The Sin of Settling

The Sin of Settling

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.
One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.
‭‭John‬ ‭5:2-3, 5-15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

A number of amazing things take place in this account. One is the amazing length of time this man was living in that area of Bethesda. With supposedly a healing pool that could have healed him so much sooner, why was he still there? What had happened to him to keep him stagnantly remaining in his state when a solution was within his nearly immediate reach?

How he had become an invalid, we obviously don’t know. But we can surmise that it must have affected his outlook very negatively. Safely we can figure he became overcome with doubt, hopelessness and depression. The unfortunate circumstances gave him a focus on his problem, and probably downturned to a selfish focus — a pity me view of life. It was a sinful life. Hard to think so. After all he was an invalid, and our society almost honors the invalid. I am not saying we should not. Such things as Special Olympics have done amazing things for our awareness of the humanness of invalid and challenged people. We are not used to thinking of invalids as sinful. Unfortunate, perhaps, but not sinful, but they are not above that. Jesus would point it out to him later.

We have all gotten in this kind of state for at least a little while, and some of us even for longer. Some never seem to escape it. I notice that by what happened next he never got over it.

Jesus comes upon him and realizes his estate. His question is telling. “Do you want to be healed?”

Let Jesus ask you this question. What would you answer? Do you really want to be healed? Do you really want to see your situation improve, or to escape some problem? Or are you actually comfortable with the way you are—even though you’re miserable? Most of the time it takes getting uncomfortable to reach past where we are at, if we are going to overcome some obstacle or achieve some longed-for goal.

What this man replied to Jesus amounts to some kind of excuse. “Sir, I have no one to help me! Someone always goes in ahead of me! No one just lets me in! No one gives me my fair shake or turn!” Or am I being too harsh to say this about him? Maybe. I am so far away from his situation.

But what can we gather about him by his own answer? Actually we can figure quite a few things that must have been the case for him to make these excuses. For one, he must have had a specific spot in the colonnades that was more comfortable and convenient for him to use as his living area, other than one just next to this pool. Perhaps it was access to food distribution or water that was better in that place. But it was too far from the pool to make it easy for him to get down to it when the water stirred. Yet, he was unwilling to leave the security of that spot for the benefit of getting immediately into that pool. What were the risks of leaving it? Apparently too many for him.

Sometimes, or often times, our focus is on the risks we face in going the direction God wants us to go. We understand he doesn’t want us to stay un-growing in the area he has his finger on. But we feel so many things could happen that we are not comfortable losing. But perhaps this is one of the things Jesus meant by saying we must deny ourselves.

Another thing about this man is he must have held a very selfish focus in the colonnades. Yes, the competition to get into the pool was fierce when it was stirring time! It was every man for himself. No time to help anyone else. Clawing and shoving and even cursing others for beating him to the edge of the pool, every darned time! Did he alienate his fellow invalids? At some point, the focus on his situation no longer allowed him even a shred of hope. His habits left him beyond self-help.

What could he have done so early on and so long before Jesus had found him? I mean, we could brainstorm a number of ideas that would have helped him. He wasn’t immobile; he could move. He could have eventually camped out right in front of the pool, no matter how long the sacrifice of food, water or relief. He could have befriended some other blokes and encouraged them to help each other, starting some sort of Invalid Mutual Aid Society. “We will help you get into the pool next, and then you can help me get in, and we will all stick together until we have each had our turn!” He would have felt better about his neighbor invalids then as well. He could have become a positive influence in that place, and risen to be a respected leader even. The possibilities!

But whatever the possibilities he had before him, he did not choose any of them. Languishing in his self pity and hopelessness, Jesus did another amazing thing and mercifully healed him anyway!

Why Jesus did that we can only guess. Perhaps he was hopeful that this show of mercy was enough to get this man’s eyes off of himself. The next amazing thing is that it didn’t work.

I mean, really. Jesus meets him later and tries to open his eyes further with a gentle rebuke. “See, you are healed now! Don’t you see the blessing you have received? Are you going to continue to be so selfish and sinful? You have the opportunity to change all that before the worse thing possible would happen to you.”

Not in so many words is it stated, but by what this man does, he shows how much he resented Jesus’ warning and exhortation. He went and tattled on Jesus to the Jewish leaders. The next verse in John tells us that Jesus was persecuted because of what that man did.

Hopefully, and it is my prayer for you, that you will see the opportunity of God’s mercy he has graciously extended to you. You may not see it yet, but open your eyes and look. Jesus still stands at the door and knocks.

The Cause that isn’t There

Another Cause for Causation?

Here I am, continuing on the idea of my previous soapbox topic of causation verses influence. I think this is another distinction to consider. 

There is a very special verb usage in the Old Testament that we need to be really careful of reading too much into its translation into English. Did that last sentence sound klutzy? Well, let me rephrase that. One verb structure of Biblical Hebrew is in danger of being misunderstood when it is translated into English. Let me show you with a few examples.

Jeremiah 13:11

“For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me, ” says the LORD, “that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.”

Ezekiel 36:12

“Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, My people Israel; they shall take possession of you, and you shall be their inheritance, no more shall you bereave them of children.”

Ezekiel 36:27

“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

A certain verb form in Hebrew takes a basic verb like “he snored” and turns it into one where one acts upon someone else, like, “he made her snore.” The problem with this verb form is there is no accurate way to really translate it. We always have to add words into our translation that go somewhat beyond the intended meaning. In other words, we always usually add the words “cause,” “make,” “bring” or some such word that I think implies causation. 

In Hebrew, it is still one word.

But what does it do? It allows the translation of much activity in the Bible, especially that attributed to God’s actions toward mankind, to be taken as caused action! This goes way beyond the writers’ intended meanings.

Teaching by example

How should this verb usage be understood? Every “cause” joined to a verb usage in the Old Testament should be understood in its natural context and NOT be used to insinuate causation.

Let me illustrate this by one idea. Perhaps you go to a parent/teacher conference to discuss your child’s progress in school. During your conference time, the teacher says, “And here are some projects I made your child do to help her understand this one concept.”

Now, unless you are Amelia Bedelia, you probably did not do a double-take at that statement.
I mean, would you have understood that teacher to have forced or caused your child to have done those assignments? Probably not. You wouldn’t have batted your eye at it.

For a teacher to say, “I made them do their class exercise today,” in no way implies causation over her students any more than you saying, “I made my child do her homework.” More than likely, because the student wants to accomplish the goals that you set before her, she will cooperate and do her schoolwork.

I caused them to translate this correctly

So, when I read a verse that says, “I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,” I am not thinking God actually took over anyone’s freedom of will. I am thinking God set up the opportunity and situation such that His people could see the real benefit of clinging to God and have the easiest possible choice for it. Otherwise, it seems rather self-contradictory for God to later say they refused Him.

One of the ways God may get us to do something is to incentivize us. He doesn’t have to force or overpower our will, like some theologians may propose. By persuasion and opening us up to see the real good that comes from a right relationship with Him, God can bring us to the threshold of choice. But the power of actually walking over that threshold is still our own.

Of Bouncers and Bees

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
John 6:44

“I drew them with gentle cords,
With bands of love,
And I was to them as those
who take the yoke from their neck.
I stooped and fed them.”
Hosea 11:4

Is there not a cause?

I have recently had some discussion with some who are persuaded that God’s work in saving the soul of a person is fully causal; in other words, that God overpowers their will, making them submit to the grace of the Gospel. This is part of a Calvinistic doctrine called Irresistible Grace, or Sovereign Grace.

I am not ashamed to say I fully reject this idea. The objection I get all the time to my objection is the assertion that if we allow a person to actually have a choice in the matter of his salvation, then his claim that he exercised his free will to accept Jesus takes away glory from God, and this person is actually rising up in pride that he chose salvation. Oh my! Scandal! Isn’t this person just using the free will ability God gave him in the right way?

It is true that God does govern some things with a law of cause and effect. God applying the adequate cause will always get the desired effect. This is how God governs the inanimate creation, such as planets and atoms. He also does this over the non-moral animate creation, the animals and plants.

When it comes to free will moral agents, however, God has to use something else to allow them to be accountable and receive blame or praise for evil or good. God gives the power to choose. This we call free will. When God gave this ability to angels and men, He had to relinquish using cause and effect upon them. If God ever does cause a person to do something, then He suspends the accountability for those actions. The Bible tells us that at key times God has done this in order to accomplish certain plans. You may recall that a few times, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (or will).

What tips the scales

But for every place in the Bible you see God doing that, I assure you, you can read dozens more verses that show God speaking to man’s own ability and need to choose, to obey, to repent, whatever. One thing is clear in the Bible: God cannot make or force man to love Him. Nor can he give man so much evidence of his existence that it will overpower his will, forcing him to believe.

Take these verses that speak of God “causing” man to do something, and those that speak of free will, and put each type on a side of a balance, you will get the free will verses far outweighing the other. But some think that you have to take the free will idea, funnel them into the far fewer verses about causation and somehow make all the free will follow under causation. That is one of the largest self-contradictions and most absurd things ever proposed in religion.

One of the greatest issues that is never taught adequately from the pulpit is the clear distinction between a CAUSE and an INFLUENCE. And this is where so much confusion and many false notions come from. When it comes to getting man to love his Creator, God has only one thing He can use: INFLUENCE and PERSUASION. All the things we talk about, such as the Grace of God, the power of Jesus on the cross, the drawing of the Holy Spirit and the demonstration of the love of God, are means of persuading and influencing a person to yield his heart to God. Sometimes, God can even pour enough influence on someone to the very threshold of choice, but He cannot push him over it.

A big push or pull?

Let's illustrate causation first. Suppose you may be sitting at church during service. Perhaps I came as a guest speaker for one sermon and I come up to the pulpit. Now, you have the power to choose to leave. You feel like being polite though and choose to stay, to see what I will say. Obviously, and thankfully, just my presence at the pulpit didn't force or cause you to leave.

But while I am talking, a couple of buff and burly bouncers from the local nightclub come in. They come close to you, each one grabs one of your arms, and they lift you off the pew and off the floor. You kick and struggle, but they are too strong for you. They soon walk right out the doors taking you with them.

My friend, that is causation! You had no choice, you had no say in what they did to you. And you left the church. But, not voluntarily. No one can blame you for leaving church early!

Now, what about an influence? The first thing we must say about an influence that is different from a cause is that it can vary in strength.

A cause—when God uses it—always is just strong enough to overpower a person’s will. It obviously can’t be weaker than that, can it? But it won’t be stronger than that either.  Why would God need to exert anything stronger? I think God is the most efficient in the use of his attributes.

Some influences are weak or gentle, and some, as I mentioned before, may just bear pressure upon someone to nearly, but not actually, force his will.

A weak influence may be someone saying, “Do you think you should read your Bible?” But what about a strong one? When God brought the plagues on Egypt, it was partly to show judgement on their gods. However, it also was a strong form of persuasion. “Hey, Pharaoh, you won't let my people go? Very well, then, I will influence you a little bit, to get your permission to let them go!”

Let's get back to my speaking engagement at your church. I think I can influence you to leave the building. The choice will be entirely yours. Unlike the bouncers,  I can't pick you up and carry you out.

But let’s say I pull out a jar. I show you there are some bees inside this covered jar, just minding their own business. Now I shake this jar and get these bees a little agitated. Then I open the jar and let the bees loose in the sanctuary.

Do you think you would stay in your pew? My friend, that is a strong influence. What would you choose to do? You say, “I would just react without thinking, and run out.” True, but you still could suppress your instinctive response and choose to stay, regardless of the consequences.

Come to think of it, I may just run out, too!

The big draw

How are we to take Jesus’ statement in John 6:44? Is it causal or influential?  Really, it is up to your presuppositions how you view it.

God’s drawing on someone can be likened either way. You might think something like drawing water out of a well, or a fish on a line out of the water.

Then again, perhaps it’s like coaxing a horse to come to you using an apple or some fresh grass; or like trying to lure a bear or lion into a trap. True, the animals are instinct-driven, but sometimes you still may not get the results you want.

I will take John 6:44 and related verses as God using influences He feels are appropriate, which many times includes my choice to be involved as a fellow laborer with Christ.

What about you? Will you let God’s influences speak to you and give Him your whole heart?

Camels Harder to Swallow

Grasping at straws

It would seem that so many different arguments against the authenticity of the Bible have fallen by the wayside that some are trying to strain out some fringe “evidences” to uphold the dying idea of a late date for the writing of the Pentateuchal scriptures (the first five books of the Old Testament), particularly Genesis.

This particular argument has come from a lack of evidence of camels in Canaan around the time that Abraham and his family had been sojourning there. I stumbled upon this from a small newspaper article in a Sunday edition of our major metropolitan paper. It was short, and apparently referenced a larger report from some AP source or a more original article.

Considering that over the last few decades many new discoveries have solidly upheld the cultural environment of the various biblical eras and geography, even specific people, such as king Hezekiah, there has been little left for liberal atheistic media, such as AP and major newspapers, to write about in order to discredit the Bible. But that never keeps them from trying.

This story is really grasping at straws, in my opinion. There is no reason why it should surprise anyone to find no sign of camels being used in Canaan in Abraham’s day.

A straw out of place

But here’s the term that needs to be explained first: anachronism. Now in the middle of that word you will notice “chron,” which stands for time, like chronometer, or simply a watch. Basically, an anachronism is where some terms or words are used out of place or time for what really should be used in that context. A true anachronism would be something like a digital watch on an actor being filmed for a 1970’s era movie.

Are there anachronisms in the Bible? Well, yes and no; there are, in one sense, and not in another. Sometimes there is an emendation of a text to help explain more to a reader, but it doesn’t replace an original entry. Does that mean it is not reliable or no longer true? Not at all.

There were times when a scribe, reviewing some text of the scripture scratched his head at some reference, realizing that when others read this they would not relate it to anything of which they had any knowledge. So, the scribe would place a phrase or term into the text to add a timely explanation. Geographical place names are instances of this.

For example, in the beginning of Exodus, we read “Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with  their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.” Exodus 1:11

Now, this can be demonstrated to be an anachronism. The existence of the cities Pithom and Raamses was later than the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt should be dated. Because of what archeologists know about these cities in the delta of the Nile, they date the time of the exodus at about 1200 BC, at the time of Raamses II. Archaeology finds no mention of Moses, or the Israelites at this time in Egyptian history. Because of this, many archaeologists doubt the exodus ever actually happened, and that the Israelites evolved from the Canaanite people within the borders of Israel.

However, fairly recent discoveries over the past twenty years or so have shown sites of other cities underneath the strata, several hundred years older than Pithom and Raamses, one called Avaris, and they appear to have had a significant population of semitic people there, and the population suddenly left.

When the original text was written, it more than likely just read, “They built for Pharaoh supply cities.” After many years, when the memory of those cities’ names was fading, some scribes placed the names of Pithom and Raamses into the text to preserve the location current to their knowledge.

Sip on this straw

But back to this issue of camels in Canaan in Abraham’s time. It is my opinion this is NOT an anachronism. The whole weight of this argument goes like this:

1. There is no fossil evidence for camels being domesticated or used in day-to-day life in Canaan during the period of the Patriarchs (Abraham to Jacob).
2. The stories of the Patriarchs mention the use of camels.
3. Therefore the Patriarchs, if they ever existed, never used camels.
4. Therefore the mention of them in Genesis is an anachronism.
5. Therefore the Bible is (once again!) proved irrelevant and unreliable.

This argument falls apart when we simply explain why the mention of camels in the accounts of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not an anachronism. You don’t have to be an archaeologist to do this.

The camel breaks this straw’s back

First of all, it is understandable that the ancient Canaanites did not have camels. They were farming people, mostly. They raised crops and herded sheep, and so forth. They used donkeys for transportation. They would have no use for camels, and they probably couldn’t afford them.

Abraham on the other hand, was not a native to Canaan, but a nomadic immigrant from further northeast, Ur of the Chaldees. And what did he have to travel through to get from Ur to Canaan? You guessed it: desert.  What did they use to get across a desert? Right again! Camels. Camels were domesticated in the Arabian peninsula around 3000 B.C. and in the Mesopotamian region by 2500 B.C., so they were available to Abraham for his journey to the Promised Land.

The main point here is that one man or family emigrating into Canaan from northern Syria is not going to get any notice in the fossil record of the day-to-day life of the patriarchal Canaanites. Most of the things you find in archaeological sites are very commonly-used items.

Take for example our beloved Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Now just by observation, we can see the majority of cars used in the Twin Cities do not include Lamborghinis. In fact, if you went to all the car recycling centers around town, you probably would not find a single Lamborghini rusting away in their yards. Now the reason is obvious. Hardly anyone in the Twin Cities can afford a Lamborghini. But rest assured there is at least one Fortune 500 company executive living in the Twin Cities who owns a Lamborghini.

In that same way, you won’t find any archeological evidence for Abraham and his sons using camels around 2500 B.C., because they had such a small footprint during their sojourns in Canaan. Abraham’s use of camels is justifiable and not anachronistic.

God Speaks Using -- a Pair of Dirty Underwear?

For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me.

Perhaps this sounds strange. But there are many passages of Scripture that speak of certain unpleasant things, only the translators have been discreet in their choice of words to make things more presentable, especially considering public reading.

Even the scholars of the Septuagint were apt to do the same. Consider this verse from the Psalms:
“Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see; And make their loins shake continually.”
Psalm 69:23

Now this is how it reads in the Hebrew text. But the Septuagint, as quoted by Paul, says:
“Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, And bow down their back always.”

Now you might not think that is an accurate translation, nor even idiomatic equivalency, but it is an inventive way of being more discreet in saying about the same thing. Those translators used a symptom of the original words. I mean, guys, what would you be doing if your loins were shaking continually?

Anyway, before I get even more long-winded away from my topic, let me direct you to the passage in question.

Jeremiah 13: 1 - 11.

Just to make sure, I will paste the whole passage to encourage you to read all of it.

Jer.13.1-11 NKJV “Thus the Lord said to me: “Go and get yourself a linen sash, and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water.” So I got a sash according to the word of the Lord , and put it around my waist. And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying, “Take the sash that you acquired, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole in the rock.” So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. Now it came to pass after many days that the Lord said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the sash which I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the sash from the place where I had hidden it; and there was the sash, ruined. It was profitable for nothing. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Thus says the Lord : ‘In this manner I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who follow the dictates of their hearts, and walk after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be just like this sash which is profitable for nothing. For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,’ says the Lord , ‘that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.’”

So Jeremiah was commanded to do a rather odd thing. Buy a sash, wear it all the time and don't ever wash it.

If you are not familiar with Jeremiah or other prophets, you would be interested to know that similar strange instructions were given to them. Such things as walking around naked, digging holes in walls, laying on one side for days while cooking food over a fire fueled by burning dung, and naming their kids' names more weird than Moon Unit, they were commanded to do, to mention a few. The purpose God had in all these and similar things was to illustrate the message to the people through the experience of the prophet, and so the prophet could be an emotional and empathic conduit for God's message.

This one request seems rather tame when you first read it, especially with our antiseptic translations. But if you look up other translations and do a word study of the term used here for sash, you can get the idea that it was more than just a belt or fanny pack.

In fact, the word actually means a loincloth. Back then they used these to gird up their privates, and in some really non-developed cultures today they may still use loincloths. Today’s equivalent would be a pair of underwear.

Knowing that, reconsider God's command to Jeremiah. He wanted him to put on a pair of underwear, keep wearing it, and never wash it! “Thanks, Lord,” Jerry said,  “that’s just what I need! I already am a menace and an annoyance to everyone in Jerusalem. Now I need to be stinky, too? Alright, what’s the reason for all this?”

Of course, the Lord had a very good reason for this. As the passage above states, God wanted to show  the Jews how He designed his relationship with them to be. “I have caused the whole house of Israel and Judah to cling to Me, just like this loincloth.” But it wasn’t a clean one, if you noticed, even before Jeremiah went and hid it away.

“Oh, my!” you exclaim, “That must mean God accepts me just as I am, even though I am all dirty and smelly with all my sin, that I have not stopped doing!"

No, that is not at all what God is saying. Keep in mind, in what Jeremiah did, he symbolized God and his loincloth represented the people of Israel and Judah. So whatever got the loincloth “dirty,” when it was on his body, came from the one it was clinging to, in other words, God. Umm, would that be sin? I don’t think so.

You see, this whole bit Jeremiah went through was an illustration of God's intimacy with the people of Israel, or at least the intimacy he wished for. So let’s take the idea one step further.

What is the most personal article of clothing you wear day in and day out? (And I am sorry if this seems to get a bit TMI.) Most of us would answer, of course, our underwear. What are the particulars about that? Well, you can safely say that whatever you experience through your day, your underwear is right there with you. It absorbs any sweat you give off, and takes on evidence of all of your private functions—everything. Now you are used to making sure you have a clean pair every day, but what would happen if you wore the same pair for a whole week? Perhaps it might get a little clingy. One thing’s for sure, it would certainly reflect you. Any forensics expert would be able to analyze it and say, “This has you all over it!”

“For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,” says the Lord, “that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.”

So, what does God really want? He wants us to cling to a true relationship with Him, just as close and constant as that pair of underwear. Whatever He may do, His “sweat” should be absorbed by us. And it should show when others look at us, or observe our lives. Are we close enough to God to know what He feels about what’s going on around us? Are we willing to be that close? That’s what He’s always wanted of you and me.

Look how He has been disappointed so much in the past. He’s been overlooked, ignored, rejected and refused.

Let us not continue to contribute to God’s pain, but be ones close to Him to make Him happy.

What Would the Body and the Blood Literally Mean?

“Protestants don’t really believe everything Christ said,” a staunch Roman Catholic said to me. “He said, ‘This is my body,’ and ‘This is my blood.’ But Protestants don’t take that literally, like they say they take the rest of the Bible.”

Besides his many other opinions on things Catholic vs Protestant, this was the most critical challenge brought to me by this person. (I think perhaps somewhere in this person’s past, someone as a Protestant greatly offended him, and that has brought a root of bitterness into his outlook that has guided his religious life.)

But because of this statement, my thoughts turned to the teaching he referred to, the central dogma of the Roman Catholic faith: transubstantiation, the belief and teaching that when a priest consecrates the host and wine during Mass, they transform into the “literal” physical body and blood of Jesus. So consequently, when the priest raises his just-consecrated host and says, “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” it is to be worshipped as Jesus. (Either this is true worship, or most grievous idolatry—if God does not overlook it as a mere fallacy.)

Now either this teaching is true or it is not (obviously). His claim is that the scriptures teach this, that the words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper were to be taken literally, not metaphorically, to establish this transubstantiation doctrine as scriptural.

I am not writing this to attack anyone’s faith. I know many devout Catholics who, aside from their particular dogmas, I would say give sufficient evidence of having a heart faith relationship to Christ. Perhaps God has grace for many of our false beliefs, fallacies and misconceptions, as long as they do not turn us to sin against God’s moral law.

Anyway, let’s see what in my mind must be the implications of the reality of this if the words of Jesus were to be taken literally, and what happens at a Catholic Mass is true.

I will start with the Body of Christ. Jesus said of the bread he broke and gave to the disciples, “This is my body, broken for you.” Now, here’s what we know of Jesus’ body in its current situation. Christ’s body was raised from the dead—his body is currently in heaven, and it is made up of cells with DNA that can be traced all the way back to king David. Also, there are a finite number of cells in Jesus’ body that had been offered on the cross and rose again, otherwise, the humanity of Christ is no longer truly humanity. Glorified it may be, but still human, and his cells do not need to reproduce, because they will not die, they are raised incorruptible. All this is straight from the Bible.

Now, if the consecration of the hosts in Mass is to be literally the body of Christ, they must be his real body cells, with the cytoplasm, DNA and all, otherwise it is not literally his body. If we say, it is a re-creation of his body, like a clone of the original, then it is not a literal true fulfillment of the scripture. For it has to be his real body to be literally true.

So Christ’s body cells must be taken from his body in heaven constantly, to be transferred somehow (by angels?) to earth to be “put” into the substratum of the host or bread being consecrated. (By the way, why aren’t the words of consecration in Aramaic or Hebrew, instead of Latin?) Otherwise, there are not enough “real” cells of Jesus’ body to make millions of hosts turn into his literal body all around the world every hour of every day. Then these cells are being eaten, and they need to be removed supernaturally from the recipients’ stomachs before being digested, so they may be re-used into another consecrated batch of hosts soon later. This all seems rather absurd to me, rather than a mystery.

So which is a literal fulfillment of Jesus’ words?

Jesus’ body broken on the Cross.

or        

Cloned cells of Jesus (not broken).

By the way, accurate knowledge of human anatomy and the laws of physics and chemistry were mainly unknown in the time of Gregory the Great, the man who promulgated this doctrine into a full fledged dogma in the Catholic Church. But, maybe you can get away with replicated body cells here, or “proxy” body cells.

However, when it comes to the blood, there are very specific terms to keep in line with if we are to take it literally. In the Gospel of Mark the words of Christ are very pointed: “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.” Mark 14:24. Note the words: if it is literally his blood, then is is literally shed.

Now at this first consecration, Jesus had not shed his blood yet. But we are to take this literally. That means that the blood in that cup (which must be literally what was now in that cup, if transubstantiation is true) was the blood of Jesus that was going to be shed during his passion and on the cross, otherwise it is not literally true. So, I repeat, if then and there it was his actual blood, it must be, for it to be true, that that blood in that cup was going to be shed on the cross. Somehow, that blood had to get from that cup back into Jesus’ veins (before it could be digested in the disciples’ stomachs) and be there in his body to be spilled out for sins at the crucifixion.

Jesus only had about 10 pints of blood in his body that was shed during his passion and crucifixion. Now if the blood in all the consecrated chalices in every Roman Catholic Mass is truly Jesus’ blood, it must be the blood that was shed. Proxy, cloned blood cannot be what is there, because it would never have been shed for sins at the cross. I’m just keeping it literal, now.

Which is the true “literal” fulfillment of this scripture? Which is the actual blood of Christ that was shed?

10 pints of blood in Jesus’ veins.          
(Shed on the cross and during his passion.)

 or
      
Tons of cloned blood, copies of the original          
blood. (Never shed at the cross.)

So, if these things are so, the cloning of his body and blood cells is not sufficient to be a literal fulfillment of the words of Jesus at the Last Supper and therefore is no more “literal” than a metaphor. For a clone of his cells, may look and be in all other respects the same, but they were never in his body, nor ever suffered nor were shed at the cross.

So, in my mind, to hold onto this belief, you must pile on absurdity on top of absurdity to make it consistent with its claims.

The Breath of Life

When we look at the creation of mankind in Genesis, an important aspect of that event discloses a very special insight. Of course, I have to talk about the Hebrew text in particular.

Let’s look at the verse in question.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7

The specific phrase I am focusing on is “the breath of life.” In the Hebrew it is pronounced neesh-maat cha-im. It is a compound noun of two words. Want to guess what they are?

This phrase is not used many times, but it is actually easy to discern the meaning of its context. “The breath of life” is the special thing God imparted to mankind to bring him moral agency and self-awareness. Let’s analyze this verse before going on. A few points are in order.

Perhaps you may recall that with all other aspects of creation, it was done as “God said” and it was so. God apparently made everything outside of himself, very distinctly. The impartation of life to man was different, because it is the only instance mentioned.

The neesh-maat cha-im was something DIRECTLY imparted to man by God. It notes he breathed into man this breath of life. Not until here is such a direct, intimate connection borne between the Creator and his Creation. Scripture is very clear that up to this point, God spoke and it came to be—God’s previous operations were less direct than this.

This phrase is important, and it’s easily distinct from another phrase related to animal life in general. Animals are said to have a “breath of life,” but in Hebrew it is ruach cha-im, and ruach could also be rendered soul, spirit, wind and, in general, air, because ruach can be very broad in its usage and meaning.

But the Bible gives significance to phrases. For example, in the New Testament, Paul uses two specific phrases using the word baptize: one is “baptized into the name of Christ;” the other is “baptized into Christ.” Each has a distinct meaning and refers to different things: the first refers to water baptism; the other refers to an effective result of one’s conversion to Christ.

The same is true about these two phrases: ruach cha-im refers mostly to animal life, and man in general with them as animate life; neesh-maat cha-im refers, I believe, to the life of mankind specifically. I think the context of this can bear this out.

So, the next time this phrase comes up is in Genesis 7:21-23.

And all flesh died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all that was on the dry land, died. So He destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground: both man and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air.

Now some translations read the 22nd verse as if it applies to all living things on the land. But a case can be made in the Hebrew text for it to read as a parenthesis expanding on the mention of man, something like: “and every man—all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, all who were on the dry land—died.”

Here the phrase is compounded with ruach, neesh-maat ruach cha-im.

The point here is that ruach may also apply to man, but neesh-maat (breath of) does not apply to animals. If you would look up all the other uses of this word, breath, you would see it either applies to man or to God.

So, what’s the point or insight of all this? I conclude from the nature of this phrase, and its implication of being God’s direct imparting of spiritual life to man, that that spiritual nature of man is immortal, or eternal. Not in the complete sense as equal to God’s immortality, because God is self-existent and fully eternal (without beginning or end). But mankind is, may I say?, half-eternal. That is, though people have a beginning of life, their spiritual existence will be forever.

There is no other scripture that may explicitly say so, but is there need for more? What, would you say, is the nature of God’s breath? Would it not to some extent have the same essential nature and qualities as God, not in degree but in kind?  These qualities include mind, free will, emotions, as well as immortality. Do you think God can or could or would wipe out his own existence? Can God “stop”  his breath? In the same way, I think, it would be against God’s nature or character to wipe out man’s spiritual existence. Though I would not go so far as to impinge upon God’s omnipotence.

Therefore, I don’t think there is any basis for saying that the immortality of man’s soul is only conditional, or granted on salvation, or that we will be annihilated if we are lost. We each in our conciousness have an eternity to face.

Cain’s Contradiction

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

So the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

Genesis 4:3-7 (NKJV)

Wait a minute, something in these verses just blew my mind! I mean, something wrong has been said here. I get the feeling that God is misleading Cain, or intentionally giving him wrong information! Or is there some real contradiction going on here? I mean, a contradiction from what I have been always taught in every church and Sunday school, save a very few.

Here is Cain, with a long face, angry heart and feeing rejected, and obviously growing jealous of Abel the more he thinks about this situation. I mean Abel’s offering was accepted, and his was rejected, however the evidence for that bore out to them. That’s not the problem. Well, that’s Cain’s problem; not mine.

Mine is with what God said to Cain before the big first murder. It just doesn’t make sense! Here’s Cain, the very first person recorded that was born from Adam and Eve, right? That is the first person directly born from the first human sinners. What was supposed to have happened after the Fall, and the curse and all that? Well, everyone else after that is supposed to be born sinful, right? I mean, guilty and powerless to do good, right?

So, why is God lying to him? OK, so at least only misleading him into thinking something different! Why is God saying he can either equally do good or do bad? Do well, be accepted, get these good consequences. Do not well, be threatened to be invaded with sin—because, it’s at the door, not in the door, not inside yet, but just at the entrance (they had doors then?). 

Wait a minute! If there was ever a time to set the record straight, it was right then, with the first person to be born from these first sinners, that he was born with a sinful nature, and was guilty, and so forth, passed on to him from his parents. Why didn’t God do that? Instead he misleads Cain into thinking that he could have mastery over sin!

Why didn’t God tell him the plain truth, letting him know that 3,500 years down the road, someone named Augustine would set the record right, informing us that no one born from Adam and Eve has any chance of equally choosing between good and evil, that we can only choose to sin, unless our nature (physical or metaphysical being) gets recreated by God?

David’s Hushed Beginnings

Is David’s origin to be questioned?

My Old Testament reading had come back around to 1 Samuel, to the point where God tells Samuel to go anoint another person to be king in place of Saul. Of course, many of us are familiar with the basic account of David, when he got called up in front of Samuel and God says, “This is the one, anoint him!”

A number of subtle points to note here, if not hooked up with a few other tidbits we find, would be overlooked completely; valuable points to grab from looking more closely at some questions raised by David’s history, and a conclusion that might be shocking to some. In fact, I personally wondered a long time about David’s youth and upbringing.

Let’s set the stage

After mourning over Saul, Samuel is told by God to fill his horn with oil and go to Bethlehem of Judah “to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.” (1 Sam. 16:1) God told Samuel specifically it would be one of Jesse’s sons. Now, when Jesse is told to come to Samuel's sacrifice, he is specifically told to bring his sons to that sacrifice. “And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.”

But, as you may well know, Samuel went through the lineup of Jesse’s sons at first and the LORD told him, “it’s not any one of these.” And so Samuel asked Jesse, “Are these all your children?”
You would think that after all the trouble of preparing for a formal sacrificial gathering and meal, Jesse would not inadvertently overlook any of his sons. Especially since the word of what Samuel had done with Agag had gotten around (verse 4). Jesse seemingly goes, “Uh... oh! There is one more... uh, the youngest. He’s in the backyard with the sheep.”

Now Jesse was a land owner, and apparently of not just a small amount of land. You may recall he was the grandson of Ruth and Boaz. Boaz owned lots of land and had lots of servants handling his harvests.

So, Jesse, you would suppose, had plenty of servants to go and deal with things such as sheep and harvests as well. Why was David taken out of the family circle to go be with the sheep?

David and his brothers

Let’s look at a further incident. David is sent down to the Israelite troops camping out opposite of the Philistines to see his brothers. Because of Goliath’s taunting, David asks what the Israelite army is doing about it, and his brother turns on him. “Eliab’s anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle.”

That seems rather uncalled for. What made Eliab react so angrily at David, and accuse him of a wicked heart? (and belittle the work of his shepherding!) Was he just jealous of David having been anointed rather than himself? Could it be something had been in Eliab's opposition to David perhaps longer than that?

Let’s take a look at a familiar Psalm, number 23, about “the LORD is my shepherd.” The fifth verse says, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Now, when was David anointed with oil? When he was anointed by Samuel is the only recorded incident. A sacrifice was usually accompanied by a meal in honor of God, thus the table. Tell me, who were the enemies David is speaking of? Could they have been David’s own brothers? Why would they be considered his enemies?

Here’s another verse; Psalm 27:10: “When my father and my mother have abandoned me, the LORD will take care of me.” Why did David feel they abandoned him?

So, here’s what I see so far: Jesse shuts David out to the servitude task of taking care of the sheep, and initially doesn’t include—or acknowledge—him among his sons; his brothers treat him as an enemy, rather than a beloved brother.

What do you think is going on here, simple sibling rivalry?

Now, it may be a long shot, but I am thinking that if you can tie together a loosely connected string of facts by the fewest explanations, you may have a reasonable solution to the questions they raise.

Other Family Members of David

David did have some sisters. They are mentioned many times in 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 Chronicles. Their names were Abigail and Zeruiah. And guess what? They were daughters of someone named Nahash. Now one concordance I have says this was their mother, and this would be a natural conclusion, assuming Jesse was their father. The text doesn’t say that, however.

Now I don’t know about you, but I think it would be an awful name for a girl, the darling of some mother and father, to be named Nahash. At least, not for a Hebrew name. That word means snake. Would you want to be called a snake? Especially when you keep in mind what happened in Eden. Would that make you endearing to others, particularly a potential husband? I would be willing to contend whether that is even a female name.

Now there was one other person named Nahash mentioned in the bible, and surprise! he is contemporary in the time of Samuel and David. He was an Ammonite king. What Nahash meant in the Ammonite tongue, I have no idea. In his first mention, he attacks a city on the outskirts of Israel, and Saul comes to rescue it from him. So there was no friendship between Ammon and Israel.

However, when we see him mentioned in relation to David, it says he showed favor to David. Why should he do that?

In fact, read it in its context of 2 Sam. 10, and it is revealing.

Hanun, the son of Nahash, becomes king of Ammon and David sends a delegation of goodwill to him, saying, “I will show kindness to Hanun just as his father showed kindness to me.” (vs 2) However,  Hanun and his advisors eyed this with suspicion, and shamed his ambassadors.

Hanun's advisors didn't think David wanted to honor his father, but “to search the city, to spy it out, and to overthrow it.” OK. Why did they think that? I mean, back then, if a king wanted to conquer a country, he made that pretty plain up front.

Is it possible something in particular about David made them suspicious?  What if by some relationship to Nahash, he had some claim,  albeit remote, to the Ammonite throne?
“TJ,” you say, “You're going out on a limb!” And perhaps a real thin one!

Jewish tradition

Know it or not, there is substantial tradition in Jewish midrash that David had an illegitimate birth. Some teaching even proposes David’s mother's name, and other circumstances otherwise not given us in the biblical record. And how the rabbis of the midrash were able to get those details beyond the biblical texts is beyond me.

Still, their acknowledgement, however hushed, of such a possibility is significant to match up with the biblical clues.

A verse in proper perspective?

Does this verse sound familiar? “Behold,  I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” Psalm 51:5.

Now, when we hear or read this verse, we have a culturally imposed meaning in our heads, because we usually only hear it during a sermon about our fallen nature, that David was declaring we are all naturally sinful.

However,  we need to be careful about taking a personal confession and turning it into a universal principle; turning a me into a we.

Really look at what David is actually, literally saying. He is saying he was conceived and brought to birth sinfully. Now, if he is being conceived, who is doing the sinning? He says his mother sinned. Now, in context, David implies that had an influence on his wicked behavior he confessed. But the verse needs to have an originally intended meaning for David, and I think it was deeply personal, rather than broadly theological.

So, it looks like these many points have a connection for David’s beginnings.

Conclusions

I’m thinking of two points to take from this possible view of David’s life.

One, consider that David was also called a man after God’s own heart. (1 Samuel 13:14) From his youth, David never ceased seeking a pure and intimate relationship with God.

So, no matter what your beginning was like, where you came from, you can still be close and real with God. Keep this in your heart: God still wants to be with you, and for you to be close to him.

Secondly, after David was anointed by Samuel,  he is called the son of Jesse. (1 Samuel 17:12) In light of the possibility he was illegitimate, this is significant.  Perhaps it means that David was fully accepted into Jesse’s family. Through Samuel’s annointing, it was a rebuke to Jesse that he held back on that acceptance for so many years.

If you have a mixed family, or you are adopted, it is God’s purpose that each of you know and feel a full acceptance into your family by every member. Family goes beyond just the natural family in God’s eyes.

On Searching Hearts and Anthropomorphisms

An Anthropomorphism Claimed

During one Wednesday evening prayer time our pastor mentioned a comment on some statement or verse (I do not recall what exactly) that it was an anthropomorphism regarding God’s knowing or searching hearts. Was he implying by his comment is that we should not take it as faithfully as it was stated in the verse? What he was getting at I was not sure.

I didn’t say anything because I was trying to process that statement. I find myself questioning the extent of what is an anthropomorphism or how far we take the scriptural descriptions of God’s activities and self-disclosures to man as such. I think this is important because we as evangelicals aim to take the bible at face value, that is, that what the text appears to say is what it should mean, once we take the context and cultural environs into consideration.

An Anthropomorphism Identified

First of all, it is apparent that God reveals himself to man through the bible using all sorts of literary methods; he uses metaphor, simile, parable, illustration, hyperbole, and anthropomorphism, as well as others. All of these, I hope you would agree, he used to convey the reality of what he is like to those with whom he desires a relationship, in a way they can understand and be accurate and as close to reality as possible.

The Jews were a simple agricultural people, in general without a high degree of learning, so as simple a way of conveying himself to them was what he was aiming for. I don’t think that means God doesn’t reveal much or a profound degree of truth. By no means. The truth God conveyed is simple in its approach, but still chock full of inexhaustible depth. It’s kind of a paradox. But what I think this implies is that God’s method was honest, as direct as possible and candid; and meant to be grasped without a lot of double-thinking. Like, “God said this, but he really meant this.”
“Well, why didn’t he just say what he meant?”

Obvious as anthropomorphisms would be such as “the arm of the Lord,” “upon eagles wings,” and so forth. These are things explaining and describing the way God acted, needing an image that we could relate to. However, is not the image God describes nonetheless accurate to the nature of his activity?

An Anthropomorphism Analyzed?

What about such things as “I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me,” (Ezek. 6:9) or “I am sorry that I have made them?” (Gen. 6:7) How are we to think of these and others; as direct statements honestly revealing God’s heart; or as some kind of anthropomorphic accommodation to man’s limited mind, where in reality God is not close to this reaction?

Take where God says “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isa 55:8-9) I take notice God says “higher” rather than “other” or “alien.” I think God means his level of thinking and acting (of course in holiness and so forth) is way above us, but not to say it is distinctly different in process or nature. After all, as we are fond of saying, man is made in God’s image. That must mean there is a basis upon which we can relate to God and he to us.

I am thinking that any kind of anthropomorphism is not God relating to us something totally different than he is, but that any anthropomorphism is bringing the intensity of his actions and reactions down to our level. In other words, for example, God’s feelings of hurt by man’s sin is infinitely more intense than we could ever comprehend, so it is toned down when he communicates it to us, so it can then “fit” into our mind’s eye.

An Anthropomorphism Searched?

Throughout the scriptures it says of God that he “searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts.” (1 Chron. 28:9) Indeed, “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways.” (Jer. 17:10) And, “I am He who searches the minds and hearts.” (Rev 2:23) I take note it never lays emphasis that God simply knows the heart of man by some kind of intuition, but that he knows because he searches the heart of man. In fact he does so continually, as Job complained of, saying “Will you leave me alone one minute so I can swallow?” (Job 7:19) Now I could not explain in a short space any kind of philosophy as to how or why this is so, but doesn’t the scripture say so consistently? And why would we say this is only an anthropomorphism? And if it is, then what does God actually do? It is simply describing the activity of God, what he does.

The scripture is rife with statements declaring that God searches out the thoughts and mind and heart of people. If this does not reflect reality, then how should we understand it? Here’s how I make it out, and please excuse me if I go out on a limb and even sound heretical; I simply aim to be candid about this.

God is distinct from his creation. This ought to be an agreed upon declaration. Otherwise we need to say we may be pantheists, if we say the creation is part of God or some such idea. Even though the truth of God’s omnipresence is accepted, he is still different from his creation; it is outside of his existence. So, then, how can he know it? Not in the same way he knows himself, by simply looking into his own mind, by intuition, essentially. He must need to examine it as something outside  himself, much as we need to examine any object outside of ourselves, to gather information about its current characteristics and state of nature. So it does not bother me to assume that God may constantly actually be “taking readings” of all his creation over every possible millisecond.

And I don’t think that is an anthropomorphism; it simply describes God’s real activity.

Hell Investigation part 1

I recorded this simple, and, I know, boring, walk through Matthew investigating Jesus’ own words about the future state of those who do not repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ. If you endure through listening to it, feel free to comment on it.

God bless!

Corroboration on Eternal Punishment

I have begun a project to read through as much of the Early Church Fathers as I can, and who knows how long this may take, along with everything else I try to keep up on. The reason for this is to see what teachings are prominent in the Fathers up through Augustine, who, from what I understand from many other sources, was the great innovator of doctrine.

So far I am currently on Justin Martyr, who is mid to late 2nd century, during some of the Roman persecutions of Christians, and apparently the Jews still persecuted Christians where they were able at that time.

Currently, if you are not aware, there is a great upswelling of debate within evangelical Christianity in the West on several topics, some of which are absolute foreknowledge, eternal security, and the age old Universalism, which is where people teach that Hell, if, they say, there actually is one, is not eternal. As far as I am concerned, all you need to do is revive the arguments that Charles Finney gave in answer to the Universalists of his day to adequately dispatch their claims.

Most of the arguments out there also will revolve on the meaning of the words for eternal in the Greek New Testament and so forth. But the most proposed reason that Hell is said not to be eternal is because an eternity for so short a time (the average of 80 years) of sinning seems so unjust and unloving for such a God of infinite love to give any sinner.

(By the way, there is just as much discussion over the annihilation of the unrepentant rather than any kind of suffering at all. I may give my thoughts on that in another blog post down the road.)

I don’t have time to go over the whole ground and I am not the Greek expert to handle the language issues (although, if eternal life is eternal, then why isn’t eternal punishment eternal?).

But I will just spell out the following thoughts.

• If Jesus died to take away our sins and open the way for eternal life through faith in him, why go through all that suffering when all you have to do is let every sinner go through Hell until their debt to heavenly society is paid? What is it worth, and what is the real value God puts on the happiness of those who will live holy?
• If the unrepentant are sent to Hell for their, say, billion or so years of suffering, then they get to come out for the rest of eternity, what is the means by which they will become repentant? How many murderers and rapists come out of prison reformed by the endurance of their time?
• If we as Christians repent of our sins, submit to God in faith to love and serve him by Jesus Christ, and we are saved by grace, what is the basis on which the unrepentant who, supposedly, get let out of Hell, get to come into Heaven? Wouldn’t that be salvation by justice? Is there any mention of that in the Bible?
• What will be the attitude of a sinner coming out of Hell after his time, and being let into Heaven on account of him having served his time? I would hate to think he would be like many  getting out of prison, saying, “I’ve done my time, I deserve to get into Heaven now.”

Anyway, I just wanted to point out here, that as far as my meager reading of the early Fathers so far, I find all agreeing and mentioning it very frequently that the unrepentant will be in eternal fire just as the righteous will be in eternal life.

Here’s one quote from Justin Martyr:

And we have learned that those only are deified (in Justin’s mind, I think that means brought to live with God) who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.  First Apology, Chapter 21.

Now, of course, Justin also insists it is through faith in Christ Jesus that one lives holy. So I wonder how that speaks to unconditional eternal security (you know, once saved, always saved, which idea is only just over a hundred fifty years old, and a perversion of the Calvinist doctrine of Perseverance of the Saints—another issue down the road, perhaps).

But the consistent teaching of the early church (and the Bible, I posit) is the eternal nature of the future of the unrepentant who die in their sins. Just make sure that is one thing you don’t do.

The Father and the Son Distinguished

As briefly as I can, I will put this one out there (what blogs were originally all about, right?).

This verse has been coming to my mind over the last few days, and coming back. I think it is one of the verses that can speak to the issue of Jesus Only or the Modalist view of God, that says there is only one person in God, and the three designations, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are just manifestations of the one God. I found this teaching close to home where I live, where one of the children's pastors in a very large growing church is teaching this to the children as part of their baptism catechism.

Modalism (the view of United Pentecostals and others) lays great emphasis on the unity of God, but really overlooks the distinctions of the persons of the Godhead, representing the Scriptures as showing God simply manifesting himself to man in three different modes; insisting that God exists as one single solitary person. Modalists try to say that the view of the Trinity is really a polytheistic view, and Trinitarians cannot escape the charge of having three gods.

The concept of the Trinity historically has been the best explanation that Christianity has been able to give for the Scriptural truths that there is only one God, but that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are spoken of as distinct “persons” from one another, and yet are attributed the titles and attributes of Deity.

This verse I refer to is John 1:18. In the NIV (New International Version) I own, it says: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” OK, I see this as kind of weak in translation, which is why a newer version of the NIV has it a little differently. But note in here the distinction between the Father and the Son. The Son is at the Father’s side, which means he’s separate from the Father as a personality in existence.

A closer translation is the NKJV (New King James Version) which reads, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” Here, we have the phrase “in the bosom of the Father,” which seems to indicate very close intimacy. Still, a Jesus Only person may point out the use of “in” the bosom of the Father. Isn’t that like emanating from within the Father, i.e., the same origin?

Let’s look at a more literal translation: “God no one hath ever seen; the only begotten Son, who is on the bosom of the Father—he did declare.” YLT98 (Young’s Literal Translation) Notice that literally, the Greek doesn't place the Son inside the Father, but on him. The Son is in the most intimate embrace of the Father, and that’s about as close as he can get without being the Father. Get that?

No where does the Scripture say that the Son is the Father, or vice versa, in any sense. I think a solid meditation on Romans 8 can show the distinctions between the persons of the Godhead as well.

Five Minutes with a Bible Study App

I just want to let you know how easy it is to do a simple bible study while you are at your computer, or even on your smartphone. All the while, like me, you can be listening to Stryper on Spotify or something similar.

Here goes. First of all, what brings this up is a discussion with someone about what the phrase “the Word of God” might mean, for it would seem that somewhere out there in the mass of bible teaching, there are some who teach it as distinctively one thing. This is a reminder that we need to make sure we check everything out in the Word, er, I mean, the bible. 

I mean, we surely can, and should, listen to our Sunday morning teachers, but we are still told by Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament to check out what we are taught against the written Word (there I go again!).

So that’s what I decided to do a few nights ago. It only took me about five minutes. How? A simple search using one of the free Bible reference and study applications available from the internet. Some are downloads, some are online sites. Either way, most allow you to search for words and phrases. This takes even less time than looking up verses in a concordance, such as Young’s or Strong’s, which are still great resources though.

So I used one of the apps simply called Bible Study App by Olive Tree. Another I use sometimes is Online Bible by Cross Country Software. Both would work just fine for my phrase search.

So when I opened Bible Study App, I then chose Edit > Find and entered with quotes “word of God” to see what would come up. Simple enough. Then what did I have to do? Simply scroll down the list of results and read each one in its context, which BSA gave enough of. Then I just had to do some thinking about each one and see what the overall usage of that phrase might disclose. 

You could do this for yourself and check the same facts out that I think I figured out. Here’s what I concluded:

• The term “word of God” refers in general to any kind of revealed truth or revelation from God, whether it is by the word of a prophet, directly spoken by God to man, a written source (Torah, other OT writings, Pauline letters), or a direct revelation of God to us by his Son, Jesus Christ.

• The phrase was commonly used throughout the New Testament (especially by Luke) and referred both to the written scriptures, and revelation from God through the teaching of the New Testament Apostles, prophets and teachers. This would make sense, since the completion of the New Testament writings had not been accomplished yet.

• It says that Jesus himself spoke and taught the word of God to the crowds who came to hear him. So if the only thing you can call the word of God is Jesus, then Jesus was speaking himself to the crowd, which seems rather absurd.

• Jesus said that the seed in his first parable is the word of God. So it means something other than Jesus himself. It is also spoken of by Jesus as something we hear and do.
• In one place Jesus equates the word of God with the Scriptures (John 10:35).

• The word of God is our main offensive weapon in spiritual warfare, coupled with prayer (Eph. 6:17).

• Jesus is called the Word of God. But you can see it is not an exclusive phrase only applied to Jesus. However, as one of his names it declares something special about his place and ministry to the world. I’ll get back to that in a minute.

• Similar phrases found in context would be “the word of the Lord,” “your word (O Lord),” and so forth. Psalm 119 is rife with those in reference to God’s written word in the focus of its writer.

In conclusion, I think the words of Jesus in his priestly prayer, “your word is truth” is very fitting. When the bible refers to the word of God, it in general means any truth revealed by God, or in other words, divine revelation. As a bible-believing christian, I would say the only reliable and complete revelation we have given to us to stand on, that can be verified and referred to by anyone, is the scriptures, containing the Old and New Testaments. This for centuries, in fact since the New Testament times and before by the Jews, was called the Word of God, because of the belief that it is truly divine revelation.

The final thing to conclude: Jesus is called the Word of God as one of his titles because as the incarnate Son of God, he is the fullest revelation of God given to us. While he walked on earth, he, as it is described by John, exhibited the character and nature of the Father to those who followed him.

I feel pretty confidently about my conclusions. Not because I have such great brains (hardly). Only because this five minute look at some scriptures, being fairly easy to get a good search of phrases from a bible study computer application, makes this kind of information accessible.

Sticking with the Potter

I was struck by a thought this morning. I was reading from a short writing by some guy named Baro (Peter Baro’s Summary of Three Opinions Concerning Predestination), he produced some time in the late 1500’s. While explaining these views he mentioned a verse from Romans 9, commonly used in relation to this subject of predestination.

“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Romans 9:21)

This verse, at least since Augustine, has been used as a proof text for God’s sovereignty over determining from all eternity who will be saved and who will be damned. Now, in my opinion (which, I know, doesn’t hold much water), Romans 9 doesn’t teach directly about the salvation and life details of each person, but about how God had every right to use whatever means he chose to bring his plan of salvation about. I don’t have time to go into the details of why I think that. I just encourage you to read that chapter, and prayerfully meditate over it a while.

But this is what occurred to me: So many of these past divines and theologians used this potter illustration that came from Jeremiah, Paul and others, and applied it as an analogy to how God has chosen from all eternity who will be saved (honored) or who will be damned (dishonored), and yet I realized that they haven’t been true to this analogy.

Firstly, there’s this inserted phrase “from all eternity.” The only place in the New Testament that phrase is given in some fashion is in Acts 15:18, where it is applied to God’s works, not man’s. When it comes to the mention of the word usually translated predestination, Paul and the other New Testament writers only go so far as to reach back to the “foundation of the world,” which seems to mean, as far back as before the original creation, or before the Fall, perhaps. And then it may be discussed, what has God actually predestinated? But I digress some.

If we apply to God this analogy of a potter working with a lump of clay and determining what will be made out of that clay, why is this analogy abandoned in the middle of applying it to God’s activity in determining the salvation of souls? They stick to God’s sovereignty in making a determination, then leave off and send the determining to all the way from eternity (past?).

Now, if we apply that to the potter we can come up with something rather absurd. Imagine a potter comes into his studio and says, “Today, I will make such and such a piece from this one lump of clay. In fact, years ago, even before I ever thought of becoming a potter, I had determined exactly what I will do with this lump of clay.”

If you heard a potter saying such a thing, wouldn’t you think he’s a little off his rocker? “Well, yes, of course,” you say, “he’s not God!” Yes, but to stick to the potter analogy, we should apply to God what the potter naturally would do as he works with the clay; in other words, his determining process.

If we ask, when does the potter determine what he will make out of this clay, the answer would be, while he is working with it! It is a present-time activity. He has some idea and hope for it as he pulls this lump of clay from his clay reserves, and his mind rolls an idea or concept around. But then he puts it on the wheel and starts to work with it. It is then he gets more of the immediate vision as he feels how the clay responds in his hands, and how he will respond to it.

So, in the same way, as God is walking with each person, prompting and pleading in every way available to “mold” him or her to honor, this person may respond favorably or resist, and God needs to determine at that present time how to respond to each human response.

Perhaps why this analogy is abandoned in the middle by so many teachers and preachers is because they are apprehensive to embrace the implications of a present-time activity by God. But isn’t that what the Holy Spirit is constantly portrayed in the New Testament as doing with each one of us?

Jesus' Deliverance

We're looking at Matthew 8:28-34
28 And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.
29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
30 And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding.
31 So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.
32 And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
33 And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils.
34 And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.

Compare with Mark 5:1-20
8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
9 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
10 And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

After pondering this over, I wonder at a few things.

First I wonder at the amazing deliverance Jesus brought these two men (one account only concentrates on one of them, who apparently was the most affected by the whole event, and perhaps the only one who ultimately was converted). The account says they were so fierce that no one could pass by the area they occupied. Think of their condition; however they came to be that way, they were totally devoid of reason and completely at the whim of the evil spirits who dominated them; completely isolated from the rest of society, no one trying to communicate with them. What chance did they have of getting out of their condition? They had no strength for it themselves. Jesus purposely took the initiative to rescue them from their condition.

Next, I am amazed at what Jesus was able to bring them to: a right mind, according to Mark's account. Jesus restored them to a condition where they could respond with their own understanding and will. I am thinking that when Jesus cast out the evil spirits, these men were not yet converted; what understanding did they have right after that? But afterward, I am sure Jesus ministered the Good News to them. One of them obviously responded in an affirmative way.

Also, I wonder at the situation into which Jesus had put the people of the town, and especially the men who took care of the swine. All these swine had rushed into the sea of Galilee to their death. Now you have a group of men who are now without jobs! Not only that, but they will have to explain to the owner(s) of the swine what happened to them, and maybe they would be liable for the loss!

So they come to the owner, perhaps, and it goes something like this: "So, where are my swine? Why did you come back from the pasture without them?" "Well, you see, uh, you know about the two demon-possessed men out in the Gergesene country?" "Don't tell me they killed them all? Or, better yet, let me guess, they ate them all!" "Well, not quite, you know that guy, Jesus of Nazareth? He cast the spirits out of them, and the evil spirits entered into all the swine and they ran into the water and drowned!" "Right. You expect me to believe all this?" "Ask the people of the town; they saw everything, they were uphill from it all!"

Perhaps you recall that when Paul cast the spirit out of that young woman who would predict the outcomes of things, that her masters were out of some good profits! And God rescued Peter from execution, at the expense of 16 Roman soldiers' lives. (Do you think they had time to come to Jesus before they were executed? I would hope some of them did!)

So when Jesus rescues and delivers people from what has enslaved them, it is quite possible that somebody in the worldly realms sustains a loss, small or great. Think of the loss a pimp gets from a prostitute who is able to escape her dire situation because somehow Jesus reaches her.

But let's bring this into today. We see a lot of people around us who are barely able to keep their minds straight with all the troubles, problems, and many times the guilt and other issues they are handling because of their sin. Sometimes they are also victims of other people's sin. Jesus warns us often in the Gospels of how tormenting the power of guilt is over people, not only in this life, but after the judgement. Quite frankly, when we see people go "over the edge" and do insane things, I wonder that it doesn't happen more. I just can't understand how people are able to hang on without knowing the rescuing power of Jesus Christ, and the freedom of forgiveness and a relieved conscience, which only He can give.

There are doubtless many who think they are on the verge of going insane, or a nervous breakdown is close. But they have no idea where to go for relief or an answer. They won't get it from their own dark situation, I think. Who has to bring them answers? We Christians need to. And the only answer is Jesus' rescuing power, all because of what He did on the cross.

I am not saying that there are tons of people who are demon possessed, though I am afraid and sure some are. But many are under the dominion of the Devil because they gave ground to him at some time in their lives. And like these men who had the Legion, they are under a multitude of sins, sprung from lust, love of money, bitterness, self-ambition, pride and more.

Perhaps that's you. You can't recover from that yourself: you are bound. But the power to restore your mind, and then the grace for you to turn away from your sin and follow Jesus is right at Jesus' beck and call. All you need do is turn to Him, and He promises to do it.

Errors in the Old Testament - Part 1

Skeptics and armchair theologians (of the liberal and cult type) will say the Bible—the Tanach, Old and New Testaments, etc.—has many different ways of being interpreted, is full of errors and contradictions, and therefore cannot be reliable. It would be nice to blast away at all the opposition to the Bible in one fell swoop, but there are so many issues and angles they bring up against the trustworthiness of God’s Word.

Ever since the 18th century, there has been the old Higher Criticism, or the JDEP theory, which the liberal scholars STILL hold on to without one shred of documentary evidence. Those who would be interested in defending the Bible against that should start with Hengstengberg, who was contemporary with many of the German scholars who brought that up. His writings are possibly hard to get a hold of, though. Anyone with an original edition of any of his stuff has a theological gold mine at hand.

All I can say about the JDEP theory is that, if it were true, and the Pentateuch had been put together after the Babylonian exile then the Jewish leaders all got together and claimed it came from Moses, they have foisted the greatest con job upon their own people and the world. Highly unlikely.

Then there’s those who, like the Mormon leadership, claim that the Bible can’t be trusted in how it has been translated, that it is doubtful whether it has been translated correctly. Anyone with a moderate amount of study into that topic would realize that holds little water. Successful translations of the Old Testament had been made since before the 2nd century B.C. (Please, I don’t regard the secular humanist BCE nomenclature.), so we have many other known languages to which to compare our translations. The New Testament is even more reliable in that regard.

But my concern as of late has been the little spots in the Old Testament, in the original Hebrew, where there are “differences” or some may be “errors.” I’ve been doing my morning devotions going through the Hebrew OT, or the Tanach, if you will. That is an acronym for Torah (the Law), Nevi’im (the Prophets) and C’tovim (the Writings); the three main divisions of the Old Testament.

We who claim and believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, take that idea to mean that in the original writing of each book of the Bible, there were no errors in the message God intended to convey to His people, including historically, etc. No one can prove, of course, that every writer of an OT book was a perfect speller or had the best command of Hebrew grammar, but that is where many believers make their first assumption.

Remember this, too, that after the first edition was made, then it was copied over the centuries, usually onto sheepskin, papyrus or some similar perishable material. Through the centuries, it is expected that some problems would creep in over the course of being copied by the hands of fallible people. However, compared to all the ancient literature known and discovered, the ratio of properly copied words over mistakes, etc. throughout the Hebrew OT is very, very low, in the range of less than 1/10th of one percent. Think of that; that’s like one problem only after every 1,000 words!

If you were to look at a Hebrew Tanach as one finds in your local synagogue, you will sometimes see a few words written in the outer margin of a page. This is what is called a “Quere” (kar-ee), or reading. It is the way a certain word or phrase should be read out loud. It differs from the letters actually written in the Old Testament text.

That difference between what is actually written and what is spelled out in the margin, people are want to call a mistake or error. Now, I believe not every one of these quere citations are actual errors in the copying of the text. Some are. That does not mean that God’s Word is “full” of errors. And very few make figuring out the original of the text highly doubtful. Much of it can be understood by its immediate context, just like we understand what a typo in a newspaper story should really be, because we easily get the context of that word.

Of course, these are not the only scribal errors to be cited. There are small differences between various translations, such as the Greek Septuagint or the Syriac Old Testament. The extant Hebrew texts may have small variations between schools of scribes.

Here’s what I believe some of these quere “scribal errors" could very possibly be attributed to:

• Dialectic differences: It is evident from reading of the geographical and demographic differences in the settling of the Israelite tribes in the Promised Land, that there would also be differences in the way one tribe or group would speak and spell. The incident in Judges 12:5-6 lends evidence to this. One group could not pronounce the “sh” sound properly, and so they were shown to be of the Ephraimite ethnicity. 
• Bad grammar, bad spelling: As I mentioned above, we are not guaranteed that all of the Old Testament authors were perfect spellers or had perfect grammatical understanding. Some dialectical differences could also have lent to “improper” Hebrew grammar. Just look at what most blog comments and emails are replete of today.
• Politeness, embarrassment, etc.: There are a couple of examples where some vulgar words were given more polite, more gentle equivalents. The reason for this is because after the Jews were dispersed in exile, and the synagogues were their normal worship culture, the Tanach would be read out loud during service, just like we have in every Christian liturgical service.
  One case in point is in 2nd Kings 18:27, where I’m pretty sure the common words for “pee” and “poop” were used by the Assyrian official speaking in the hearing of the Jews during their siege of Jerusalem. Now if you were to read those words out loud in the synagogue, I’m sure a lot of pre-bar-mitzvahed boys would do a lot of giggling, and many mothers would recoil with shock. So, it made sense to the scribes to replace those words with something more suited to public expression.
• Confusion between letterforms: This is a very common one. In particular, the letters “vav” and “yod” are most common, because they only differ in how long the stroke is to make them. Any scribe who made the “vav” a little shorter than normal or the “yod” a little longer would have made it difficult for future scribes to discern, especially after a long day and their eyes would get weary. Another interesting nugget to chew on is the fact that at the rise of the Assyrian empire and some time afterward, there was a transition from the Jews using the original Hebrew letterforms and switching over to the Aramaic letterforms. Some scribal errors could have been introduced at those times as well.
• Dyslexia: That’s right, dyslexia isn’t just a common modern problem. The advantage today is that we have many methods for helping people overcome it. But I could surmise easily that a mild case of dyslexia could have been a problem for a number of scribes over the centuries. So many examples of obvious dyslexic errors are peppered throughout the Hebrew text, where a pair of letters were switched around. Like I said, though, the context usually betrays what the original word should be.
  And I can imagine some dyslexic scribal student arguing with his Jewish mother about this: “I just can’t get it, Mom. I keep screwing up the order of my letters in the trials. I don’t think I’m fit to be a scribe.” “What do mean, not fit to be a scribe?" she exclaims, “Nonsense. Your father is a scribe; your grandfather was a scribe; and your great-grandfather was a scribe. Just work harder. You’ll make a great scribe.” “Well, OK, Mom,” he says reluctantly, “If you insist!” No wonder we have these kinds of things in there!

The question still would be asked, if these kinds of errors lend great doubt to the inspiration of the Scriptures. I would answer “No.” Most of these are plainly solvable via the context of the words, with a strong understanding of the original languages. (Not that I have any kind of expert understanding; I am still a student of these things.) God’s word is still on a strong foundation, and not one of these scribal errors actually effect any moral and theological teaching we may find in it.

Joseph Awoke and Did

Matthew 1:24 (NKJV) Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him...

I think this is the crux of the matter in things pertaining to God (or anything He has given into our responsibility). Many of us as Christians receive the dream, vision or direction from God, but we seem to awake out of “sleep”—perhaps our time spent with God—and then act as if that direction were a far off dream, something from our sleep.

There are four main parts to making our time with God's word profitable and effective: Absorption, interpretation, meditation and application. Many of us get lost just at the absorption part. Perhaps we just rush over our daily reading/devotions with little concentration.

Interpretation is, of course, where we discover or uncover what the scripture passage really means.

Meditation is where we make that a source for our new thoughts and motivations by ingraining it into our minds.

The final step, application, where I take it and make it my new pattern of daily living, is what makes the difference in accomplishing God's will in our lives. The good thing is that Joseph did that after he awoke from his dream of the angel, so Jesus was born and taken care of as God intended.

It is my prayer that, like Joseph, I will do what I have been commanded whence I am aroused from sleep.