Even those who have never read the Bible will recognize it. Revered by the occult and feared by the superstitious, it’s a number forever linked with infamy. It is the number six hundred sixty-six. For over two millennia, this number has been used as a proxy for Satan himself. It’s been the subject of endless speculation, hearsay, and confusion.
And during this time, it’s been used to justify the false identification of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of individuals as the Antichrist. These false identifications have only served to confuse people as to the original Biblical meaning of the number 666, and unfortunately, they also cause many to dismiss bible prophecy as a mere superstition of crackpots and conspiracy theorists.
So where does the number 666 come from? And what does it mean?
All the speculation concerning 666 comes from a single verse in the Book of Revelation. In a passage describing the Antichrist and his world empire, we learn the following:
“He required everyone – great and small, rich and poor, slave and free – to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name. Wisdom is needed to understand this. Let the one who has understanding solve the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666.” Revelation 13:16-18 (NLT)
During the Great Tribulation, the Antichrist will require everyone on the earth to be given a mark on the right hand or the forehead. Those who refuse this mark will be unable to buy or sell anything, effectively cutting them off from all economic activity – the purchase and sale of food, water, shelter, and the basic necessities of life.
This mark will have the following characteristics:
1) It will be the name of the beast
2) It will be the number representing his name
3) It will be the number of a man
and
4) The number is 666
Let’s address each of these aspects individually in order to gain a firm grasp of their intended meaning:
The Name of the Beast
Who is the beast? Traditionally, “the name of the beast” is interpreted as being the name of the Antichrist, who is clearly referenced in verses 11-18 of Revelation Chapter 13 (this topic will be addressed in-depth in a later article). However, in these verses, the Antichrist is described as a second beast who exercises “all the authority of the first beast.” The first beast is described in verses 1-10 of the same chapter, but this beast does not represent the Antichrist as some believe, but rather the world empire the Antichrist will rule.
We know this because the first beast has “seven heads and ten horns” (verse 1), and this is a beast students of bible prophecy have seen before.
In the Book of Daniel, we are introduced to him as “the fourth beast,” a global empire that will destroy everything in its path:
“Then he said to me, ‘This fourth beast is the fourth world power that will rule the earth. It will be different from all the others. It will devour the whole world, trampling everything in its path. Its ten horns are ten kings that will rule that empire. Then another king will arise, different from the other ten, who will subdue three of them. He will defy the Most High and wear down the holy people of the Most High.’” Daniel 7:23-25 (NLT)
Does this fourth world power sound familiar? It has “ten horns” (Rev 13:1) and will trample everything in its path, probably prompting people to ask “Is there anyone as great as the beast? Who is able to fight against him?” (Rev 13:4). It will also devour “the whole world,” gaining authority over “every tribe and people and language and nation” (Rev 13:7)
We also learn that the Antichrist will “require all the earth and those who belong to this world to worship the first beast, whose death wound had been healed” (Rev 13:12). Who is this beast whose death wound has been healed? The wounded beast who will be resurrected is the fourth beast in Daniel 7 – the world empire of ancient Rome, which was never completely destroyed like previous world empires. In the last days, the Roman Empire will appear once again, and the world will marvel at its appearance.
Daniel confirms this when he states that the Antichrist will be a ruler from the people who destroy the Temple in A.D. 70 (Daniel 9:26). The Romans destroyed the Temple, and they will have a ruler once again in the last days, confirming that the Roman Empire must once again exist.
The Book of Revelation also predicts this resurrection of Rome:
“Five kings have already fallen, the sixth now reigns, and the seventh is yet to come, but his reign will be brief.” Revelation 17:10 (NLT)
The angel reveals to John that 5 of the kingdoms have fallen:
1) Egypt
2) Assyria
3) Babylonia
4) Medo-Persia
5) Greece
The sixth kingdom “now reigns”:
6) Rome (John’s vision occurred in the 1st Century, when Rome still ruled the known world)
And the seventh “is yet to come”:
7) The Revived Roman Empire
In the last days, this resurrected Roman Empire will rule all of humanity. Its reign will be brief, but it will be like no other kingdom before it.
The Antichrist will require all the earth and those who belong to this world to worship the revived Roman Empire, a global government that will rule “over every tribe and people and language and nation” (Rev 13:7)
So the “name of the beast” described in Revelation 13:17 is not the name of the Antichrist as widely believed, but instead, it will be a name associated with the world empire he requires the world to worship.
The Number Representing His Name
If the mark of the beast is “the name of the beast,” how can it also be “the number representing his name”? Ancient Greek and Hebrew, the two languages most associated with the Book of Revelation, both used an alphanumeric system in which each letter of the alphabet correlates with a number. What verse 18 reveals is that the mark, which is the name of the beast, will have a numeric value that can be calculated as the number 666. The only way to “calculate” this number is if it appears as letters that need to be interpreted in a numerical form. Therefore, we can say with certainty that the mark of the beast will not be a literal brand of “666,” but rather it will be a word or a phrase which when converted into its numerical equivalent will represent the number 666.
How this is properly calculated depends on whether or not John originally wrote the Book of Revelation in Greek or Hebrew. Tradition says he originally wrote the book in Greek. However, a strong case has been made that the book was originally written in Hebrew, then quickly translated into Greek. Not knowing for sure multiplies the difficulty of calculating the number of the beast, because each letter of the Greek and Hebrew alphabet is associated with a different numerical value.
The Number of a Man
If the number 666 represents the revived Roman Empire and not a man (the Antichrist) as traditionally believed, then why does verse 18 say, “…for it is the number of a man”? The answer is that some translations interpret this verse as “…for it is the number of humanity.” Either way, in both cases, the verse can be interpreted as “mankind” or the “entirety of the human race.” If this is the case, it tells us that the number 666 will not only be the name of the beast (the revived Roman Empire), but it will also be reflective of the entire human race, especially those who freely chose to accept it on their right hand or forehead.
When Daniel conveys God’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the empires of the world are symbolized in the form of a statue – a statue of a man.
“Your Majesty, in your vision you saw in front of you a huge and powerful statue of a man, shining brilliantly, frightening and awesome.” Daniel 2:31 (NLT)
The association of this statue with mankind and world government provides a strong indication that the mark of the beast is more akin to the number of humanity, rather than any particular individual.
The Number is 666
>From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible associates certain numbers with an overall theme. The number six is often associated with mankind. For instance, man was created on the sixth day. Similarly, the number seven is often associated with perfection and rest. For instance, God rested on the seventh day.
In contrast to the number seven, six is viewed as highly symbolic of incompletion or imperfection. Just as man has “fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), the number six is symbolic of man’s shortfall of the perfection of God’s seven.
When the number six is repeated three times in the number 666, many believe it’s indicative of Satan’s attempt to imitate the trinity.
The Price of Accepting the Mark of the Beast
The Antichrist and his followers will pay a hefty price for accepting the mark of the beast. The Bible tells us that ALL who accept the mark of the beast will face eternal judgment for their decision. The following verses reveal the consequences of this rebellion against God:
“Then a third angel followed them, shouting, ‘Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or the hand must drink the wine of God’s wrath. It is poured out undiluted into God’s cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. The smoke of their torment rises forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night, for they have worshiped the beast and his statue and have accepted the mark of his name.” Revelation 14:9-11 (NLT)
“So the first angel left the Temple and poured out his bowl over the earth, and horrible, malignant sores broke out on everyone who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue.” Revelation 16:2 (NLT)
“And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who did mighty miracles on behalf of the beast – miracles that deceived all who had accepted the mark of the beast and who worshiped his statue.” Revelation 19:20 (NLT)
Acceptance of the mark is not a matter to be taken lightly. Anyone who accepts the mark denies Christ in favor of a false god. This decision, once made, is irrevocable, and the consequences are everlasting.
However, for those who refuse the mark, a future of eternal bliss awaits. Although they will suffer persecution to the point of death, their steadfast faithfulness in honor of Jesus Christ, will open the door to an eternity in the presence of God.
“Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus, for proclaiming the word of God. And I saw the souls of those who had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their forehead or their hands.” Revelation 20:4 (NLT)
These verses are clear. Under no circumstances should anyone, especially a believer in Christ, accept the mark of the beast. To do so, leads only to ruin.
Superstition Surrounding the Number 666
The world is filled with superstition, especially when it comes to numbers. Some feel the number 13 is unlucky, and they avoid anything associated with the number. For a lot of people, the number 666 has the same effect. But God makes it clear that we are not to fear this number. Having a license plate, a sales receipt, or a street address will the number 666 is nothing to be concerned about. Anyone who thinks so it attributing supernatural power to a number, and the Bible clearly states that believers should fear God, and God only:
“Do not fear anything except the Lord Almighty. He alone is the Holy One. If you fear him, you need fear nothing else.” Isaiah 8:13 (NLT)
Jesus underscores this command while teaching his disciples not to fear persecution:
“Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill you. They can only kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28 (NLT)
The things of this world are fleeting, but the Lord Almighty, and He only, will determine our eternal destiny. Therefore, don’t be concerned with such trivial superstitions as the random occurrence of the number 666.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the true meaning of the number 666 will not become apparent until the Great Tribulation, when the Antichrist forces the world population to accept the number as a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. Contemporary attempts to calculate this number ahead of time as either the name of a person, human beings, or the revived Roman Empire, will only lead to frustration. Even worse, these attempts may end up having a negative impact in that, once proved false, they will damage the credibility of those who teach end times bible prophecy in general. If the devil can convince the world that bible prophecy is the exclusive domain of crackpots and conspiracy theorists, then he can snatch away a valuable tool for spreading the Gospel of Christ.
In the end, it is the duty of our generation to carefully examine the meaning of Revelation 13:16-18 and convey an accurate historical interpretation of these verses for others. If we succeed, the end times generation will have the ability to properly interpret the number of the beast. Because once the Antichrist arrives on the world scene and announces his intention to require the mark, it will become clear to everyone on earth what acceptance of this number really means. Whether the number of an individual, a kingdom, or mankind itself, acceptance of the number 666 will be tantamount to a public rejection of Jesus Christ.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Why Does God Permit Evil?
It’s not a new question, of course. Those believing in God want an answer that supports rather than dissolves their faith. Atheists offer this conundrum as an evidence that the ‘god’ their philosophical opponents postulate cannot exist. In their minds, an all-powerful God who is good would hate evil, and would use His power to eradicate it. Of course, this position has some theological problems for the theist, but apparently not for the atheist.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I received an invitation to download an ebook that dealt with this question. It was offered by a group calling itself the Orlando Bible Students (formerly the Dawn Bible Students Association) and I think it fairly reflects the position that many ‘conservative Christian’ people take on the question. I thought it lacked depth, but I think many church-goers are enamored of rock music and fellowship, and likewise lack depth. Still, after this effort, I felt a cogent answer was not offered. And I wrote to suggest a dialog. They have not yet written back.
This being the case, I will post this article and send them the link, and we shall see what happens.
Their approach started by discussing natural disasters. “If God hated evil, why would He allow volcanos and tsunamis and earthquakes?” I think this question misses the point entirely. Because natural disasters aren’t evil.
Unpleasant, certainly. But there is nothing in God’s moral law against hurricanes and tornadoes, even if property is destroyed or people get killed. It is simply not a moral issue. God owns the property and God owns the people. Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. (Psalm 115:3) And He is not accountable to us.
Suppose there is a major baseball game. It’s the bottom of the sixth, and the pitcher on the mound is having the best game of his life. A mile away, a farmer is watching his parched crops wither away. Suddenly, a rainstorm blows in, ending the game but bringing the rain the farmer so desperately needed.
Was this evil? Obviously not. It simply didn’t suit the preferences of one person subject to it. Now, let’s add a tornado to the mix. It tears through the ballpark and kills the pitcher and 19 people in the stands, including a 1-year-old child. Is this evil? Can we lay this monstrous sin at the feet of Adam and Eve? Or God? Who sinned? Whose fault was it?
I have maintained, and I think the Bible supports, the idea that there is a connection between the moral universe and the physical universe. But it would be an unwarranted leap to suggest that our specific transgressions trigger earthquakes or tornadoes or anything else. God only knows whether that one-year-old would have grown up to be a brilliant doctor or a mass-murderer. In this case, God sovereignly decided otherwise. In any event, it is God’s prerogative to decide who lives where and for how long, and how their time on earth will be ended.
God has given us this world to live in. It may not suit all of our preferences, but He is not required to accommodate us with gentle breezes, balmy weather, and geologic stability. This is where we live, and we’re allowed by His grace to live here.
* * * * *
This leads to the next part of the issue. Suppose this one-year-old had not been brought to the game, but had been left with a care-giver who turned out to be a psychopathic child-killer. Since I have taken the position that it’s God’s prerogative to decide, is the psychopath innocent because he was just doing what God obviously ordained? That is, if God wanted the child to grow up, it would have been impossible for anyone to kill him. Either that, or God really has no sovereignty, just some strongly held preferences.
I think this gets closer to the real issue, and this is where I wish to clarify. To do so, we must begin by clarifying how profound and pervasive sin is in the human heart. And these thoughts are not pleasant.
I begin with an indictment against the consumer-driven mentality and theology of the modern American evangelical churches. I believe they have seriously trivialized sin and, as a result, have necessarily trivialized salvation. Nowhere in the scriptures do you see someone getting saved by opening the door of their heart and inviting Jesus to come in and be their personal savior. People are never described as being ‘basically good’ or as well-intentioned but imperfect. We are consistently described as deceitful, desperately wicked, undeserving, self-centered, brutish, vile, loathsome, having a lust for evil. We are not even a teensy-weensy bit good. We are totally depraved.
Now, is this ‘total depravity’ something that we just inherited from Adam, over which we had no control? I mean, a pig can’t help being a pig: both its parents were pigs. And pigs by nature will roll in the mud. Can you blame them? And if our parents were both sinners, and their parents before them, can we be blamed for just being what we are?
That’s a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer. But the straight answer is a little more metaphysical than most people are used to considering. Let me start with a question: If God ceased His creative activity 6,000 years ago, then where have you been?
There is an interesting clue in the 7th chapter of Hebrews. In this passage, the argument is presented that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek while he was still in the loins of Abraham. This is presented as part of a substantive argument for the superiority of Christ the High Priest over the Levitical priesthood. The point is that Levi had personhood, and moral capacity, before his grandfather was even born. This wasn’t a theoretical, imaginary, or metaphorical construct. The author (Paul, I believe, but we can discuss that later) was laying out a concrete theological argument. Levi paid a tithe.
Levi was credited with an act of subservience. Let’s look at another example: God stated His love for Jacob and his contempt for Esau before either was born (they were fraternal twins) according to Romans 9:11. Another suggestion of pre-embrionic existence and moral culpability is in Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, Deuteronomy 5:9, 2 Kings 10:30 and 2 Kings 15:12. In each of these passages, the reach of God’s judgment or blessing reaches to the fourth generation.
Saul of Tarsus was consenting in the matter of the death of Stephen, and even though he threw no stones, he had Stephen’s blood on his hands from that day forward, and he knew it. Similarly, though I did not actively cause or even participate in the sins of my great-grandfather, it appears that I was consenting or in some other way participating. And with that comes a measure of culpability. God would be unjust to judge an innocent person, or to visit the consequences of sin on someone who had no sin.
The disciples apparently understood this. In John chapter 9 they asked if a man’s sin had caused him to be born blind. Reincarnationists like to mis-apply this verse, but it is clear that Jewish theology never had any support for reincarnation. But they were familiar with the verses previously cited. Was the man who was born blind simply receiving judgment for pre-embrionic transgression?
Jesus said ‘no’ but did not discount their question.
God limits His judgment to four generations, but we read in Romans 5 that “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, I was a sinner when Christ died for me. I was a sinner before I was even born. And where was I? In the loins of my forebear. I was in Adam when he transgressed and, because of that, I became subject to death. I was, by nature a child of wrath. In some sense, I participated.
* * * * *
Besides the sci-fi flavor of an argument like this is the question of implications. Certainly we can’t put newborns on trial for the sins of their fathers. And my intention is not to deal with ‘sins’ but with sin. The point is that we are not innocent, and haven’t been for 6,000 years. Similarly, we can’t properly argue that a child just needs a little bit of Jesus because his sins are few and minor, whereas a 40-year-old man might need ‘a whole lotta Jesus’ because he’s been screwing up so much more seriously. And we certainly can’t reason (though some do) that we just need Christ to supplement our righteousness, or to make up a shortfall or pay the part of our debt that we can’t manage.
We wonder how a just God could send that dear little old lady who did so many nice things to the same place of torments He sends Hitler. But this simply betrays our ignorance of both sin and God’s holiness. So let’s consider for a moment the case of a homeowner who owns two dogs.
One is a rather large dog, perhaps a German Shepherd. Fido the Shepherd is not housebroken. The other is a Chihuahua named Spot. Spot is not housebroken either. Both dogs will, by nature, relieve themselves whenever and where ever they have the urge.
Both unload on the living room carpet. Clearly, Fido makes a bigger mess. Is he, therefore, less housebroken than Spot?
Both are placed in the kitchen, where there is a linoleum floor. The mess this time is easier to clean up. Would you conclude that they are more housebroken in the kitchen than in the rest of the house?
There is a folding gate between the kitchen and the living room which Fido can jump over, but Spot can’t. So Fido makes another mess in the living room. Or – the homeowner sees both dogs sniffing and circling and rightly guesses that the time is coming. He is able to hustle Spot out into the back yard, but Fido makes his mess on the floor. Was Spot a ‘good dog’ for going outside?
All we bring to our relationship with God is rebelliousness, recalcitrance, wickedness and iniquity. That’s it. We are, as noted in Ephesians 2, natural children of wrath. We are, therefore, totally culpable for not only the sins we consummate, but the sin in our hearts. Read your Bible: the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Jesus’ judgment for the one who has committed adultery with her already in his heart by just a lustful gaze. We’re a lot worse than we like to think, and a lot worse than most pastors are willing to tell us.
We don’t know what awful thoughts the little old lady had. However, we can affirm with some confidence that the only difference between her and Hitler was opportunity.
And where is God in all this? He shapes our lives, limits our opportunities, constrains our evil. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5 when he writes the love of Christ constrains us. “Constrain” means ‘to force by imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation.’ What is in us that requires imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation? Is it our natural tendency to love one another? I would suggest that it is our inherent wickedness.
Joseph’s brothers wanted to kill him. God constrained their evil and preserved Joseph alive and, as Joseph told his brothers later, You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Even the finest ‘good’ deeds are tainted unless they are done completely out of love for God. Half-hearted love for God or luke-warm ‘commitment’ to Him is abominable.
We need a SAVIOR, not self-improvement classes, self-esteem enhancement, or a good example.
* * * * *
My indictment continues, because the ‘churches’ that dot the landscape have given us a soft and gentle, meek and mild “Jesus” who comes to us oh so humbly and asks … no, BEGS us to please please open the door and let him come in. I find it nauseating, as should any true Christian. We’re not doing God any favors and, as a matter of fact, we need to be dragged by the Holy Spirit to the feet of Christ and saved as an act of His sovereign grace. The only ‘free will’ responses we have toward God or the Gospel of His Kingdom is resistance and contempt.
In the grand scheme, it appears to me that ‘free will’ is a singularity rather than an ongoing series of choices. Rather like a mortgage (or a marriage), in that one makes a singular decision at a point in time and then lives out the consequences. At a point in time, I decide as a matter of free will to sign a mortgage. The lender then pre-scribed the outworking of my decision. The outworking may run for 30 years and my performance is mandated.
Another example may be someone who makes a ‘free will’ decision to take a part in a play. His participation is then scripted by the Director. For us, our ‘free will’ decision was to set ourselves in rebellion against God. Subsequently, God in his sovereign mercy, has mapped out the consequences of our decision.
Psalm 139 points this out: “In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. ” (verse 16). The King James language is rather obscure but fortunately, some modern versions are clearer. This is consistent with both the scriptures and the sovereignty of God. Just consider: the Word of God is eternal. The scripture cannot be broken. Judas Iscariot (like the rest of us) had sin and rebellion in his heart. In His sovereignty, and to accomplish His purpose, God allowed Judas the opportunity to manifest his character at a point in history. In love, God constrained most of the evil in Judas’ life, as He does in ours. But not all. This particular transgression was not only allowed, but it was scripted. This day appointed for Judas was written in God’s book before it had come to pass.
David’s sin with Bathsheba was written in God’s eternal word. David committed the act as a divinely-allowed outworking of his sinful nature and expression of his ‘free will.’ But God was not sitting in heaven with His stylus poised, waiting to see what David would do so He would know what to include in His eternal Word. God scripted the naming of Cyrus and the events in Daniel.
* * * * *
Here, for the time being, my indictment ends. Our good God takes our iniquity, which is all we bring into this experience, and shapes it for His ends. We are living in a world of restrained evil. Our contribution is the evil, and God’s is the restraint. He allows transgressions of His moral law because He is sovereign. He allows the consequences of others’ sin to fall on us because He is gracious. Were He to allow us unrestrained free will, we would quickly realize that the wrath of man is much more unpleasant than the mercy and grace that God daily visits upon us.
Why does God permit evil? Because He loves us. We are so essentially evil that, were He to destroy evil, he would have to destroy us. Our sin is not superficial, but is at the very core of who we are. The presence of evil is not inconsistent with the existence or omnipotence of God. Rather, it is evidence of His compassion and grace. It simply needs to be seen in the light of our desperate and unreformable wickedness.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I received an invitation to download an ebook that dealt with this question. It was offered by a group calling itself the Orlando Bible Students (formerly the Dawn Bible Students Association) and I think it fairly reflects the position that many ‘conservative Christian’ people take on the question. I thought it lacked depth, but I think many church-goers are enamored of rock music and fellowship, and likewise lack depth. Still, after this effort, I felt a cogent answer was not offered. And I wrote to suggest a dialog. They have not yet written back.
This being the case, I will post this article and send them the link, and we shall see what happens.
Their approach started by discussing natural disasters. “If God hated evil, why would He allow volcanos and tsunamis and earthquakes?” I think this question misses the point entirely. Because natural disasters aren’t evil.
Unpleasant, certainly. But there is nothing in God’s moral law against hurricanes and tornadoes, even if property is destroyed or people get killed. It is simply not a moral issue. God owns the property and God owns the people. Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. (Psalm 115:3) And He is not accountable to us.
Suppose there is a major baseball game. It’s the bottom of the sixth, and the pitcher on the mound is having the best game of his life. A mile away, a farmer is watching his parched crops wither away. Suddenly, a rainstorm blows in, ending the game but bringing the rain the farmer so desperately needed.
Was this evil? Obviously not. It simply didn’t suit the preferences of one person subject to it. Now, let’s add a tornado to the mix. It tears through the ballpark and kills the pitcher and 19 people in the stands, including a 1-year-old child. Is this evil? Can we lay this monstrous sin at the feet of Adam and Eve? Or God? Who sinned? Whose fault was it?
I have maintained, and I think the Bible supports, the idea that there is a connection between the moral universe and the physical universe. But it would be an unwarranted leap to suggest that our specific transgressions trigger earthquakes or tornadoes or anything else. God only knows whether that one-year-old would have grown up to be a brilliant doctor or a mass-murderer. In this case, God sovereignly decided otherwise. In any event, it is God’s prerogative to decide who lives where and for how long, and how their time on earth will be ended.
God has given us this world to live in. It may not suit all of our preferences, but He is not required to accommodate us with gentle breezes, balmy weather, and geologic stability. This is where we live, and we’re allowed by His grace to live here.
* * * * *
This leads to the next part of the issue. Suppose this one-year-old had not been brought to the game, but had been left with a care-giver who turned out to be a psychopathic child-killer. Since I have taken the position that it’s God’s prerogative to decide, is the psychopath innocent because he was just doing what God obviously ordained? That is, if God wanted the child to grow up, it would have been impossible for anyone to kill him. Either that, or God really has no sovereignty, just some strongly held preferences.
I think this gets closer to the real issue, and this is where I wish to clarify. To do so, we must begin by clarifying how profound and pervasive sin is in the human heart. And these thoughts are not pleasant.
I begin with an indictment against the consumer-driven mentality and theology of the modern American evangelical churches. I believe they have seriously trivialized sin and, as a result, have necessarily trivialized salvation. Nowhere in the scriptures do you see someone getting saved by opening the door of their heart and inviting Jesus to come in and be their personal savior. People are never described as being ‘basically good’ or as well-intentioned but imperfect. We are consistently described as deceitful, desperately wicked, undeserving, self-centered, brutish, vile, loathsome, having a lust for evil. We are not even a teensy-weensy bit good. We are totally depraved.
Now, is this ‘total depravity’ something that we just inherited from Adam, over which we had no control? I mean, a pig can’t help being a pig: both its parents were pigs. And pigs by nature will roll in the mud. Can you blame them? And if our parents were both sinners, and their parents before them, can we be blamed for just being what we are?
That’s a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer. But the straight answer is a little more metaphysical than most people are used to considering. Let me start with a question: If God ceased His creative activity 6,000 years ago, then where have you been?
There is an interesting clue in the 7th chapter of Hebrews. In this passage, the argument is presented that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek while he was still in the loins of Abraham. This is presented as part of a substantive argument for the superiority of Christ the High Priest over the Levitical priesthood. The point is that Levi had personhood, and moral capacity, before his grandfather was even born. This wasn’t a theoretical, imaginary, or metaphorical construct. The author (Paul, I believe, but we can discuss that later) was laying out a concrete theological argument. Levi paid a tithe.
Levi was credited with an act of subservience. Let’s look at another example: God stated His love for Jacob and his contempt for Esau before either was born (they were fraternal twins) according to Romans 9:11. Another suggestion of pre-embrionic existence and moral culpability is in Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, Deuteronomy 5:9, 2 Kings 10:30 and 2 Kings 15:12. In each of these passages, the reach of God’s judgment or blessing reaches to the fourth generation.
Saul of Tarsus was consenting in the matter of the death of Stephen, and even though he threw no stones, he had Stephen’s blood on his hands from that day forward, and he knew it. Similarly, though I did not actively cause or even participate in the sins of my great-grandfather, it appears that I was consenting or in some other way participating. And with that comes a measure of culpability. God would be unjust to judge an innocent person, or to visit the consequences of sin on someone who had no sin.
The disciples apparently understood this. In John chapter 9 they asked if a man’s sin had caused him to be born blind. Reincarnationists like to mis-apply this verse, but it is clear that Jewish theology never had any support for reincarnation. But they were familiar with the verses previously cited. Was the man who was born blind simply receiving judgment for pre-embrionic transgression?
Jesus said ‘no’ but did not discount their question.
God limits His judgment to four generations, but we read in Romans 5 that “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, I was a sinner when Christ died for me. I was a sinner before I was even born. And where was I? In the loins of my forebear. I was in Adam when he transgressed and, because of that, I became subject to death. I was, by nature a child of wrath. In some sense, I participated.
* * * * *
Besides the sci-fi flavor of an argument like this is the question of implications. Certainly we can’t put newborns on trial for the sins of their fathers. And my intention is not to deal with ‘sins’ but with sin. The point is that we are not innocent, and haven’t been for 6,000 years. Similarly, we can’t properly argue that a child just needs a little bit of Jesus because his sins are few and minor, whereas a 40-year-old man might need ‘a whole lotta Jesus’ because he’s been screwing up so much more seriously. And we certainly can’t reason (though some do) that we just need Christ to supplement our righteousness, or to make up a shortfall or pay the part of our debt that we can’t manage.
We wonder how a just God could send that dear little old lady who did so many nice things to the same place of torments He sends Hitler. But this simply betrays our ignorance of both sin and God’s holiness. So let’s consider for a moment the case of a homeowner who owns two dogs.
One is a rather large dog, perhaps a German Shepherd. Fido the Shepherd is not housebroken. The other is a Chihuahua named Spot. Spot is not housebroken either. Both dogs will, by nature, relieve themselves whenever and where ever they have the urge.
Both unload on the living room carpet. Clearly, Fido makes a bigger mess. Is he, therefore, less housebroken than Spot?
Both are placed in the kitchen, where there is a linoleum floor. The mess this time is easier to clean up. Would you conclude that they are more housebroken in the kitchen than in the rest of the house?
There is a folding gate between the kitchen and the living room which Fido can jump over, but Spot can’t. So Fido makes another mess in the living room. Or – the homeowner sees both dogs sniffing and circling and rightly guesses that the time is coming. He is able to hustle Spot out into the back yard, but Fido makes his mess on the floor. Was Spot a ‘good dog’ for going outside?
All we bring to our relationship with God is rebelliousness, recalcitrance, wickedness and iniquity. That’s it. We are, as noted in Ephesians 2, natural children of wrath. We are, therefore, totally culpable for not only the sins we consummate, but the sin in our hearts. Read your Bible: the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Jesus’ judgment for the one who has committed adultery with her already in his heart by just a lustful gaze. We’re a lot worse than we like to think, and a lot worse than most pastors are willing to tell us.
We don’t know what awful thoughts the little old lady had. However, we can affirm with some confidence that the only difference between her and Hitler was opportunity.
And where is God in all this? He shapes our lives, limits our opportunities, constrains our evil. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5 when he writes the love of Christ constrains us. “Constrain” means ‘to force by imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation.’ What is in us that requires imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation? Is it our natural tendency to love one another? I would suggest that it is our inherent wickedness.
Joseph’s brothers wanted to kill him. God constrained their evil and preserved Joseph alive and, as Joseph told his brothers later, You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Even the finest ‘good’ deeds are tainted unless they are done completely out of love for God. Half-hearted love for God or luke-warm ‘commitment’ to Him is abominable.
We need a SAVIOR, not self-improvement classes, self-esteem enhancement, or a good example.
* * * * *
My indictment continues, because the ‘churches’ that dot the landscape have given us a soft and gentle, meek and mild “Jesus” who comes to us oh so humbly and asks … no, BEGS us to please please open the door and let him come in. I find it nauseating, as should any true Christian. We’re not doing God any favors and, as a matter of fact, we need to be dragged by the Holy Spirit to the feet of Christ and saved as an act of His sovereign grace. The only ‘free will’ responses we have toward God or the Gospel of His Kingdom is resistance and contempt.
In the grand scheme, it appears to me that ‘free will’ is a singularity rather than an ongoing series of choices. Rather like a mortgage (or a marriage), in that one makes a singular decision at a point in time and then lives out the consequences. At a point in time, I decide as a matter of free will to sign a mortgage. The lender then pre-scribed the outworking of my decision. The outworking may run for 30 years and my performance is mandated.
Another example may be someone who makes a ‘free will’ decision to take a part in a play. His participation is then scripted by the Director. For us, our ‘free will’ decision was to set ourselves in rebellion against God. Subsequently, God in his sovereign mercy, has mapped out the consequences of our decision.
Psalm 139 points this out: “In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. ” (verse 16). The King James language is rather obscure but fortunately, some modern versions are clearer. This is consistent with both the scriptures and the sovereignty of God. Just consider: the Word of God is eternal. The scripture cannot be broken. Judas Iscariot (like the rest of us) had sin and rebellion in his heart. In His sovereignty, and to accomplish His purpose, God allowed Judas the opportunity to manifest his character at a point in history. In love, God constrained most of the evil in Judas’ life, as He does in ours. But not all. This particular transgression was not only allowed, but it was scripted. This day appointed for Judas was written in God’s book before it had come to pass.
David’s sin with Bathsheba was written in God’s eternal word. David committed the act as a divinely-allowed outworking of his sinful nature and expression of his ‘free will.’ But God was not sitting in heaven with His stylus poised, waiting to see what David would do so He would know what to include in His eternal Word. God scripted the naming of Cyrus and the events in Daniel.
* * * * *
Here, for the time being, my indictment ends. Our good God takes our iniquity, which is all we bring into this experience, and shapes it for His ends. We are living in a world of restrained evil. Our contribution is the evil, and God’s is the restraint. He allows transgressions of His moral law because He is sovereign. He allows the consequences of others’ sin to fall on us because He is gracious. Were He to allow us unrestrained free will, we would quickly realize that the wrath of man is much more unpleasant than the mercy and grace that God daily visits upon us.
Why does God permit evil? Because He loves us. We are so essentially evil that, were He to destroy evil, he would have to destroy us. Our sin is not superficial, but is at the very core of who we are. The presence of evil is not inconsistent with the existence or omnipotence of God. Rather, it is evidence of His compassion and grace. It simply needs to be seen in the light of our desperate and unreformable wickedness.
Why Does God Permit Evil?
It’s not a new question, of course. Those believing in God want an answer that supports rather than dissolves their faith. Atheists offer this conundrum as an evidence that the ‘god’ their philosophical opponents postulate cannot exist. In their minds, an all-powerful God who is good would hate evil, and would use His power to eradicate it. Of course, this position has some theological problems for the theist, but apparently not for the atheist.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I received an invitation to download an ebook that dealt with this question. It was offered by a group calling itself the Orlando Bible Students (formerly the Dawn Bible Students Association) and I think it fairly reflects the position that many ‘conservative Christian’ people take on the question. I thought it lacked depth, but I think many church-goers are enamored of rock music and fellowship, and likewise lack depth. Still, after this effort, I felt a cogent answer was not offered. And I wrote to suggest a dialog. They have not yet written back.
This being the case, I will post this article and send them the link, and we shall see what happens.
Their approach started by discussing natural disasters. “If God hated evil, why would He allow volcanos and tsunamis and earthquakes?” I think this question misses the point entirely. Because natural disasters aren’t evil.
Unpleasant, certainly. But there is nothing in God’s moral law against hurricanes and tornadoes, even if property is destroyed or people get killed. It is simply not a moral issue. God owns the property and God owns the people. Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. (Psalm 115:3) And He is not accountable to us.
Suppose there is a major baseball game. It’s the bottom of the sixth, and the pitcher on the mound is having the best game of his life. A mile away, a farmer is watching his parched crops wither away. Suddenly, a rainstorm blows in, ending the game but bringing the rain the farmer so desperately needed.
Was this evil? Obviously not. It simply didn’t suit the preferences of one person subject to it. Now, let’s add a tornado to the mix. It tears through the ballpark and kills the pitcher and 19 people in the stands, including a 1-year-old child. Is this evil? Can we lay this monstrous sin at the feet of Adam and Eve? Or God? Who sinned? Whose fault was it?
I have maintained, and I think the Bible supports, the idea that there is a connection between the moral universe and the physical universe. But it would be an unwarranted leap to suggest that our specific transgressions trigger earthquakes or tornadoes or anything else. God only knows whether that one-year-old would have grown up to be a brilliant doctor or a mass-murderer. In this case, God sovereignly decided otherwise. In any event, it is God’s prerogative to decide who lives where and for how long, and how their time on earth will be ended.
God has given us this world to live in. It may not suit all of our preferences, but He is not required to accommodate us with gentle breezes, balmy weather, and geologic stability. This is where we live, and we’re allowed by His grace to live here.
* * * * *
This leads to the next part of the issue. Suppose this one-year-old had not been brought to the game, but had been left with a care-giver who turned out to be a psychopathic child-killer. Since I have taken the position that it’s God’s prerogative to decide, is the psychopath innocent because he was just doing what God obviously ordained? That is, if God wanted the child to grow up, it would have been impossible for anyone to kill him. Either that, or God really has no sovereignty, just some strongly held preferences.
I think this gets closer to the real issue, and this is where I wish to clarify. To do so, we must begin by clarifying how profound and pervasive sin is in the human heart. And these thoughts are not pleasant.
I begin with an indictment against the consumer-driven mentality and theology of the modern American evangelical churches. I believe they have seriously trivialized sin and, as a result, have necessarily trivialized salvation. Nowhere in the scriptures do you see someone getting saved by opening the door of their heart and inviting Jesus to come in and be their personal savior. People are never described as being ‘basically good’ or as well-intentioned but imperfect. We are consistently described as deceitful, desperately wicked, undeserving, self-centered, brutish, vile, loathsome, having a lust for evil. We are not even a teensy-weensy bit good. We are totally depraved.
Now, is this ‘total depravity’ something that we just inherited from Adam, over which we had no control? I mean, a pig can’t help being a pig: both its parents were pigs. And pigs by nature will roll in the mud. Can you blame them? And if our parents were both sinners, and their parents before them, can we be blamed for just being what we are?
That’s a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer. But the straight answer is a little more metaphysical than most people are used to considering. Let me start with a question: If God ceased His creative activity 6,000 years ago, then where have you been?
There is an interesting clue in the 7th chapter of Hebrews. In this passage, the argument is presented that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek while he was still in the loins of Abraham. This is presented as part of a substantive argument for the superiority of Christ the High Priest over the Levitical priesthood. The point is that Levi had personhood, and moral capacity, before his grandfather was even born. This wasn’t a theoretical, imaginary, or metaphorical construct. The author (Paul, I believe, but we can discuss that later) was laying out a concrete theological argument. Levi paid a tithe.
Levi was credited with an act of subservience. Let’s look at another example: God stated His love for Jacob and his contempt for Esau before either was born (they were fraternal twins) according to Romans 9:11. Another suggestion of pre-embrionic existence and moral culpability is in Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, Deuteronomy 5:9, 2 Kings 10:30 and 2 Kings 15:12. In each of these passages, the reach of God’s judgment or blessing reaches to the fourth generation.
Saul of Tarsus was consenting in the matter of the death of Stephen, and even though he threw no stones, he had Stephen’s blood on his hands from that day forward, and he knew it. Similarly, though I did not actively cause or even participate in the sins of my great-grandfather, it appears that I was consenting or in some other way participating. And with that comes a measure of culpability. God would be unjust to judge an innocent person, or to visit the consequences of sin on someone who had no sin.
The disciples apparently understood this. In John chapter 9 they asked if a man’s sin had caused him to be born blind. Reincarnationists like to mis-apply this verse, but it is clear that Jewish theology never had any support for reincarnation. But they were familiar with the verses previously cited. Was the man who was born blind simply receiving judgment for pre-embrionic transgression?
Jesus said ‘no’ but did not discount their question.
God limits His judgment to four generations, but we read in Romans 5 that “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, I was a sinner when Christ died for me. I was a sinner before I was even born. And where was I? In the loins of my forebear. I was in Adam when he transgressed and, because of that, I became subject to death. I was, by nature a child of wrath. In some sense, I participated.
* * * * *
Besides the sci-fi flavor of an argument like this is the question of implications. Certainly we can’t put newborns on trial for the sins of their fathers. And my intention is not to deal with ‘sins’ but with sin. The point is that we are not innocent, and haven’t been for 6,000 years. Similarly, we can’t properly argue that a child just needs a little bit of Jesus because his sins are few and minor, whereas a 40-year-old man might need ‘a whole lotta Jesus’ because he’s been screwing up so much more seriously. And we certainly can’t reason (though some do) that we just need Christ to supplement our righteousness, or to make up a shortfall or pay the part of our debt that we can’t manage.
We wonder how a just God could send that dear little old lady who did so many nice things to the same place of torments He sends Hitler. But this simply betrays our ignorance of both sin and God’s holiness. So let’s consider for a moment the case of a homeowner who owns two dogs.
One is a rather large dog, perhaps a German Shepherd. Fido the Shepherd is not housebroken. The other is a Chihuahua named Spot. Spot is not housebroken either. Both dogs will, by nature, relieve themselves whenever and where ever they have the urge.
Both unload on the living room carpet. Clearly, Fido makes a bigger mess. Is he, therefore, less housebroken than Spot?
Both are placed in the kitchen, where there is a linoleum floor. The mess this time is easier to clean up. Would you conclude that they are more housebroken in the kitchen than in the rest of the house?
There is a folding gate between the kitchen and the living room which Fido can jump over, but Spot can’t. So Fido makes another mess in the living room. Or – the homeowner sees both dogs sniffing and circling and rightly guesses that the time is coming. He is able to hustle Spot out into the back yard, but Fido makes his mess on the floor. Was Spot a ‘good dog’ for going outside?
All we bring to our relationship with God is rebelliousness, recalcitrance, wickedness and iniquity. That’s it. We are, as noted in Ephesians 2, natural children of wrath. We are, therefore, totally culpable for not only the sins we consummate, but the sin in our hearts. Read your Bible: the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Jesus’ judgment for the one who has committed adultery with her already in his heart by just a lustful gaze. We’re a lot worse than we like to think, and a lot worse than most pastors are willing to tell us.
We don’t know what awful thoughts the little old lady had. However, we can affirm with some confidence that the only difference between her and Hitler was opportunity.
And where is God in all this? He shapes our lives, limits our opportunities, constrains our evil. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5 when he writes the love of Christ constrains us. “Constrain” means ‘to force by imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation.’ What is in us that requires imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation? Is it our natural tendency to love one another? I would suggest that it is our inherent wickedness.
Joseph’s brothers wanted to kill him. God constrained their evil and preserved Joseph alive and, as Joseph told his brothers later, You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Even the finest ‘good’ deeds are tainted unless they are done completely out of love for God. Half-hearted love for God or luke-warm ‘commitment’ to Him is abominable.
We need a SAVIOR, not self-improvement classes, self-esteem enhancement, or a good example.
* * * * *
My indictment continues, because the ‘churches’ that dot the landscape have given us a soft and gentle, meek and mild “Jesus” who comes to us oh so humbly and asks … no, BEGS us to please please open the door and let him come in. I find it nauseating, as should any true Christian. We’re not doing God any favors and, as a matter of fact, we need to be dragged by the Holy Spirit to the feet of Christ and saved as an act of His sovereign grace. The only ‘free will’ responses we have toward God or the Gospel of His Kingdom is resistance and contempt.
In the grand scheme, it appears to me that ‘free will’ is a singularity rather than an ongoing series of choices. Rather like a mortgage (or a marriage), in that one makes a singular decision at a point in time and then lives out the consequences. At a point in time, I decide as a matter of free will to sign a mortgage. The lender then pre-scribed the outworking of my decision. The outworking may run for 30 years and my performance is mandated.
Another example may be someone who makes a ‘free will’ decision to take a part in a play. His participation is then scripted by the Director. For us, our ‘free will’ decision was to set ourselves in rebellion against God. Subsequently, God in his sovereign mercy, has mapped out the consequences of our decision.
Psalm 139 points this out: “In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. ” (verse 16). The King James language is rather obscure but fortunately, some modern versions are clearer. This is consistent with both the scriptures and the sovereignty of God. Just consider: the Word of God is eternal. The scripture cannot be broken. Judas Iscariot (like the rest of us) had sin and rebellion in his heart. In His sovereignty, and to accomplish His purpose, God allowed Judas the opportunity to manifest his character at a point in history. In love, God constrained most of the evil in Judas’ life, as He does in ours. But not all. This particular transgression was not only allowed, but it was scripted. This day appointed for Judas was written in God’s book before it had come to pass.
David’s sin with Bathsheba was written in God’s eternal word. David committed the act as a divinely-allowed outworking of his sinful nature and expression of his ‘free will.’ But God was not sitting in heaven with His stylus poised, waiting to see what David would do so He would know what to include in His eternal Word. God scripted the naming of Cyrus and the events in Daniel.
* * * * *
Here, for the time being, my indictment ends. Our good God takes our iniquity, which is all we bring into this experience, and shapes it for His ends. We are living in a world of restrained evil. Our contribution is the evil, and God’s is the restraint. He allows transgressions of His moral law because He is sovereign. He allows the consequences of others’ sin to fall on us because He is gracious. Were He to allow us unrestrained free will, we would quickly realize that the wrath of man is much more unpleasant than the mercy and grace that God daily visits upon us.
Why does God permit evil? Because He loves us. We are so essentially evil that, were He to destroy evil, he would have to destroy us. Our sin is not superficial, but is at the very core of who we are. The presence of evil is not inconsistent with the existence or omnipotence of God. Rather, it is evidence of His compassion and grace. It simply needs to be seen in the light of our desperate and unreformable wickedness.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I received an invitation to download an ebook that dealt with this question. It was offered by a group calling itself the Orlando Bible Students (formerly the Dawn Bible Students Association) and I think it fairly reflects the position that many ‘conservative Christian’ people take on the question. I thought it lacked depth, but I think many church-goers are enamored of rock music and fellowship, and likewise lack depth. Still, after this effort, I felt a cogent answer was not offered. And I wrote to suggest a dialog. They have not yet written back.
This being the case, I will post this article and send them the link, and we shall see what happens.
Their approach started by discussing natural disasters. “If God hated evil, why would He allow volcanos and tsunamis and earthquakes?” I think this question misses the point entirely. Because natural disasters aren’t evil.
Unpleasant, certainly. But there is nothing in God’s moral law against hurricanes and tornadoes, even if property is destroyed or people get killed. It is simply not a moral issue. God owns the property and God owns the people. Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. (Psalm 115:3) And He is not accountable to us.
Suppose there is a major baseball game. It’s the bottom of the sixth, and the pitcher on the mound is having the best game of his life. A mile away, a farmer is watching his parched crops wither away. Suddenly, a rainstorm blows in, ending the game but bringing the rain the farmer so desperately needed.
Was this evil? Obviously not. It simply didn’t suit the preferences of one person subject to it. Now, let’s add a tornado to the mix. It tears through the ballpark and kills the pitcher and 19 people in the stands, including a 1-year-old child. Is this evil? Can we lay this monstrous sin at the feet of Adam and Eve? Or God? Who sinned? Whose fault was it?
I have maintained, and I think the Bible supports, the idea that there is a connection between the moral universe and the physical universe. But it would be an unwarranted leap to suggest that our specific transgressions trigger earthquakes or tornadoes or anything else. God only knows whether that one-year-old would have grown up to be a brilliant doctor or a mass-murderer. In this case, God sovereignly decided otherwise. In any event, it is God’s prerogative to decide who lives where and for how long, and how their time on earth will be ended.
God has given us this world to live in. It may not suit all of our preferences, but He is not required to accommodate us with gentle breezes, balmy weather, and geologic stability. This is where we live, and we’re allowed by His grace to live here.
* * * * *
This leads to the next part of the issue. Suppose this one-year-old had not been brought to the game, but had been left with a care-giver who turned out to be a psychopathic child-killer. Since I have taken the position that it’s God’s prerogative to decide, is the psychopath innocent because he was just doing what God obviously ordained? That is, if God wanted the child to grow up, it would have been impossible for anyone to kill him. Either that, or God really has no sovereignty, just some strongly held preferences.
I think this gets closer to the real issue, and this is where I wish to clarify. To do so, we must begin by clarifying how profound and pervasive sin is in the human heart. And these thoughts are not pleasant.
I begin with an indictment against the consumer-driven mentality and theology of the modern American evangelical churches. I believe they have seriously trivialized sin and, as a result, have necessarily trivialized salvation. Nowhere in the scriptures do you see someone getting saved by opening the door of their heart and inviting Jesus to come in and be their personal savior. People are never described as being ‘basically good’ or as well-intentioned but imperfect. We are consistently described as deceitful, desperately wicked, undeserving, self-centered, brutish, vile, loathsome, having a lust for evil. We are not even a teensy-weensy bit good. We are totally depraved.
Now, is this ‘total depravity’ something that we just inherited from Adam, over which we had no control? I mean, a pig can’t help being a pig: both its parents were pigs. And pigs by nature will roll in the mud. Can you blame them? And if our parents were both sinners, and their parents before them, can we be blamed for just being what we are?
That’s a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer. But the straight answer is a little more metaphysical than most people are used to considering. Let me start with a question: If God ceased His creative activity 6,000 years ago, then where have you been?
There is an interesting clue in the 7th chapter of Hebrews. In this passage, the argument is presented that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek while he was still in the loins of Abraham. This is presented as part of a substantive argument for the superiority of Christ the High Priest over the Levitical priesthood. The point is that Levi had personhood, and moral capacity, before his grandfather was even born. This wasn’t a theoretical, imaginary, or metaphorical construct. The author (Paul, I believe, but we can discuss that later) was laying out a concrete theological argument. Levi paid a tithe.
Levi was credited with an act of subservience. Let’s look at another example: God stated His love for Jacob and his contempt for Esau before either was born (they were fraternal twins) according to Romans 9:11. Another suggestion of pre-embrionic existence and moral culpability is in Exodus 20:5, Exodus 34:7, Numbers 14:18, Deuteronomy 5:9, 2 Kings 10:30 and 2 Kings 15:12. In each of these passages, the reach of God’s judgment or blessing reaches to the fourth generation.
Saul of Tarsus was consenting in the matter of the death of Stephen, and even though he threw no stones, he had Stephen’s blood on his hands from that day forward, and he knew it. Similarly, though I did not actively cause or even participate in the sins of my great-grandfather, it appears that I was consenting or in some other way participating. And with that comes a measure of culpability. God would be unjust to judge an innocent person, or to visit the consequences of sin on someone who had no sin.
The disciples apparently understood this. In John chapter 9 they asked if a man’s sin had caused him to be born blind. Reincarnationists like to mis-apply this verse, but it is clear that Jewish theology never had any support for reincarnation. But they were familiar with the verses previously cited. Was the man who was born blind simply receiving judgment for pre-embrionic transgression?
Jesus said ‘no’ but did not discount their question.
God limits His judgment to four generations, but we read in Romans 5 that “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, I was a sinner when Christ died for me. I was a sinner before I was even born. And where was I? In the loins of my forebear. I was in Adam when he transgressed and, because of that, I became subject to death. I was, by nature a child of wrath. In some sense, I participated.
* * * * *
Besides the sci-fi flavor of an argument like this is the question of implications. Certainly we can’t put newborns on trial for the sins of their fathers. And my intention is not to deal with ‘sins’ but with sin. The point is that we are not innocent, and haven’t been for 6,000 years. Similarly, we can’t properly argue that a child just needs a little bit of Jesus because his sins are few and minor, whereas a 40-year-old man might need ‘a whole lotta Jesus’ because he’s been screwing up so much more seriously. And we certainly can’t reason (though some do) that we just need Christ to supplement our righteousness, or to make up a shortfall or pay the part of our debt that we can’t manage.
We wonder how a just God could send that dear little old lady who did so many nice things to the same place of torments He sends Hitler. But this simply betrays our ignorance of both sin and God’s holiness. So let’s consider for a moment the case of a homeowner who owns two dogs.
One is a rather large dog, perhaps a German Shepherd. Fido the Shepherd is not housebroken. The other is a Chihuahua named Spot. Spot is not housebroken either. Both dogs will, by nature, relieve themselves whenever and where ever they have the urge.
Both unload on the living room carpet. Clearly, Fido makes a bigger mess. Is he, therefore, less housebroken than Spot?
Both are placed in the kitchen, where there is a linoleum floor. The mess this time is easier to clean up. Would you conclude that they are more housebroken in the kitchen than in the rest of the house?
There is a folding gate between the kitchen and the living room which Fido can jump over, but Spot can’t. So Fido makes another mess in the living room. Or – the homeowner sees both dogs sniffing and circling and rightly guesses that the time is coming. He is able to hustle Spot out into the back yard, but Fido makes his mess on the floor. Was Spot a ‘good dog’ for going outside?
All we bring to our relationship with God is rebelliousness, recalcitrance, wickedness and iniquity. That’s it. We are, as noted in Ephesians 2, natural children of wrath. We are, therefore, totally culpable for not only the sins we consummate, but the sin in our hearts. Read your Bible: the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Jesus’ judgment for the one who has committed adultery with her already in his heart by just a lustful gaze. We’re a lot worse than we like to think, and a lot worse than most pastors are willing to tell us.
We don’t know what awful thoughts the little old lady had. However, we can affirm with some confidence that the only difference between her and Hitler was opportunity.
And where is God in all this? He shapes our lives, limits our opportunities, constrains our evil. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 5 when he writes the love of Christ constrains us. “Constrain” means ‘to force by imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation.’ What is in us that requires imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation? Is it our natural tendency to love one another? I would suggest that it is our inherent wickedness.
Joseph’s brothers wanted to kill him. God constrained their evil and preserved Joseph alive and, as Joseph told his brothers later, You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Even the finest ‘good’ deeds are tainted unless they are done completely out of love for God. Half-hearted love for God or luke-warm ‘commitment’ to Him is abominable.
We need a SAVIOR, not self-improvement classes, self-esteem enhancement, or a good example.
* * * * *
My indictment continues, because the ‘churches’ that dot the landscape have given us a soft and gentle, meek and mild “Jesus” who comes to us oh so humbly and asks … no, BEGS us to please please open the door and let him come in. I find it nauseating, as should any true Christian. We’re not doing God any favors and, as a matter of fact, we need to be dragged by the Holy Spirit to the feet of Christ and saved as an act of His sovereign grace. The only ‘free will’ responses we have toward God or the Gospel of His Kingdom is resistance and contempt.
In the grand scheme, it appears to me that ‘free will’ is a singularity rather than an ongoing series of choices. Rather like a mortgage (or a marriage), in that one makes a singular decision at a point in time and then lives out the consequences. At a point in time, I decide as a matter of free will to sign a mortgage. The lender then pre-scribed the outworking of my decision. The outworking may run for 30 years and my performance is mandated.
Another example may be someone who makes a ‘free will’ decision to take a part in a play. His participation is then scripted by the Director. For us, our ‘free will’ decision was to set ourselves in rebellion against God. Subsequently, God in his sovereign mercy, has mapped out the consequences of our decision.
Psalm 139 points this out: “In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. ” (verse 16). The King James language is rather obscure but fortunately, some modern versions are clearer. This is consistent with both the scriptures and the sovereignty of God. Just consider: the Word of God is eternal. The scripture cannot be broken. Judas Iscariot (like the rest of us) had sin and rebellion in his heart. In His sovereignty, and to accomplish His purpose, God allowed Judas the opportunity to manifest his character at a point in history. In love, God constrained most of the evil in Judas’ life, as He does in ours. But not all. This particular transgression was not only allowed, but it was scripted. This day appointed for Judas was written in God’s book before it had come to pass.
David’s sin with Bathsheba was written in God’s eternal word. David committed the act as a divinely-allowed outworking of his sinful nature and expression of his ‘free will.’ But God was not sitting in heaven with His stylus poised, waiting to see what David would do so He would know what to include in His eternal Word. God scripted the naming of Cyrus and the events in Daniel.
* * * * *
Here, for the time being, my indictment ends. Our good God takes our iniquity, which is all we bring into this experience, and shapes it for His ends. We are living in a world of restrained evil. Our contribution is the evil, and God’s is the restraint. He allows transgressions of His moral law because He is sovereign. He allows the consequences of others’ sin to fall on us because He is gracious. Were He to allow us unrestrained free will, we would quickly realize that the wrath of man is much more unpleasant than the mercy and grace that God daily visits upon us.
Why does God permit evil? Because He loves us. We are so essentially evil that, were He to destroy evil, he would have to destroy us. Our sin is not superficial, but is at the very core of who we are. The presence of evil is not inconsistent with the existence or omnipotence of God. Rather, it is evidence of His compassion and grace. It simply needs to be seen in the light of our desperate and unreformable wickedness.
Experience Versus Truth - Which Do We Choose?
Something that we all come to recognize at some point is that experience is a very powerful teacher. The things that we have heard and seen may touch our lives, but our experiences, which combine hearing, seeing, and feeling, have a much deeper impact on us.
My wife is sometimes amazed, but usually confounded and even frustrated, that I have difficulty remembering things we've done together, but that I can remember lines from a movie I haven't seen in thirty years. I've even wondered myself why that is, and the best answer that I've come up with isn't because the movie has music playing in the background, although I think that really helps stimulate our emotions. Instead I believe that it's because I focused my attention on the movie, I wasn't distracted by other thoughts, and in many cases I had the opportunity to see it more than once.
Our experiences are often like movies in our lives. We can play them over and over again in our minds as we remember them, and many of them even get repeated throughout our lives. I don't mean that we experience the exact same thing, but we often have very similar experiences.
The things that happened to us growing up; what we observed in our parents, teachers, and others, are experiences that affect us for the rest of our lives. What those memories end up becoming are beliefs about the way things "are" or how life is supposed to work. A bad experience becomes a fear, the belief that something will hurt us, which we will then try to avoid at all costs. On the other hand, a good experience can become a conviction about what makes us happy and we may spend the rest of our lives trying to relive it.
The Reader's Digest did a survey some years ago about people's greatest fears. Oddly enough, the number one fear wasn't death. The greatest fear for most people is speaking in public.
How about you? Do you get butterflies in your tummy at just the thought of speaking in front of a group of people?
What may have caused that fear was an experience, probably in either kindergarten or first grade, when you had to take part in something called "show and tell". It's likely that you said or did something that made the other kids laugh, which hurt, and that memory has been like a broken record in your head ever since. It just keeps playing again and again and you are convinced that you're no good at doing presentations for groups.
As bad as that may be for some of us, there are instances in our lives that can be devastating, especially in the effect that they have on our faith. For example, have you ever prayed for something and then not gotten an answer?
Just like when the kids laughed in school, the memory of the disappointment over unanswered prayer may be repeating in your mind every time you just think about prayer. Those bad experiences have become a fear, the belief that God doesn't love you, won't listen to you, and never gives you what you ask for.
Luke 11:9-10 says, "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Even when Hebrews 6:18 tells us that it is impossible for God to lie, we have all experienced what it's like to ask and then not receive.
But should we let our experience tell us what's true and what we're supposed to believe? Or should we look to the Bible to teach us the truth?
As powerful as our experiences and the beliefs they helped us form may be, the truth of God's word is even stronger. But in order to take what the Bible says and make it a belief, something that has been repeated and become firmly lodged in our minds, we have to make a conscious effort to meditate on and obey His word.
Joshua 1:8 says, "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
The word "meditate" means to mumble or mutter. It means that we need to speak God's word out loud to ourselves. D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, in his book "Spiritual Depression" asks us, "Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?"
We can either let our past experiences tell us what we should believe, or we can decide to change our beliefs. The way to do that is to continually talk to ourselves about the promises of God. When we pray we should remind ourselves of Jesus' promise "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." (John 14:14)
So the next time you go to God in prayer, and begin to wonder if He will answer you, just say to yourself, "In the past I may have felt like God didn't hear me, but I now choose to believe what He said in His word. I choose to believe the truth that as long as I desire to remain in Him, and to let His word remain in me, I can ask for whatever I wish, and it will be given to me (John 15:7)."
Along with the assurance that God will answer us, we need the flexibility to receive His answer. God will rarely answer us in the way that we expect because He has promised to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Our expectation needs to be that He will give us an answer that is bigger and better than what we asked for, and we need to start looking for God to surprise us with His goodness.
My wife is sometimes amazed, but usually confounded and even frustrated, that I have difficulty remembering things we've done together, but that I can remember lines from a movie I haven't seen in thirty years. I've even wondered myself why that is, and the best answer that I've come up with isn't because the movie has music playing in the background, although I think that really helps stimulate our emotions. Instead I believe that it's because I focused my attention on the movie, I wasn't distracted by other thoughts, and in many cases I had the opportunity to see it more than once.
Our experiences are often like movies in our lives. We can play them over and over again in our minds as we remember them, and many of them even get repeated throughout our lives. I don't mean that we experience the exact same thing, but we often have very similar experiences.
The things that happened to us growing up; what we observed in our parents, teachers, and others, are experiences that affect us for the rest of our lives. What those memories end up becoming are beliefs about the way things "are" or how life is supposed to work. A bad experience becomes a fear, the belief that something will hurt us, which we will then try to avoid at all costs. On the other hand, a good experience can become a conviction about what makes us happy and we may spend the rest of our lives trying to relive it.
The Reader's Digest did a survey some years ago about people's greatest fears. Oddly enough, the number one fear wasn't death. The greatest fear for most people is speaking in public.
How about you? Do you get butterflies in your tummy at just the thought of speaking in front of a group of people?
What may have caused that fear was an experience, probably in either kindergarten or first grade, when you had to take part in something called "show and tell". It's likely that you said or did something that made the other kids laugh, which hurt, and that memory has been like a broken record in your head ever since. It just keeps playing again and again and you are convinced that you're no good at doing presentations for groups.
As bad as that may be for some of us, there are instances in our lives that can be devastating, especially in the effect that they have on our faith. For example, have you ever prayed for something and then not gotten an answer?
Just like when the kids laughed in school, the memory of the disappointment over unanswered prayer may be repeating in your mind every time you just think about prayer. Those bad experiences have become a fear, the belief that God doesn't love you, won't listen to you, and never gives you what you ask for.
Luke 11:9-10 says, "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Even when Hebrews 6:18 tells us that it is impossible for God to lie, we have all experienced what it's like to ask and then not receive.
But should we let our experience tell us what's true and what we're supposed to believe? Or should we look to the Bible to teach us the truth?
As powerful as our experiences and the beliefs they helped us form may be, the truth of God's word is even stronger. But in order to take what the Bible says and make it a belief, something that has been repeated and become firmly lodged in our minds, we have to make a conscious effort to meditate on and obey His word.
Joshua 1:8 says, "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
The word "meditate" means to mumble or mutter. It means that we need to speak God's word out loud to ourselves. D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, in his book "Spiritual Depression" asks us, "Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?"
We can either let our past experiences tell us what we should believe, or we can decide to change our beliefs. The way to do that is to continually talk to ourselves about the promises of God. When we pray we should remind ourselves of Jesus' promise "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." (John 14:14)
So the next time you go to God in prayer, and begin to wonder if He will answer you, just say to yourself, "In the past I may have felt like God didn't hear me, but I now choose to believe what He said in His word. I choose to believe the truth that as long as I desire to remain in Him, and to let His word remain in me, I can ask for whatever I wish, and it will be given to me (John 15:7)."
Along with the assurance that God will answer us, we need the flexibility to receive His answer. God will rarely answer us in the way that we expect because He has promised to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Our expectation needs to be that He will give us an answer that is bigger and better than what we asked for, and we need to start looking for God to surprise us with His goodness.
Stopping the Blind
Between immigration laws and new passport regulations, some people can't get into the United States and others are having a hard time leaving. President Bush's immigration bill, the center of his remaining domestic policy agenda, came apart at the seams yesterday and will most likely not be revisited any time soon. The bipartisan bill seems to have been dismantled by an even stronger bipartisan effort, perhaps redefining the term "business as usual," even by Washington standards. Meanwhile, Homeland Security and the State Department are engaged in a turf war over implementing new measures for passports use by U.S. citizens, resulting in a backlog of unprocessed documents for people ready to travel. Those measures have been temporarily relaxed for those traveling by air to Canada, Bermuda, the Caribbean and Mexico who have already applied for their passports and have a receipt for the transaction. God help you if you have travel plans in the next few months and you delayed applying because you may be stuck. Or, as Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) so succinctly put it, "To say people must have a passport to travel and not give people a passport is right up there in the stupid column."
Interesting that these two issues sat side by side on the front page of my local newspaper this morning. Interesting, and not all that coincidental. We are at odds with ourselves these days over who should be allowed into our country and for what reasons. So it is not surprising that the desire to know where all of our own people are at any given moment would come back to haunt us in such a basic way. Some might call this passport nightmare a bit of political karma, or even poetic justice in the "what goes around, comes around" school of thought. We want to control who has access to the wealth and opportunities our country has to offer, but we are now potentially either held captive or not allowed back in if we leave because our government can't keep up with its own paperwork. One could also make a good case here for bitter irony.
The gospels contain a number of stories surrounding Jesus' interactions with his followers that speak of this same human need to present their own interests while shoving others aside in the process. One such case was while Jesus was traveling with his disciples. "As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging; and hearing a multitude going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, 'Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.' And he cried, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!' And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!' And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him and when he came near, he asked him, 'What do you want me to do for you?' He said, 'Lord, let me receive my sight.' And Jesus said to him, 'Receive your sigh; your faith has made you well.' And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God (Luke 18:35-43)."
By the time Jesus encounters the blind beggar on the way to Jericho, he has begun talking with his disciples about what lies ahead for himself and for them. Needless to say, they aren't quite getting it, having become so wrapped up in the ongoing saga that had become their lives. Thinking past experiencing day-to-day events as they unfolded may have never occurred to them. But for the larger communities among which they traveled and worked, Jesus' arrival, and subsequent teaching, preaching and healing, would have potentially been a one time only event. It is more understandable in this context to see that some people would do anything in their power to be a a part of the moment, even telling a blind beggar to shut up while pushing him out of the way.
While understandable, it didn't pay off as expected. The blind beggar didn't comply, Jesus heard him, and he had his moment to state his request. Interesting that he asked to receive his sight , and Jesus used the same language in return, adding that the man's faith had made him well. Is this blind beggar our own vision of a pious, faithful believer? He was loud, insistent and completely uncaring of what anyone else thought of him. His entire focus was on laying claim to his opportunity to trust his faith and be healed by Jesus. But most importantly, he didn't limit or take away anyone else's chance to connect with Jesus or also be heard. He furthered his own cause at no one else's expense. Perhaps that is why Jesus heard his voice above so many others that day. In trying to subvert another's access to Jesus' presence and power, more than a few people likely left empty handed.
What does our own desire to control our borders to an unprecedented degree tell us about ourselves? What do we become when we think shutting people out of our country is a good thing, while expecting to be welcomed to other people's countries with open arms? When we make choices to exclude people or deny them access to the United States, what part of our faith are we suspending to shove people out of the way so our own interests will be protected?
The blind beggar's story ends on a happy note. He receives his sight, follows Jesus and glorifies God. And somehow the crowd which witnessed the miracle of new sight in one man was changed too, and praised God as well. Those who had scorned and disrespected someone more vulnerable than themselves were also healed and transformed. Perhaps we can be healed as well, lifted up from our bunkers of fear, back into the light of hope and grace. We just might be able to reclaim our strength as a country that invites people to become, and in the process, we may also reclaim our own freedom to come and go as we please, passports in hand.
Interesting that these two issues sat side by side on the front page of my local newspaper this morning. Interesting, and not all that coincidental. We are at odds with ourselves these days over who should be allowed into our country and for what reasons. So it is not surprising that the desire to know where all of our own people are at any given moment would come back to haunt us in such a basic way. Some might call this passport nightmare a bit of political karma, or even poetic justice in the "what goes around, comes around" school of thought. We want to control who has access to the wealth and opportunities our country has to offer, but we are now potentially either held captive or not allowed back in if we leave because our government can't keep up with its own paperwork. One could also make a good case here for bitter irony.
The gospels contain a number of stories surrounding Jesus' interactions with his followers that speak of this same human need to present their own interests while shoving others aside in the process. One such case was while Jesus was traveling with his disciples. "As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging; and hearing a multitude going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, 'Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.' And he cried, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!' And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!' And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him and when he came near, he asked him, 'What do you want me to do for you?' He said, 'Lord, let me receive my sight.' And Jesus said to him, 'Receive your sigh; your faith has made you well.' And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God (Luke 18:35-43)."
By the time Jesus encounters the blind beggar on the way to Jericho, he has begun talking with his disciples about what lies ahead for himself and for them. Needless to say, they aren't quite getting it, having become so wrapped up in the ongoing saga that had become their lives. Thinking past experiencing day-to-day events as they unfolded may have never occurred to them. But for the larger communities among which they traveled and worked, Jesus' arrival, and subsequent teaching, preaching and healing, would have potentially been a one time only event. It is more understandable in this context to see that some people would do anything in their power to be a a part of the moment, even telling a blind beggar to shut up while pushing him out of the way.
While understandable, it didn't pay off as expected. The blind beggar didn't comply, Jesus heard him, and he had his moment to state his request. Interesting that he asked to receive his sight , and Jesus used the same language in return, adding that the man's faith had made him well. Is this blind beggar our own vision of a pious, faithful believer? He was loud, insistent and completely uncaring of what anyone else thought of him. His entire focus was on laying claim to his opportunity to trust his faith and be healed by Jesus. But most importantly, he didn't limit or take away anyone else's chance to connect with Jesus or also be heard. He furthered his own cause at no one else's expense. Perhaps that is why Jesus heard his voice above so many others that day. In trying to subvert another's access to Jesus' presence and power, more than a few people likely left empty handed.
What does our own desire to control our borders to an unprecedented degree tell us about ourselves? What do we become when we think shutting people out of our country is a good thing, while expecting to be welcomed to other people's countries with open arms? When we make choices to exclude people or deny them access to the United States, what part of our faith are we suspending to shove people out of the way so our own interests will be protected?
The blind beggar's story ends on a happy note. He receives his sight, follows Jesus and glorifies God. And somehow the crowd which witnessed the miracle of new sight in one man was changed too, and praised God as well. Those who had scorned and disrespected someone more vulnerable than themselves were also healed and transformed. Perhaps we can be healed as well, lifted up from our bunkers of fear, back into the light of hope and grace. We just might be able to reclaim our strength as a country that invites people to become, and in the process, we may also reclaim our own freedom to come and go as we please, passports in hand.
This Place for Today
Packing is arduous business.
Finding myself relocating to a new city means participating in the age-old, time-honored practice of pulling up stakes, shutting off utilities and looking ahead to another part of my life as it unfolds. The packing is simply the physical rendition of sorting and filing memories, moments and hopes that evidence the truth of the time spent in any place we choose to call home. Having done this a few times before, I am familiar with the process, its delights and its pitfalls. Gathering one's life together, releasing its unneeded portions to the universe, fitting the remainder into a box on wheels and trusting it will be intact and ready to be welcomed into a new space at the other end of the road, is both an act of will and faith. This move calls forth a good measure of the former and a greater measure of the latter than any other move has required.
My mother's family started their journey in this country in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century. Eventually making their way through the Midwest, my great grandparents met in Iowa in the latter part of that era and continued their travels to Minnesota by way of South Dakota. My mother remembers that they returned to Iowa each year to help with the cattle drives, the women running the chuck wagon to provide home cooked meals for the cowboys. Their son carried on the tradition, moving his wife, son and daughter through Wisconsin and North Dakota before settling in Chicago. When my mother speaks of where she grew up, it is Chicago she remembers as home. While I know my grandfather moved his family to accommodate his work, I am not sure why his parents kept to the road for so long.
But what their movement across the land tells me is that they were strong people with dreams, willing to withstand endless days walking next to covered wagons containing their whole lives to the frontiers of a place completely unknown to them. Each generation pushed a little further West, following a hope for more than what they had or could envision for themselves where they were. What few pictures I have of these people I never met reveal great beauty and joy so poignantly real I can feel them with me, directing me to take my part in the adventure. The unknown didn't seem to phase them, which is a gift, like their faith, that they have passed down to me. My people are people of faith, courage and abundantly joyful creativity, an ancestry of which I am proud to share, a legacy I hope to embody with grace.
The heat of these last days spent in this place that has been my home for seven years also reminds me that I am not carrying out an Exodus journey of Biblical proportions. There will be no hot desert winds on my face or burning sand under my feet, no blazing sun relentlessly beating down on my head with each passing minute, hour or day. There is an address to which I am headed, unlike the Israelites, who would wander for forty years with only the hope of God's assurance that there would be a promised land.
There is progress in the journey. Years later Isaiah would go on to speak of a new Exodus for God's people, a journey to a new Eden-like place. "For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off (Isaiah 55: 12-13)." Sometimes what we can't see immediately is as important as what is within each task and step of the day. Within the tangible moments of living are housed the grace and mystery of God's purpose and promise. Herein lies our home, wherever we are.
Finding myself relocating to a new city means participating in the age-old, time-honored practice of pulling up stakes, shutting off utilities and looking ahead to another part of my life as it unfolds. The packing is simply the physical rendition of sorting and filing memories, moments and hopes that evidence the truth of the time spent in any place we choose to call home. Having done this a few times before, I am familiar with the process, its delights and its pitfalls. Gathering one's life together, releasing its unneeded portions to the universe, fitting the remainder into a box on wheels and trusting it will be intact and ready to be welcomed into a new space at the other end of the road, is both an act of will and faith. This move calls forth a good measure of the former and a greater measure of the latter than any other move has required.
My mother's family started their journey in this country in upstate New York in the early nineteenth century. Eventually making their way through the Midwest, my great grandparents met in Iowa in the latter part of that era and continued their travels to Minnesota by way of South Dakota. My mother remembers that they returned to Iowa each year to help with the cattle drives, the women running the chuck wagon to provide home cooked meals for the cowboys. Their son carried on the tradition, moving his wife, son and daughter through Wisconsin and North Dakota before settling in Chicago. When my mother speaks of where she grew up, it is Chicago she remembers as home. While I know my grandfather moved his family to accommodate his work, I am not sure why his parents kept to the road for so long.
But what their movement across the land tells me is that they were strong people with dreams, willing to withstand endless days walking next to covered wagons containing their whole lives to the frontiers of a place completely unknown to them. Each generation pushed a little further West, following a hope for more than what they had or could envision for themselves where they were. What few pictures I have of these people I never met reveal great beauty and joy so poignantly real I can feel them with me, directing me to take my part in the adventure. The unknown didn't seem to phase them, which is a gift, like their faith, that they have passed down to me. My people are people of faith, courage and abundantly joyful creativity, an ancestry of which I am proud to share, a legacy I hope to embody with grace.
The heat of these last days spent in this place that has been my home for seven years also reminds me that I am not carrying out an Exodus journey of Biblical proportions. There will be no hot desert winds on my face or burning sand under my feet, no blazing sun relentlessly beating down on my head with each passing minute, hour or day. There is an address to which I am headed, unlike the Israelites, who would wander for forty years with only the hope of God's assurance that there would be a promised land.
There is progress in the journey. Years later Isaiah would go on to speak of a new Exodus for God's people, a journey to a new Eden-like place. "For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign which shall not be cut off (Isaiah 55: 12-13)." Sometimes what we can't see immediately is as important as what is within each task and step of the day. Within the tangible moments of living are housed the grace and mystery of God's purpose and promise. Herein lies our home, wherever we are.
Discount Kingdom
his past holiday weekend, like every one on the calendar, provided endless opportunities to SAVE! SAVE! SAVE!. If Congress has legislated a postal holiday there is an equal and AMAZING BLOWOUT! or EXTRAVAGANZA! to spend money you would have otherwise been earning that day. Just in case you can't make the actual EXTREME SALES EVENT! you can take in a PRE-HOLIDAY or POST-HOLIDAY SALES EVENT! I believe I have actually seen the before/during/after television sales campaigns inadvertently converge late at night, creating a sort of time warp shopping wonderland in which people are always giddy with delight over FANTASTIC SAVINGS! I seriously wonder if, or why, anyone would pay full price for anything anymore.
But apparently there is a story, told long, long ago, from a time since past, about a soul who paid full price, and then some, for something so glorious that it could not be passed up. Matthew's gospel recounts Jesus' words in the Parable of the Pearl of Great Value. "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it (Matthew 13:45-46)."
Today's shoppers would call this man a fool. Why pay full price when waiting a few days, maybe a few weeks at the most, will net you the same product and keep more money in your pocket to spend elsewhere. Only a fool would pay full price, and only a bigger fool, or a crazy person, would pay more than full price. That's the problem if you let a merchant know how much you want something. They take you for all you are worth. Never let your guard down when you are trying to be a savvy shopper.
But our Biblical shopper was probably as savvy as they come because he was a merchant himself, someone who knew the ins and outs of smart bargaining and smarter purchasing for resale better than most. It's quite clear that he was on the hunt for fine peals because he knew what he was looking for and was eager to find them. He'd had success on his quests before and intended this venture to be equally successful. This merchant was no novice, but a seasoned professional striking out on a trip designed to continue building his business and his professional reputation.
Imagine his surprise then, upon discovering this one, magnificent pearl of great worth, an unexpected treasure-among-treasures right there before his eyes, but in another merchant's possession. What should he do? How should he proceed with the situation? He knows this pearl is meant for him, but he doesn't have enough money with which to purchase it. He must go home, gather all his resources and pray that no one else purchases the pearl before he can return. His one hope rests on the merchant holding his pearl (for he has now come to regard the pearl as his own) seeming oblivious to the value of the treasure he holds in his stock.
So our merchant travels home as fast as he can, counts his money, sells literally everything he owns to make up the difference and hurries back to his fellow merchant to retrieve his pearl. The other merchant feels he has made an incredible deal, selling a single pearl for an outrageously large sum, much more than he would have ever expected. He is quite surprised that his colleague was willing to pay so much, but he doesn't question the fellow's motive or integrity.
It is an interesting sort of twist, to realize that the search for the kingdom of heaven isn't about making the best business deal or appearing wise in its transaction. The kingdom of heaven isn't about putting our nose to the grindstone, living in the real world or taking advantage of whatever life offers us either. The kingdom of heaven appears more to be about discovering the mystery and wonder of God's presence among us , for us, when we bump into it on an ordinary day, even during a simple shopping trip.
But apparently there is a story, told long, long ago, from a time since past, about a soul who paid full price, and then some, for something so glorious that it could not be passed up. Matthew's gospel recounts Jesus' words in the Parable of the Pearl of Great Value. "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it (Matthew 13:45-46)."
Today's shoppers would call this man a fool. Why pay full price when waiting a few days, maybe a few weeks at the most, will net you the same product and keep more money in your pocket to spend elsewhere. Only a fool would pay full price, and only a bigger fool, or a crazy person, would pay more than full price. That's the problem if you let a merchant know how much you want something. They take you for all you are worth. Never let your guard down when you are trying to be a savvy shopper.
But our Biblical shopper was probably as savvy as they come because he was a merchant himself, someone who knew the ins and outs of smart bargaining and smarter purchasing for resale better than most. It's quite clear that he was on the hunt for fine peals because he knew what he was looking for and was eager to find them. He'd had success on his quests before and intended this venture to be equally successful. This merchant was no novice, but a seasoned professional striking out on a trip designed to continue building his business and his professional reputation.
Imagine his surprise then, upon discovering this one, magnificent pearl of great worth, an unexpected treasure-among-treasures right there before his eyes, but in another merchant's possession. What should he do? How should he proceed with the situation? He knows this pearl is meant for him, but he doesn't have enough money with which to purchase it. He must go home, gather all his resources and pray that no one else purchases the pearl before he can return. His one hope rests on the merchant holding his pearl (for he has now come to regard the pearl as his own) seeming oblivious to the value of the treasure he holds in his stock.
So our merchant travels home as fast as he can, counts his money, sells literally everything he owns to make up the difference and hurries back to his fellow merchant to retrieve his pearl. The other merchant feels he has made an incredible deal, selling a single pearl for an outrageously large sum, much more than he would have ever expected. He is quite surprised that his colleague was willing to pay so much, but he doesn't question the fellow's motive or integrity.
It is an interesting sort of twist, to realize that the search for the kingdom of heaven isn't about making the best business deal or appearing wise in its transaction. The kingdom of heaven isn't about putting our nose to the grindstone, living in the real world or taking advantage of whatever life offers us either. The kingdom of heaven appears more to be about discovering the mystery and wonder of God's presence among us , for us, when we bump into it on an ordinary day, even during a simple shopping trip.
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