will that already opposes him. Perhaps this explains why, in verse 18, Paul does not set in opposition to the word "harden" its natural opposite "soften" but rather "have mercy on." All those who bow the knee to God are not, in the final analysis, good people whom God has rewarded, but sinners to whom he has shown mercy. May God be merciful to us sinners.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Did Tom White Go To Heaven Or Hell?
On the morning of April 18 the body of Tom White, executive director of The Voice of the Martyrs, was found at his ministry's headquarters in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He had committed suicide while under investigation for having molested a 10-year-old girl.
A couple weeks ago Tom White was known as a fine Christian man in charge of an international Christian ministry that was doing great good in the world. Now he is known as a pedophile, the scum of the earth, the kind of man who, if he said aloud, "I want to kill myself," would quickly be handed a gun by some eager volunteer who would tell him, "Do it, you bastard."
Tom White has slipped the court of human justice and has now stood before the God to whom we will all render account. Did God take him home to heaven or send him away to hell?
I'm not going to answer that question. It is not for me to answer. But I would like to mention some relevant Scripture texts. In bold print below are Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to hell. In italics are other Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to heaven. I post these verses without further comment, and leave the question hanging in the air.
Mark 9:42:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
Romans 10:13:
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Matthew 7:21-23:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 2:13:
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Titus 3:5:
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Luke 23:41-43:
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Galatians 5:19-21:
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 3:13-15:
13 His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Ephesians 5:5-6:
5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
Luke 18:13-14:
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Revelation 21:8:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.
Romans 10:9-10:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved
John 5:28-29:
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
John 5:24:
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
1 John 3:15:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
John 6:37:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
Matthew 13:49-50:
49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Romans 4:5:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
A couple weeks ago Tom White was known as a fine Christian man in charge of an international Christian ministry that was doing great good in the world. Now he is known as a pedophile, the scum of the earth, the kind of man who, if he said aloud, "I want to kill myself," would quickly be handed a gun by some eager volunteer who would tell him, "Do it, you bastard."
Tom White has slipped the court of human justice and has now stood before the God to whom we will all render account. Did God take him home to heaven or send him away to hell?
I'm not going to answer that question. It is not for me to answer. But I would like to mention some relevant Scripture texts. In bold print below are Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to hell. In italics are other Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to heaven. I post these verses without further comment, and leave the question hanging in the air.
Mark 9:42:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."
Romans 10:13:
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Matthew 7:21-23:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Romans 2:13:
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Titus 3:5:
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Luke 23:41-43:
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Galatians 5:19-21:
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 3:13-15:
13 His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Ephesians 5:5-6:
5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
Luke 18:13-14:
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Revelation 21:8:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.
Romans 10:9-10:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved
John 5:28-29:
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
John 5:24:
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
1 John 3:15:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
John 6:37:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
Matthew 13:49-50:
49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Romans 4:5:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Can We Thank God For Cake When Others Have No Bread?
Years ago when I was at the University of Illinois I took my friend Nordin out for a cup of coffee and dessert. Nordin, a fellow linguistics student and devout Muslim, grew up in Malaysia in circumstances you might consider poverty-stricken. He told me for example that when he came to America he had to teach his children how to flush a toilet.
When the waitress brought us our desserts - huge mounds of chocolate cake topped with ice cream and dripping with hot fudge - Nordin smiled and said, eyes shining, "Oh Paul. Who can look at this and not be thankful?"
I have quoted Nordin many times since. Though he meant his question to be rhetorical, I can think of some answers to it. Here are three kinds of people who can receive chocolate cake and not be thankful:
(1) Small-minded ingrates who think they deserve such luxuries. They complain when they don't get them but are not grateful when they receive them.
(2) Atheists who sincerely believe there is No One to thank. (They might thank the person who bought the cake, but not the Creator of Reality in which cake is enjoyed.)
(3) People who may or may not believe in God, but who deem it unseemly in any event to thank such a Being for trifles and luxuries while others are denied basic necessities.
I am not interested in the people in category 1. They are bad and should repent and learn to give thanks so that they will be less bad. As for the people in category 2, while I disagree with their premise I respect their intellectual consistency. For a response to the curious phenomenon of atheists who like to give thanks anyways (just whom are they thanking?), please see the February 3, 2009 essay, "I Need Somebody To Thank."
It is the people in category (3) who interest me the most and with whom I actually have some sympathy, despite the fact that (as my experience suggests) they tend to find gratitude like mine offensive, and sometimes they even respond to it with expressions of outrage that border on ill will. Their anger is understandable, since in their view my thankfulness is unseemly, and all unseemly behavior is wrong.
I recently saw an example of category 3 opposition to gratitude on the Facebook page of an old college friend who is now a professor of philosophy. He uploaded a poster with three panels. The first panel showed Britanny Spears receiving an award, and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me win this award." The second panel showed Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings kneeling on a football field and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me score this touchdown." The third panel showed starving children in Africa. There was no caption.
I cannot say I know for certain what was the precise message that the creator of the poster wanted to convey. It may have been
(1) "God doesn't care about your Grammy awards and touchdowns. Look at these starving children! They are the ones God cares about. Rather than invoking the name of God in your victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers or Christina Aguilera you should devote yourself to God's true priorities: ministry to those who are desperately poor and needy."
Or,
(2) "How silly of you to think that there is a God who enables you to make millions catching a football or singing a song. Isn't it obvious that God does not exist? All that is necessary to demolish your Grammy-and-touchdown God is to take one good look at these starving children. If there were a loving Sky Fairy, certainly he would give these hungry children a sandwich before he would give you success in music or sports."
It was just such a photograph of African starvation that proved pivotal in Charles Templeton's departure from Christian faith. Templeton was an evangelist and pastor, and a colleague and friend of Billy Graham. He converted to atheism in the mid 1950s, citing among other things a picture in Life Magazine of a mother in Africa with her starving child. Long story short, Templeton concluded, "There is no God."
I have written lengthy responses to such standard challenges to theism (See "The Tsunmai and Faith," parts 1 and 2, January 4 and 9, 2005; "The Goodness of God and the Horror of Haiti," January 19, 2010; and "Why I Believe in the Goodness of God," January 26, 2010). I will not repeat those points here. My focus is more narrow. If there is a God, and all the wretched suffering in the world has not caused us to disbelieve his existence, should it at least give us pause with regard to thanking him? Is it right to thank God for cake while others die for lack of bread?
Yes, I think you should still thank God for cake. And for touchdowns, Grammys, and whatever else brings you joy that is neither ill-gotten nor perverse. Free yourself from the inhibition that would stifle your instinct to say "Oh, thank you GOD!" whenever you get something nice. That restraint and its puritanical enforcers among the category 3 non-thankers exude an air of righteousness dignity, but it's all just smoke and fog. Indulge. Give thanks. Rejoice in the Lord.
If you are tempted to pull back from giving thanks because of the indignation and intimidation of category 3 non-thankers, I should warn you that their objections to your thanksgiving will probably not stop at trifles. I have seen it extend all the way to life itself. For example, in a January 4, 2005 Chicago Tribune column Eric Zorn confessed his impatience with a friend who thanked God for answered prayer that his loved ones in Sri Lanka survived the great tsunami. This gratitude, Zorn explained, implied a judgment on those who suffered: clearly they did not praise and beg God sufficiently. Zorn took a similar shot at "civic and religious leaders [who] thank God for steering tornadoes around their little towns." Do you see? In order to satisfy a category 3 non-thanker you would have to stifle your gratitude not only for touchdowns and Grammys but for the simple fact that you're still alive. That pretty well covers the range from trivial to vital, doesn't it. If you asked a category 3 non-thanker, "Is there anything I could thank God for where it wouldn't bother you?" I believe the honest answer would be "No. Anything you thank God for is something that somebody somewhere in the world didn't get. That makes your thanksgiving immoral. So stop offending me with it."
Category 3 restraint on gratitude conceals at its a core a massive black hole which, unchecked, consumes all gratitude, and with it, the joy and goodwill that appreciation creates within us. The danger is real. But spontaneous thankers know something that the enemies of gratitude do not: Today, I have a joy where you have a lament, and tomorrow, you will have a joy that I have lost or can never achieve. In the meantime let us all give thanks for whatever we can whenever we can. When I cry out in pain or mourn a great loss you can cry with me; when you give thanks for some delight that I can never experience maybe I can be a little happy for you. There's no point in all of us crying all the time.
The ad campaign for St. Jude Children's Hospital gets it right. I used to see their commercials in movie theaters: "Give thanks for the healthy children in your life, and give to those who are not." Give thanks...and give. Gratitude spurs charity in ways that self-righteous ingratitude never seems to match. For anecdotal proof, look up Greg Jennings, the football player whose devotion to God is lampooned in the poster that shows his kneeling form next to starving children. I just googled him. Yes, Jennings has the gall to say "Glory to God" after his team wins the Super Bowl despite the fact that children are simultaneously dropping dead of starvation in Africa. He is also, the news reports say, a classy guy with a great attitude who is devoted to his family and very actively involved in charity. Among other things he donates $1,000 to a shelter for women and single mothers every time he catches a touchdown pass. Score one for an uninhibited thanker of God.
When the waitress brought us our desserts - huge mounds of chocolate cake topped with ice cream and dripping with hot fudge - Nordin smiled and said, eyes shining, "Oh Paul. Who can look at this and not be thankful?"
I have quoted Nordin many times since. Though he meant his question to be rhetorical, I can think of some answers to it. Here are three kinds of people who can receive chocolate cake and not be thankful:
(1) Small-minded ingrates who think they deserve such luxuries. They complain when they don't get them but are not grateful when they receive them.
(2) Atheists who sincerely believe there is No One to thank. (They might thank the person who bought the cake, but not the Creator of Reality in which cake is enjoyed.)
(3) People who may or may not believe in God, but who deem it unseemly in any event to thank such a Being for trifles and luxuries while others are denied basic necessities.
I am not interested in the people in category 1. They are bad and should repent and learn to give thanks so that they will be less bad. As for the people in category 2, while I disagree with their premise I respect their intellectual consistency. For a response to the curious phenomenon of atheists who like to give thanks anyways (just whom are they thanking?), please see the February 3, 2009 essay, "I Need Somebody To Thank."
It is the people in category (3) who interest me the most and with whom I actually have some sympathy, despite the fact that (as my experience suggests) they tend to find gratitude like mine offensive, and sometimes they even respond to it with expressions of outrage that border on ill will. Their anger is understandable, since in their view my thankfulness is unseemly, and all unseemly behavior is wrong.
I recently saw an example of category 3 opposition to gratitude on the Facebook page of an old college friend who is now a professor of philosophy. He uploaded a poster with three panels. The first panel showed Britanny Spears receiving an award, and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me win this award." The second panel showed Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings kneeling on a football field and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me score this touchdown." The third panel showed starving children in Africa. There was no caption.
I cannot say I know for certain what was the precise message that the creator of the poster wanted to convey. It may have been
(1) "God doesn't care about your Grammy awards and touchdowns. Look at these starving children! They are the ones God cares about. Rather than invoking the name of God in your victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers or Christina Aguilera you should devote yourself to God's true priorities: ministry to those who are desperately poor and needy."
Or,
(2) "How silly of you to think that there is a God who enables you to make millions catching a football or singing a song. Isn't it obvious that God does not exist? All that is necessary to demolish your Grammy-and-touchdown God is to take one good look at these starving children. If there were a loving Sky Fairy, certainly he would give these hungry children a sandwich before he would give you success in music or sports."
It was just such a photograph of African starvation that proved pivotal in Charles Templeton's departure from Christian faith. Templeton was an evangelist and pastor, and a colleague and friend of Billy Graham. He converted to atheism in the mid 1950s, citing among other things a picture in Life Magazine of a mother in Africa with her starving child. Long story short, Templeton concluded, "There is no God."
I have written lengthy responses to such standard challenges to theism (See "The Tsunmai and Faith," parts 1 and 2, January 4 and 9, 2005; "The Goodness of God and the Horror of Haiti," January 19, 2010; and "Why I Believe in the Goodness of God," January 26, 2010). I will not repeat those points here. My focus is more narrow. If there is a God, and all the wretched suffering in the world has not caused us to disbelieve his existence, should it at least give us pause with regard to thanking him? Is it right to thank God for cake while others die for lack of bread?
Yes, I think you should still thank God for cake. And for touchdowns, Grammys, and whatever else brings you joy that is neither ill-gotten nor perverse. Free yourself from the inhibition that would stifle your instinct to say "Oh, thank you GOD!" whenever you get something nice. That restraint and its puritanical enforcers among the category 3 non-thankers exude an air of righteousness dignity, but it's all just smoke and fog. Indulge. Give thanks. Rejoice in the Lord.
If you are tempted to pull back from giving thanks because of the indignation and intimidation of category 3 non-thankers, I should warn you that their objections to your thanksgiving will probably not stop at trifles. I have seen it extend all the way to life itself. For example, in a January 4, 2005 Chicago Tribune column Eric Zorn confessed his impatience with a friend who thanked God for answered prayer that his loved ones in Sri Lanka survived the great tsunami. This gratitude, Zorn explained, implied a judgment on those who suffered: clearly they did not praise and beg God sufficiently. Zorn took a similar shot at "civic and religious leaders [who] thank God for steering tornadoes around their little towns." Do you see? In order to satisfy a category 3 non-thanker you would have to stifle your gratitude not only for touchdowns and Grammys but for the simple fact that you're still alive. That pretty well covers the range from trivial to vital, doesn't it. If you asked a category 3 non-thanker, "Is there anything I could thank God for where it wouldn't bother you?" I believe the honest answer would be "No. Anything you thank God for is something that somebody somewhere in the world didn't get. That makes your thanksgiving immoral. So stop offending me with it."
Category 3 restraint on gratitude conceals at its a core a massive black hole which, unchecked, consumes all gratitude, and with it, the joy and goodwill that appreciation creates within us. The danger is real. But spontaneous thankers know something that the enemies of gratitude do not: Today, I have a joy where you have a lament, and tomorrow, you will have a joy that I have lost or can never achieve. In the meantime let us all give thanks for whatever we can whenever we can. When I cry out in pain or mourn a great loss you can cry with me; when you give thanks for some delight that I can never experience maybe I can be a little happy for you. There's no point in all of us crying all the time.
The ad campaign for St. Jude Children's Hospital gets it right. I used to see their commercials in movie theaters: "Give thanks for the healthy children in your life, and give to those who are not." Give thanks...and give. Gratitude spurs charity in ways that self-righteous ingratitude never seems to match. For anecdotal proof, look up Greg Jennings, the football player whose devotion to God is lampooned in the poster that shows his kneeling form next to starving children. I just googled him. Yes, Jennings has the gall to say "Glory to God" after his team wins the Super Bowl despite the fact that children are simultaneously dropping dead of starvation in Africa. He is also, the news reports say, a classy guy with a great attitude who is devoted to his family and very actively involved in charity. Among other things he donates $1,000 to a shelter for women and single mothers every time he catches a touchdown pass. Score one for an uninhibited thanker of God.
Friday, April 20, 2012
What Is Jesus Doing Now?
I received the following question:
The Bible is very clear about Jesus' role in NT times: He came to earth to sacrifice Himself to pay the penalty for sin that we all owed. It is also clear about his role in the end times: He will come again and gather all the faithful to heaven.
I have a hard time relating to Jesus' role today. When he went to heaven He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us. So, what is Jesus doing before the end times?
What a wonderful question! I have never been asked it before. It has caused me to think very hard about how the Bible describes the functioning of the various Persons of the Trinity.
One simple answer is to say that Jesus (now, in the present tense) intercedes for us. At least three texts indicate this:
Romans 8:34:
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Hebrews 7:24-25:
Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
1 John 2:1:
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
A second simple answer is to say that he is with us:
Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
Matthew 28:20b:
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
There is a wrinkle, however, that opens up a whole Pandora's box of issues. The Holy Spirit is also said to intercede for us, and he is also said to be present with us:
Intercession of the Spirit: Romans 8:26-27:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Presence of the Spirit: John 14:16-17,26:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you...But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
It seems that the work of the risen Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit dovetail and overlap. They are both with us and they both intercede for us. Consider the following sequence of verses, and see if by them you can answer the question, "Who lives in the Christian, the Holy Spirit or Jesus?"
Romans 8:9-11:
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Verses 9 and 11 say that the Spirit lives in you, but sandwiched between those statements verse 10 says "Christ is in you"! It makes one wonder, is "Christ" just another word for "Spirit"? Is everything we say about Christ equally true of the Holy Spirit?
Sabellius thought so. He was a third century priest who simply denied that God was triune. Jesus is God who is the Holy Spirit, and the only distinction between "them" is modal: God reveals himself in various modes of fatherhood, sonship and spirit nature depending on time, circumstances, and the purpose at hand.
But Sabellianism doesn't work. Among its many weird entailments is the conclusion that when Jesus prayed he was really carrying on a soliloquy; that the Father died on the cross ("Patripassionism"); that, when God died briefly at the crucifixion, somehow the universe kept going on its own. Also, Sabellianism cannot make convincing sense of texts that speak, for example, of God raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24) or sending the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). The Church fathers condemned Sabellianism as heresy, and it is rarely seen today except in Oneness (or "Jesus Only") Pentecostalism.(Well-known preacher T.D. Jakes, who came from the Oneness tradition, has had his orthodoxy called into question and in response has publicly affirmed his belief in the Trinity.)
A different way of handling Trinitarian complexity is to deny that the Holy Spirit exists at all. That is, whenever Scripture speaks of the "Holy Spirit," (or "the Spirit of God" or "the Spirit of Christ," or whatever) we should understand that in exactly the same way as when we speak of our own spirits. For example, when the Virgin Mary says in Luke 1:47, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior," or when St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:18, "For they refreshed my spirit and yours also," they were certainly not thinking that their spirits were distinct from themselves. A text that might lend support to this view is 1 Corinthians 2:11: "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." A parallel is drawn in this verse between God's Spirit knowing God and our own spirits knowing us.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the exactness of this parallel, and so their New World Translation of the Bible never capitalizes the word "spirit." God's spirit, in this view, is like God's breath or power or force or will or thought or mindset. Trinitarians err, they teach, in personifying this power and treating it like something separate from God the Father, calling it "He" and regarding it as a Person. (Orthodox Christians raise a similar objection to the gnostic personification of Sophia, "Wisdom," wherein the wisdom of God is spelled with a capital W and regarded as a goddess of some sort. We think that that "Wisdom" should have a small "w.")
If the Jehovah's Witnesses are right, then the question posed at the top of this essay dissolves completely. Whatever the Bible says the spirit is doing now is what Jesus is doing now, and our confusion about their contrasting or overlapping roles is due to a total misunderstanding of Jesus' Personhood.
But I'm afraid Jehovah's Witness Arianism doesn't work any better than Sabellianism. The biblical case for the Holy Spirit's personhood is simply too strong. In Acts 5:3 St. Peter condemns Ananias for lying to the Holy Spirit. How can you lie to a personified abstraction? In Ephesians 4:30 St. Paul commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit, and I would argue that only a person can be grieved. In John 16:7 Jesus insists on such an exclusivity between himself and the Spirit that the Spirit cannot come to the disciples unless he (Jesus) goes away first!
So that leaves us with the difficulty suggested in my friend's question: What is Jesus, as distinct from the Holy Spirit, doing in the present age?
I would suggest two things.
First, we simply have to grant some overlap (duplication? redundancy?) in the roles of the three Persons of the Trinity. This is biblical. Texts cited above demonstrate that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit intercede for us and are present with us. In addition, Jesus says in John 5:19, "Whatever the Father does the Son also does." The picture Jesus develops in John 5:17-20 is that of a son in his father's workshop imitating and duplicating his father's craft. So at least part of the answer to the question "What is Jesus doing now?" is "whatever God the Father is doing." If this was true in his earthly incarnation, how much more true is it in his glorified state!
Second, if I had to describe the current role of Jesus as distinct from that of the Father and the Spirit, I think it would have much to do with his position, more a matter of where he is rather than what acts he is performing.
The Bible says repeatedly that Jesus is "at the right hand" of God the Father. Jesus himself, and Peter, and Paul, and the writer of Hebrews all mention this. Some examples:
Luke 22:69:
"But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God."
Colossians 3:1:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
1 Peter 3:22:
[Jesus] has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand — with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Hebrews 12:2:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
The Holy Spirit is never said to be at the Father's right hand, and it goes without saying that the Father cannot be at his own right hand. The position appears unique to Jesus. Does it have anything to say about his role?
I believe it does. In some mystical, metaphorical fashion, we can "see" Jesus in a way that we cannot see God the Father or the Holy Spirit. Of course you can't see the Spirit - he's a spirit! And the Bible affirms that no one has ever seen God the Father. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." But then the same verse continues, "but God the One and Only [Jesus], who is at the Father’s side, [the right side!] has made him known."
I think we can say, reverently, that Jesus gives us someone to focus on. That is (part of) his role now. We have a hard time fixing our eyes on God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, but we are commanded to "fix our eyes on Jesus" in Hebrews 12:2. Of all the members of the Trinity, only Jesus became (and remains) a man, and for that reason our minds can get a better grasp on "seeing him" up above and ahead of us. I look forward to seeing Jesus face to face, and bowing before him, but I don't know if I'll ever see the Holy Spirit. It has long intrigued me that the Objects of worship in the book of Revelation are always the first and second Persons of the Trinity, never the third. (See for example Revelation 5:13: Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"). Where is the Holy Spirit in this verse? Don't we worship a Triune God? Why is the Holy Spirit not receiving song and praise in these verses along with the Father and the Son? I think the best answer is that He is the one inspiring it. He is behind us, beside us and inside us, urging us to glorify Christ. I think it is the Spirit's role, now and forever, to move us to worship Jesus, and it is Jesus' role, now and forever, to receive that worship.
I must stress though that these are at best some preliminary thoughts on a difficult question, and I would gladly submit to instruction from minds that are theologically more astute and biblically better informed than mine.
The Bible is very clear about Jesus' role in NT times: He came to earth to sacrifice Himself to pay the penalty for sin that we all owed. It is also clear about his role in the end times: He will come again and gather all the faithful to heaven.
I have a hard time relating to Jesus' role today. When he went to heaven He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us. So, what is Jesus doing before the end times?
What a wonderful question! I have never been asked it before. It has caused me to think very hard about how the Bible describes the functioning of the various Persons of the Trinity.
One simple answer is to say that Jesus (now, in the present tense) intercedes for us. At least three texts indicate this:
Romans 8:34:
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Hebrews 7:24-25:
Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
1 John 2:1:
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
A second simple answer is to say that he is with us:
Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
Matthew 28:20b:
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
There is a wrinkle, however, that opens up a whole Pandora's box of issues. The Holy Spirit is also said to intercede for us, and he is also said to be present with us:
Intercession of the Spirit: Romans 8:26-27:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Presence of the Spirit: John 14:16-17,26:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you...But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
It seems that the work of the risen Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit dovetail and overlap. They are both with us and they both intercede for us. Consider the following sequence of verses, and see if by them you can answer the question, "Who lives in the Christian, the Holy Spirit or Jesus?"
Romans 8:9-11:
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
Verses 9 and 11 say that the Spirit lives in you, but sandwiched between those statements verse 10 says "Christ is in you"! It makes one wonder, is "Christ" just another word for "Spirit"? Is everything we say about Christ equally true of the Holy Spirit?
Sabellius thought so. He was a third century priest who simply denied that God was triune. Jesus is God who is the Holy Spirit, and the only distinction between "them" is modal: God reveals himself in various modes of fatherhood, sonship and spirit nature depending on time, circumstances, and the purpose at hand.
But Sabellianism doesn't work. Among its many weird entailments is the conclusion that when Jesus prayed he was really carrying on a soliloquy; that the Father died on the cross ("Patripassionism"); that, when God died briefly at the crucifixion, somehow the universe kept going on its own. Also, Sabellianism cannot make convincing sense of texts that speak, for example, of God raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24) or sending the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). The Church fathers condemned Sabellianism as heresy, and it is rarely seen today except in Oneness (or "Jesus Only") Pentecostalism.(Well-known preacher T.D. Jakes, who came from the Oneness tradition, has had his orthodoxy called into question and in response has publicly affirmed his belief in the Trinity.)
A different way of handling Trinitarian complexity is to deny that the Holy Spirit exists at all. That is, whenever Scripture speaks of the "Holy Spirit," (or "the Spirit of God" or "the Spirit of Christ," or whatever) we should understand that in exactly the same way as when we speak of our own spirits. For example, when the Virgin Mary says in Luke 1:47, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior," or when St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:18, "For they refreshed my spirit and yours also," they were certainly not thinking that their spirits were distinct from themselves. A text that might lend support to this view is 1 Corinthians 2:11: "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." A parallel is drawn in this verse between God's Spirit knowing God and our own spirits knowing us.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the exactness of this parallel, and so their New World Translation of the Bible never capitalizes the word "spirit." God's spirit, in this view, is like God's breath or power or force or will or thought or mindset. Trinitarians err, they teach, in personifying this power and treating it like something separate from God the Father, calling it "He" and regarding it as a Person. (Orthodox Christians raise a similar objection to the gnostic personification of Sophia, "Wisdom," wherein the wisdom of God is spelled with a capital W and regarded as a goddess of some sort. We think that that "Wisdom" should have a small "w.")
If the Jehovah's Witnesses are right, then the question posed at the top of this essay dissolves completely. Whatever the Bible says the spirit is doing now is what Jesus is doing now, and our confusion about their contrasting or overlapping roles is due to a total misunderstanding of Jesus' Personhood.
But I'm afraid Jehovah's Witness Arianism doesn't work any better than Sabellianism. The biblical case for the Holy Spirit's personhood is simply too strong. In Acts 5:3 St. Peter condemns Ananias for lying to the Holy Spirit. How can you lie to a personified abstraction? In Ephesians 4:30 St. Paul commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit, and I would argue that only a person can be grieved. In John 16:7 Jesus insists on such an exclusivity between himself and the Spirit that the Spirit cannot come to the disciples unless he (Jesus) goes away first!
So that leaves us with the difficulty suggested in my friend's question: What is Jesus, as distinct from the Holy Spirit, doing in the present age?
I would suggest two things.
First, we simply have to grant some overlap (duplication? redundancy?) in the roles of the three Persons of the Trinity. This is biblical. Texts cited above demonstrate that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit intercede for us and are present with us. In addition, Jesus says in John 5:19, "Whatever the Father does the Son also does." The picture Jesus develops in John 5:17-20 is that of a son in his father's workshop imitating and duplicating his father's craft. So at least part of the answer to the question "What is Jesus doing now?" is "whatever God the Father is doing." If this was true in his earthly incarnation, how much more true is it in his glorified state!
Second, if I had to describe the current role of Jesus as distinct from that of the Father and the Spirit, I think it would have much to do with his position, more a matter of where he is rather than what acts he is performing.
The Bible says repeatedly that Jesus is "at the right hand" of God the Father. Jesus himself, and Peter, and Paul, and the writer of Hebrews all mention this. Some examples:
Luke 22:69:
"But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God."
Colossians 3:1:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
1 Peter 3:22:
[Jesus] has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand — with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Hebrews 12:2:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
The Holy Spirit is never said to be at the Father's right hand, and it goes without saying that the Father cannot be at his own right hand. The position appears unique to Jesus. Does it have anything to say about his role?
I believe it does. In some mystical, metaphorical fashion, we can "see" Jesus in a way that we cannot see God the Father or the Holy Spirit. Of course you can't see the Spirit - he's a spirit! And the Bible affirms that no one has ever seen God the Father. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." But then the same verse continues, "but God the One and Only [Jesus], who is at the Father’s side, [the right side!] has made him known."
I think we can say, reverently, that Jesus gives us someone to focus on. That is (part of) his role now. We have a hard time fixing our eyes on God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, but we are commanded to "fix our eyes on Jesus" in Hebrews 12:2. Of all the members of the Trinity, only Jesus became (and remains) a man, and for that reason our minds can get a better grasp on "seeing him" up above and ahead of us. I look forward to seeing Jesus face to face, and bowing before him, but I don't know if I'll ever see the Holy Spirit. It has long intrigued me that the Objects of worship in the book of Revelation are always the first and second Persons of the Trinity, never the third. (See for example Revelation 5:13: Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"). Where is the Holy Spirit in this verse? Don't we worship a Triune God? Why is the Holy Spirit not receiving song and praise in these verses along with the Father and the Son? I think the best answer is that He is the one inspiring it. He is behind us, beside us and inside us, urging us to glorify Christ. I think it is the Spirit's role, now and forever, to move us to worship Jesus, and it is Jesus' role, now and forever, to receive that worship.
I must stress though that these are at best some preliminary thoughts on a difficult question, and I would gladly submit to instruction from minds that are theologically more astute and biblically better informed than mine.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
What Is The Kingdom Of God?
A couple friends recently asked me what the kingdom of God is. The phrase "kingdom of God" (or "kingdom of heaven") appears dozens of times in the gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke (usually on the lips of Jesus), twice in John, and a handful of times in the rest of the New Testament. What (and where and when) is the kingdom of God?
Two preliminary comments:
1) The phrases "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" mean exactly the same thing. Only Matthew uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven;" elsewhere it is always "kingdom of God." If you look up the two phrases in a concordance you will see many parallels where only the one word is different. The reason for the difference is that Matthew often followed the Jewish tradition of substituting "heaven" for "God" so as to avoid the possibility of blaspheming God's Name. (Like the time the prodigal son said to his father in Luke 15:21: "I have sinned against heaven and against you." Against heaven? He meant he had sinned against God.)
Classic Dispensationalism regrettably distinguishes between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. (At the dispensationalist church my family attended when I was a child, one of the awards I received for memorizing Bible verses was the book "The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven," which explained the differences in excruciating, imaginative, and utterly futile detail.) The Scofield Reference Bible famously outlined five differences between the two kingdoms, indoctrinating (and confusing) generations of dispensationalists. This distinction between "two kingdoms" must be judged a failure and discarded.
2) The kingdom of God has so many features that it can be difficult, when focusing on one aspect, to connect it to all the rest. It is the proverbial elephant described by six blind men: one man says an elephant is like a tree (he has grasped a leg), another: a wall (the side), a rope (the tail), a branch (the trunk), a leaf (the ear), and a spear (the tusk). All the blind men are correct, but their individual descriptions baffle each other. When Jesus asked, "To what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use to describe it?" (Mark 4:30), he gave, in the course of his ministry, various answers according to the kingdom's varied aspects. I will start with a general description of the kingdom at a distance (the whole elephant, so to speak), which hopefully will help make sense of some of the particulars.
I define the kingdom of God as that realm where God reigns and his kingship is recognized, or - since the kingdom belongs to Jesus - the place where Jesus is Lord and is obeyed as Lord. (Certainly there are other definitions, and probably better ones. I haven't looked up any. Maybe the definition above is one I've borrowed from someone else but can't remember having done so.)
It is not enough merely to say that the kingdom is wherever God reigns, because God reigns everywhere already. All reality, visible and invisible, is his domain and his subject. But the Bible teaches that while God's sovereignty is universal, his kingdom is exclusive: some people are in it and some people are outside of it. You cannot be outside of God's creation, but you can be outside of his kingdom. In fact, one of the more constantly emphasized features of the kingdom is its exclusivity. For example, in Matthew 13:47-50 Jesus says that the kingdom is like a group of fishermen separating good fish from bad: the good fish get collected in baskets while the bad get tossed away. He explains that this segregation is like that of the righteous and the wicked - the righteous get in the kingdom while the wicked are thrown into a fiery furnace. Many other parables make the same point. For a list of sins whose indulgence without repentance will exclude you from the kingdom of God, read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Galatians 5:19-21.
In addition to exclusivity, a second regularly emphasized feature of the kingdom is its nearness. It is "at hand," "about to happen," "just around the corner." See for example Mark 1:14-15: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" John the Baptist had said the same thing (Matthew 3:1-2), and Jesus taught his disciples to preach the same message: "And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" (Matthew 10:7).
But what does "near" or "at hand" mean?
It turns out that trying to pin down a precise space-time reference for "near" in these texts is like trying to pin down the speed and the location of an electron, which is something that physicists tell us we can never do. (Or maybe it is like trying to determine whether a photon is exclusively a wave or a particle!). These are not easy questions.
On the one hand, "near" might naturally be construed as "arriving within the next few weeks or months at most." On the other hand, in Luke 19:11-27 Jesus tells the parable of silver units given to servants to invest for the sake of those who "supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (verse 11). Essentially he tells them they are wrong, and that they must go about their business faithfully until the kingdom comes at some future time. On the other hand (you'll need at least three hands!), Jesus says in Matthew 12:28 and Luke 11:20 that the kingdom has already come: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Amazingly, the Greek tense of the verb "to come" in these two verses is aorist, which is usually translated into English as a simple past.
So which is it? In Jesus' teaching, is the kingdom about to arrive in a few weeks? Is it a long way off? Or has it already started? The answers are yes. In seems that the "nearness" of the kingdom of God must not to be measured merely along the axis of time as we experience it. There are other kinds of "near."
This seeming ambiguity about the kingdom's nearness finds at least some resolution in a third feature: the spiritual nature of God's kingdom. In Mark 12:34 Jesus tells a wise scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." How can one man (as opposed to his colleagues) be "not far" from the kingdom? If the kingdom is strictly a physical entity that appears on a given date in history, then all of Jesus' listeners would be equidistant from it. While it is true that some would get in and some would be barred (the principle of exclusivity), everyone alike would be 5 days or 5 months or 5,000 years away from it. But by affirming that the scribe was "not far" from the kingdom, Jesus was implying a spiritual dimension to kingdom proximity that is taught explicitly in Luke 17:20-21. There, when Pharisees ask him when the kingdom of God would come, he said, "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
The realm where Jesus is king and is submitted to as Lord was right there in front of the Pharisees, loud and close, but they could not see it. As Jesus said to another Pharisee, Nicodemus, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). In this sense, the kingdom is like that battalion of warrior angels in 2 Kings 6 that was visible to Elisha but not to his servant. To see the angels all around him, the spiritual eyes of Elisha's servant had to be opened: to see the kingdom of God in their midst, the Pharisees would have to be born again.
But then Jesus seems to contradict himself. (The word "seems" in that sentence is important.) While in Luke 17:20 he says that the kingdom is not coming in ways that can be observed, in Luke 21:31, after giving a series of signs that will be observed, he says, "So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near." Does Jesus teach two kingdoms - one that is present without observable signs and another that will only arrive after certain signs are fulfilled?
I do not think so. One simple way to reconcile the invisible, signless, present kingdom with the visible, signful, future kingdom is to meditate a little on the word "power."
In Mark 9:1 Jesus makes a fascinating promise to his disciples: "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." "With power" is the key qualification. In one sense, they had already seen the kingdom of God - the one that was in their midst, the one that was invisible to the Pharisees. By recognizing Jesus' true nature and submitting to his rule they were inside that kingdom, and could see things others could not see.
But beyond that, a few of the disciples would get to observe, before their deaths, a sight that the rest would only experience after their deaths: the kingdom with power. That is, they would see Jesus not in the guise of a homely weak Jewish carpenter but - as he is in truth - the Glorified Divine King. This prediction was fulfilled six days later when Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured before them on a mountain. Even his clothes became dazzling white - see Mark 9:2-8. In the aura of that shining, dead men live, and so Moses and Elijah put in a unique pre-resurrection appearance. Then God spoke, honoring his Son. The powerful realities of the future kingdom made a momentary intrusion in the lives of three disciples, giving them a foretaste, a preview, of glories that some day all the righteous will experience.
Jesus' spiritual kingdom is always near, and has been for 2,000 years. One word from the Father, and the spiritual will be rendered physical, and the divine glory and power will shine from the face of Jesus as it did ever so briefly to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. But this time the glory will remain, and every eye will see him.
Till that day, a fourth feature characterizes the kingdom of God: its growth. In Matthew 13:31-33 Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which, though tiny, grows into a bush so large that birds can perch in its branches. Or it is like a tiny bit of yeast that is worked into a whole lump of dough. A little yeast expands a big mound of bread.
More than 500 years before Jesus, the prophet Daniel made the same point about the kingdom of God: it would start very small but then get so big as to be practically global. This prophecy is in Daniel 2 where Daniel interprets a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about a statue whose levels represent a succession of earthly kingdoms. In the dream, "a rock was cut out, but not by human hands" (verse 34), and it knocked down the statue, and afterward it "became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth." (verse 35). Later Daniel explains that "in the time of those kings [the Roman emperors], the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed," and that "this is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands" (verses 44-45).
The kingdom of God is like a rock that becomes a mountain, a seed that becomes a bush, a dash of yeast that expands a loaf. I believe that that is the growth we have seen over the last 2,000 years and that continues to this day. On every continent as the gospel is preached, the kingdom of God grows as people acknowledge Jesus as king and bow the knee in subjection to him. In Jesus' day, the kingdom was quite small, a mere mustard seed, just a handful of people who knew who Jesus was and who followed him as their Lord. Now there are many, and the kingdom, though weak and invisible, fills the earth. There is coming a day, however, when Jesus will return and reign in power, and then, as Revelation 11:15 prophesies, the angels will say, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
Two preliminary comments:
1) The phrases "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" mean exactly the same thing. Only Matthew uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven;" elsewhere it is always "kingdom of God." If you look up the two phrases in a concordance you will see many parallels where only the one word is different. The reason for the difference is that Matthew often followed the Jewish tradition of substituting "heaven" for "God" so as to avoid the possibility of blaspheming God's Name. (Like the time the prodigal son said to his father in Luke 15:21: "I have sinned against heaven and against you." Against heaven? He meant he had sinned against God.)
Classic Dispensationalism regrettably distinguishes between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. (At the dispensationalist church my family attended when I was a child, one of the awards I received for memorizing Bible verses was the book "The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven," which explained the differences in excruciating, imaginative, and utterly futile detail.) The Scofield Reference Bible famously outlined five differences between the two kingdoms, indoctrinating (and confusing) generations of dispensationalists. This distinction between "two kingdoms" must be judged a failure and discarded.
2) The kingdom of God has so many features that it can be difficult, when focusing on one aspect, to connect it to all the rest. It is the proverbial elephant described by six blind men: one man says an elephant is like a tree (he has grasped a leg), another: a wall (the side), a rope (the tail), a branch (the trunk), a leaf (the ear), and a spear (the tusk). All the blind men are correct, but their individual descriptions baffle each other. When Jesus asked, "To what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use to describe it?" (Mark 4:30), he gave, in the course of his ministry, various answers according to the kingdom's varied aspects. I will start with a general description of the kingdom at a distance (the whole elephant, so to speak), which hopefully will help make sense of some of the particulars.
I define the kingdom of God as that realm where God reigns and his kingship is recognized, or - since the kingdom belongs to Jesus - the place where Jesus is Lord and is obeyed as Lord. (Certainly there are other definitions, and probably better ones. I haven't looked up any. Maybe the definition above is one I've borrowed from someone else but can't remember having done so.)
It is not enough merely to say that the kingdom is wherever God reigns, because God reigns everywhere already. All reality, visible and invisible, is his domain and his subject. But the Bible teaches that while God's sovereignty is universal, his kingdom is exclusive: some people are in it and some people are outside of it. You cannot be outside of God's creation, but you can be outside of his kingdom. In fact, one of the more constantly emphasized features of the kingdom is its exclusivity. For example, in Matthew 13:47-50 Jesus says that the kingdom is like a group of fishermen separating good fish from bad: the good fish get collected in baskets while the bad get tossed away. He explains that this segregation is like that of the righteous and the wicked - the righteous get in the kingdom while the wicked are thrown into a fiery furnace. Many other parables make the same point. For a list of sins whose indulgence without repentance will exclude you from the kingdom of God, read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Galatians 5:19-21.
In addition to exclusivity, a second regularly emphasized feature of the kingdom is its nearness. It is "at hand," "about to happen," "just around the corner." See for example Mark 1:14-15: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" John the Baptist had said the same thing (Matthew 3:1-2), and Jesus taught his disciples to preach the same message: "And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" (Matthew 10:7).
But what does "near" or "at hand" mean?
It turns out that trying to pin down a precise space-time reference for "near" in these texts is like trying to pin down the speed and the location of an electron, which is something that physicists tell us we can never do. (Or maybe it is like trying to determine whether a photon is exclusively a wave or a particle!). These are not easy questions.
On the one hand, "near" might naturally be construed as "arriving within the next few weeks or months at most." On the other hand, in Luke 19:11-27 Jesus tells the parable of silver units given to servants to invest for the sake of those who "supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (verse 11). Essentially he tells them they are wrong, and that they must go about their business faithfully until the kingdom comes at some future time. On the other hand (you'll need at least three hands!), Jesus says in Matthew 12:28 and Luke 11:20 that the kingdom has already come: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Amazingly, the Greek tense of the verb "to come" in these two verses is aorist, which is usually translated into English as a simple past.
So which is it? In Jesus' teaching, is the kingdom about to arrive in a few weeks? Is it a long way off? Or has it already started? The answers are yes. In seems that the "nearness" of the kingdom of God must not to be measured merely along the axis of time as we experience it. There are other kinds of "near."
This seeming ambiguity about the kingdom's nearness finds at least some resolution in a third feature: the spiritual nature of God's kingdom. In Mark 12:34 Jesus tells a wise scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." How can one man (as opposed to his colleagues) be "not far" from the kingdom? If the kingdom is strictly a physical entity that appears on a given date in history, then all of Jesus' listeners would be equidistant from it. While it is true that some would get in and some would be barred (the principle of exclusivity), everyone alike would be 5 days or 5 months or 5,000 years away from it. But by affirming that the scribe was "not far" from the kingdom, Jesus was implying a spiritual dimension to kingdom proximity that is taught explicitly in Luke 17:20-21. There, when Pharisees ask him when the kingdom of God would come, he said, "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”
The realm where Jesus is king and is submitted to as Lord was right there in front of the Pharisees, loud and close, but they could not see it. As Jesus said to another Pharisee, Nicodemus, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). In this sense, the kingdom is like that battalion of warrior angels in 2 Kings 6 that was visible to Elisha but not to his servant. To see the angels all around him, the spiritual eyes of Elisha's servant had to be opened: to see the kingdom of God in their midst, the Pharisees would have to be born again.
But then Jesus seems to contradict himself. (The word "seems" in that sentence is important.) While in Luke 17:20 he says that the kingdom is not coming in ways that can be observed, in Luke 21:31, after giving a series of signs that will be observed, he says, "So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near." Does Jesus teach two kingdoms - one that is present without observable signs and another that will only arrive after certain signs are fulfilled?
I do not think so. One simple way to reconcile the invisible, signless, present kingdom with the visible, signful, future kingdom is to meditate a little on the word "power."
In Mark 9:1 Jesus makes a fascinating promise to his disciples: "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." "With power" is the key qualification. In one sense, they had already seen the kingdom of God - the one that was in their midst, the one that was invisible to the Pharisees. By recognizing Jesus' true nature and submitting to his rule they were inside that kingdom, and could see things others could not see.
But beyond that, a few of the disciples would get to observe, before their deaths, a sight that the rest would only experience after their deaths: the kingdom with power. That is, they would see Jesus not in the guise of a homely weak Jewish carpenter but - as he is in truth - the Glorified Divine King. This prediction was fulfilled six days later when Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured before them on a mountain. Even his clothes became dazzling white - see Mark 9:2-8. In the aura of that shining, dead men live, and so Moses and Elijah put in a unique pre-resurrection appearance. Then God spoke, honoring his Son. The powerful realities of the future kingdom made a momentary intrusion in the lives of three disciples, giving them a foretaste, a preview, of glories that some day all the righteous will experience.
Jesus' spiritual kingdom is always near, and has been for 2,000 years. One word from the Father, and the spiritual will be rendered physical, and the divine glory and power will shine from the face of Jesus as it did ever so briefly to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. But this time the glory will remain, and every eye will see him.
Till that day, a fourth feature characterizes the kingdom of God: its growth. In Matthew 13:31-33 Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which, though tiny, grows into a bush so large that birds can perch in its branches. Or it is like a tiny bit of yeast that is worked into a whole lump of dough. A little yeast expands a big mound of bread.
More than 500 years before Jesus, the prophet Daniel made the same point about the kingdom of God: it would start very small but then get so big as to be practically global. This prophecy is in Daniel 2 where Daniel interprets a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about a statue whose levels represent a succession of earthly kingdoms. In the dream, "a rock was cut out, but not by human hands" (verse 34), and it knocked down the statue, and afterward it "became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth." (verse 35). Later Daniel explains that "in the time of those kings [the Roman emperors], the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed," and that "this is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands" (verses 44-45).
The kingdom of God is like a rock that becomes a mountain, a seed that becomes a bush, a dash of yeast that expands a loaf. I believe that that is the growth we have seen over the last 2,000 years and that continues to this day. On every continent as the gospel is preached, the kingdom of God grows as people acknowledge Jesus as king and bow the knee in subjection to him. In Jesus' day, the kingdom was quite small, a mere mustard seed, just a handful of people who knew who Jesus was and who followed him as their Lord. Now there are many, and the kingdom, though weak and invisible, fills the earth. There is coming a day, however, when Jesus will return and reign in power, and then, as Revelation 11:15 prophesies, the angels will say, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."
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