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.