Category Archives: a happy God

How to love yourself

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in a happy God, Bible Questions

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My quora answers sometimes seem like they may have value on their own.

Last week I answered a person who seemed genuinely to be struggling with feelings of worthlessness. She asked, “How can I overcome the feeling that life is unnecessary?”

I answered:

If you begin to love yourself, which the Bible encourages, you will at least recognize that you have an important role to play as a member of the human race and, one day, a joint participant in the noble obligation of protecting a world and contributing to a community. Your unique perspective, including the sense of failure you are feeling now, is valuable and necessary to the balance that will one day characterize the human race.

And if you begin to love your neighbors as much as yourself, as the Bible also encourages, you will find that many, many of your neighbors near and far desperately need significant contributions that you can make… And that would be lost without your help.

She wrote back: “How do we love ourselves? Help me!!!”

This is my reply. I hope she found it helpful:

Read psalm 139. There it talks about each human being in the womb. How each of us is made in secret so to speak. The truth is that you are a miracle. If your creator loves you, why shouldn’t you love yourself?

You should love yourself for what you mean to your family. Most likely, there are family members who dearly love you.

You should love yourself for who and what you are. The way you contribute to your world. You make more contributions than you are aware of. Allow others to tell you what these contributions are… and don’t dismiss them.

You should love yourself for what you can do or become — your talent, nascent character, aspirations. If you begin to do one thing, every day, for 15 minutes… to help another, or to make the world better … such as learn to whistle or play a song, become well-informed on a topic and teach it to others, work an extra hour and give it to someone who needs it, read to a child, paint an abandoned fence or clean up a dirty section of the roadside. Write a story or a movie; join Big Brothers/Big Sisters and mentor a kid. There is no end to the possibilities. By far the most useful investment of time, if you feel drawn to it by God, is to study the Bible, obey the correction it gives to your heart, and share what it teaches you … in a way that does not condemn people, but builds their hope and goodness.
And you should, even on your worst days, love yourself for what God, your creator has invested in you. As Martin Luther put it, if you want to know how big your sins are, look at the price God used to atone for them. He applied the most precious substance in the world — the blood of Christ. That makes you incredibly valuable. And God will get his investment in you. God is a patient investor in the human race and planet earth. He’s been working toward his goals for almost 14 billion years, and a little human depression is not a roadblock to him.
Your current ambivalence will not be used against you. God — who holds and protects your destiny — is smiling and happy, knowing that in the fulness of time your sins will be blotted out, and your value will grow like the lily, the cedar, or the pearl.

Get ready

26 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, Christmas, Personal Observations

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Last Christmas I snapped these photos of a nativity scene in the town where I live.

It struck me as odd, and I wanted to write a blog post about it… but I wasn’t ready.

My first question was intent. Why would a nativity scene — something that calls to mind “good tidings of great joy to all people” — carry an admonition with it?

My instinctual response may not be yours. I grew up, steeped in a tradition of conflict with mainstream Christianity. I grew up using the phrases “nominal Church” or “Churchianity” to describe all the other guys.

I remember having a conversation about religion with one of the older girls in the neighborhood (I was in 2nd grade, she was an “older girl” in 3rd or 4th grade) on our street. She said, “I’m a Christian. What are you? I think I said, “I’m not a Christian, I’m a Bible Student”.  She was concerned. It was obviously a bad thing not to be a Christian. I went home and asked my mom: “Am I a Christian?” Mom’s answer was too complicated for me to remember but my takeaway was that yes, in some way I was a Christian, but different. And in some way she thought we were better.

I remember a conversation with my sister, maybe a year later. By then my best friends on the block were two boys, Mike and Mark, who lived about 6 houses away. They were Catholic, whatever that was, and went to a different elementary school — St. James the Less. I was curious why a saint would be called The Less, and I wondered what it was like to have nuns as teachers. In those days I saw them at the store. They wore black and white robes and were known for being very strict. Mike and Mark were scared to death of them… and seemed to get in trouble a lot.

I found an agate the size of a football that looked a lot like this when I broke it open. I suspected a “bad Catholic” of stealing it.

There was another boy our age, three houses away from my house, who I passed every day on my way to Mike and Mark’s. I suspected him of stealing my dinosaur footprint fossil and my agate the size of a football. I’ll call him Sammy. My sister and I discussed it, and the fact my parents would not confront Sammy’s parents about the theft. I said to her something like, “Why would Sammy steal my stuff, but Mike and Mark would not?” And I remember my sister, 7 years older and the official wise child in our family, explained the whole thing to me in religious terms. “Mike and Mark are Catholic, but they’re good Catholics.” Hmmm. That was a new idea. For some reason I had never thought of Catholic as anything good. She went on, “Sammy is a Catholic too, but he’s a bad Catholic.”

I wasn’t ready to get any of what my sister said about religion. In some ways that’s still true. 🙂

Time painted over the grief, but not the soul-wound that remained. Mark and Mike moved away, a year or two after Tommy’s dad (another bad Catholic who we rarely played with) had a fistfight with Ricky’s dad in the middle of the street on a Saturday morning. Something about whose kid was the bully. I think Ricky’s dad was Methodist. Mark, Mike and I watched this surreal altercation with half a dozen other kids (and a few parents). No one called the police. Kennedy hadn’t died yet. It was a Free Country. Fools could fight… and it was mildly entertaining.

But we stopped playing at Ricky’s. And I now had a new category of bad Christians at the tender age of 9.

When I was 16 my best friend David died. I’ll tell you that story someday. But the result for me was that, surprisingly, I got interested in religion. It could have gone the other way, but it didn’t.

As David was struggling with his lymphoma, I was reading a ton of stuff about the Bible. And I even read the Bible, too! I was interested in religion but I never went to “church”. I went to “class”. We sat around and took turns trying to be polite while saying what the Bible really meant. On New Years’ eve we had “watch night” where everyone shared their testimony of God’s Love in Our Lives while the kids played games in the basement.

Then David died, and I was angry at God that it was him and not me. One day, a few months later, I was home on a Wednesday evening while my parents were at “class”. The doorbell rang. Our best friends — I’ll call them Jim and Don — stood at the door.

They said “We want to give you this.” They gave me the box of hymnals that for years I had helped to pass out at the Sunday meeting. The handmade wooden box with the brown alligator vinyl covering and the round metal corners. And they gave me the money box, and an envelope with the donations that had been in it neatly accounted for in pencil.

That’s all that happened. It felt odd, because they normally went to Wednesday class and could have given the stuff to my parents there. It was also weird that they didn’t come into the house when I invited them. No pleasantries… they just gave me the stuff politely and left.

I was barely conscious that the Sunday before, one of the two elders in the class had not been elected in the annual vote for leaders. They and almost half of the class simply stopped coming. No more monthly get-togethers. No more home-made noodles that Jim’s wife used to make. My parents never explained it to me, and barely mentioned Jim, Don, the other elder and his wife, for years. Sometimes I heard crying, behind my parents’ bedroom door. But stoicism was my main observation.

Our best family friends, who had a boy my age, also stopped coming. And at our monthly conventions around Ohio, I lost my friends Donny Lee, Cherry Sue, John, Susie, and a bunch of others … because the split didn’t just happen in my class. It happened in almost every class across the country.

As with the Saturday morning fisticuffs, I was old enough to form immature opinions about why this surreal altercation happened. I was convinced one side, and only one side, didn’t love The Truth. Of course my parents, a few friends, and me were Faithful. We didn’t want the division, but The Truth was more important than friendships.

Suddenly the issue of “Who are the Christians?” had a new meaning for me.

But I still wasn’t ready to get what “get ready” means.

to be continued….

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The reason for everything

23 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, reconciliation, Rob Bell

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Eight years ago I reviewed the Lasse Halstrom film “An Unfinished Life” on this blog.

It quotes Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman talking about one of Morgan’s dreams. In it the dead were united with the living and forgave them. That was the essential ingredient of the paradise he dreamed of… forgiveness between people. And Morgan was so high in his stratospheric vision that he felt he could see that “there’s a reason for everything.”

That’s the cool thing about this notion of reconciliation for all.

Why would the Cross be the reason for reconciliation?

Let me suggest 3 reasons.

  1. The Cross brought a substitute for Adam. It was “the just for the unjust”. But not in the magical way that Augustine imagined. He saw every human sin as an infinite offense against God. He taught … and traditionalists ever since have latched onto this … that an eternity of torment was an equal, necessary payment for an infinite amount of pain that we supposedly inflict on the infinite God when each of us sins. I’ve heard Dennis McCallum, John McArthur, John Piper, Alistair Begg, Mark Driscoll and many other preachers speak or write in this way. But I don’t see it explained that way in the Bible.

    The description of the Cross that I see in the Bible is simple substitution: one finite human sin that had a death sentence attached — Adam’s disobedience — is placed against one “act of righteousness” that Jesus performed when he submitted to an unjust execution. Jesus was very intentional about his purpose in coming: “My flesh I give for the life of the world.” This exchange releases one prisoner from his sentence, and leaves an innocent man voluntarily in his place. But more than that. Since the process of heredity brought death and moral depravity to not only Adam, but all of his children, the Cross which releases Adam also releases EVERYONE from their sentence of death and bondage to decay. “Give me a long enough lever, and I can move the world.” That’s the lever that the cross gave Jesus.

  2. The Cross brought a Sin Offering. The Cross was not merely one act of torture. In Jesus’ case, it was three-and-half years of having his own natural preferences curtailed by the mission he had accepted from his Father. “I have a baptism to undergo, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished.” Jesus came to do the Father’s will. Jesus expressly states in his recorded prayer in Gethsemane, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” His entire soul was poured out unto death as “an offering for sin.”What does this major Sin Offering mean for the human race? Well, it is pictured by the offerings that were made each Day of Atonement in ancient Israel. (Yom Kippur) In verses 6, 11-14, 24-25, and 27 we read that a young bull was slain, its vital organs and steaks burned in the courtyard, its hide and bones burned outside in the camp, and its blood mixed with incense burned in the “holy place” … the outer of the 2 inner sanctuaries of the Tabernacle and Temple. This act symbolized the removal of all the sins of the people for the preceding year. The new testament writers are clear that Jesus fulfilled this picture, and provided a release to all people for their sins for all time.

    Pause a moment and reflect on what this teaches us. It shows that releasing the entire world from its sins was accomplished already. There is no longer any looming threat of perpetual death (Hell and torment was never in the cards… the wages of sin is death). Everyone has their get out of jail free card. The only question that remains is, “when will I use my card to get out of Jail?” — There are only 2 possible answers. For authentic Christians, it’s this life. For everyone else, the hereditary curse of Adamic death will be lifted when they are resurrected and brought back for the opportunity of life we call the “judgment day”.

  3. The Cross became an event that invited sympathetic offerings. The followers of Jesus also take up Jesus’ cross. And as a result they have a cross of their own. Just as Jesus “learned obedience by the things that He suffered,” the circumstances of each disciple’s life challenges their spirit, and teaches them deep and powerful lessons about God that can be learned in no other way.Going back to the “type” or picture of the Tabernacle in ancient Israel, there were actually two animals slaughtered for sin on the day of Atonement. First there was the big fat bullock. And then there was a scrawny little goat. (See verses 7 and 15ff) Everything was the same in how the animals were handled. Blood with incense into the presence of God, life-giving, good-smelling organs and steaks in the presence of the believers, and raunchy, stinky body parts burned among the common people, who pictured unbelievers. And so it is written, “Let us therefore go with him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.” The Cross that every Christian disciple carries has a redemptive impact on all the people who witness our lives and the way we live them.

Reconciliation is not completed by the Cross. But the background issues are atoned for. I have read and observed in the different churches I have associated with over the years, that in every grouping of Christians there is a relatively small minority who “get it.” They do most of the doing, giving, teaching, praying, forgiving and heavy lifting. They are the truest of Christians, not because of the set of doctrines they believe but because of the way they live their lives. They daily take up their cross, and follow in Jesus’ footsteps. And they are servants of reconciliation as a result.

In the near future I’ll take a look at how the Bible describes the process of actually delivering on the promise of reconciliation for the entire world … for which the Christian era only places a down payment.

Forgiveness vs reconciliation

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, forgiveness, reconciliation, Rob Bell

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Let’s think for a moment about what we all believe about forgiveness and reconciliation… and then compare our practical wisdom to our vision of God’s purpose.

Forgiveness is unilateral, correct? Jesus forgave the folks that crucified him, for example, stating that they didn’t know what they were doing. What does that mean? Doesn’t it simply mean that he did not want punitive action taken against them?

Forgiveness is an attitude we have toward someone who has hurt us. We all know this.

Forgiveness is not forgetting, not denying or downplaying the significance of an offense. To be really effective, the forgiver must own all the pain and acknowledge all the damage that has been done by the offender… whether we choose to confront them or not.

Forgiveness gives us the freedom to be joyful and patient, and choose the time we wish to confront the one who hurt us… if indeed that is an option.

Often there is no way to discuss the matter with the one who hurt us… they are dead, incapacitated, or we know they would hurt us even more if we approached them.

And yet we can still forgive as a unilateral action … a method of working out an understanding with God, or the Universe, that any consequences will be born by us unless and until we can find a way of healing and dealing with the matter — bringing reconciliation.

Reconciliation is the full healing of the relationship between injured parties.

To get to reconciliation it actually doesn’t require forgiveness. It requires rebuke, repentance, restitution to the extent possible as evidence of repentance, and then a process of rebuilding trust through small steps that weave a new fabric of relationship, thread by thread.

Reconciliation is 1000 times tougher than forgiveness.

Now, what do we expect from God in terms of his behavior toward human sin?

Do we expect him to forgive our sins? The world’s sins?

In reality, it seems to me he’s been doing that right along. I don’t think he’s sitting there, fuming, venting his frustration at the human race with Jesus and anyone else who will listen.

I think his forgiveness was shown, for example, when he didn’t push the lightning button and vaporize the soldiers and priests that put an innocent man to death. And Jesus talked about his Father’s example of sending the blessings of life … rain, sunshine, food … to the just and the unjust. And smiling while he does it. That’s forgiveness.

But reconciliation? That’s a much more difficult challenge. If Paul was correct, he stated that God’s intent is nothing less than the reconciliation of all people with himself and with each other.

Getting to that kind of relational wholeness is almost beyond our capacity to imagine. It would take superhuman power, to resurrect all the parties and assemble them in the same world. To arrange the logistics of a very long relational rebuilding process. To provide incredible educational guidance, coaching, tough love, tender shoulders to cry on.

Do you see this vision in the Bible? I do, and I’m excited to see that Rob Bell does. Let’s have a dialog.

Is the Universe rigged?

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, Rob Bell, universalism

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In a sneak peak of his show that makes its debut tonight, Rob Bell says that the Cross is a sign that the Universe is rigged in our favor:

RobBell
Rob Bell Show video link

I can hear my good Christian friends questioning this notion, and I respect them for relying upon the Bible for their guidance:

  • “God is righteous” Therefore, he is unalterably opposed to sin and self-will. Rob Bell is pandering to self-will in this view.
  • “Broad is the way that leads to destruction”, said Jesus, but “narrow is the way that leads to life”. Therefore anything that smacks of universal salvation is a direct contradiction of the plain words of the Savior of the world.
  • “God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son, that WHOEVER BELIEVES in him might not perish…” In other words, my friends are saying fervently (and with lots of apparent Biblical support) Jesus doesn’t do much good for you unless you believe and obey his message.
  • “God is no respecter of persons.” “Our God is a consuming fire”. “I will not clear the guilty”. A hundred clear verses that I could think of in 5 minutes make Rob Bell’s claim feel like the worst kind of syncretism … religious pandering to the world system.

I can also hear the challenges to Rob’s optimism with the very real findings of science, that as far as we can go back in time — 13.7 billion years — the rules have been the same, and just as even-handed as we can possibly imagine. There seems to be no sentimentality in the way the laws of nature operate. And if we allow ourselves to look in moral terms at what humankind has meant to planet earth, a balance would likely go hard against us, because of what we are doing to the planet and the other species we share it with.

And yet I agree with Rob Bell’s claim that the Cross is all about reconciliation of ALL PEOPLE with God. How can I say that in good conscience?

  1. There are 2 steps in the reconciliation process. The entire Christian era is focused on the first step. That step is the Cross… the personal character development of Jesus, and then the personal character development of his followers. We “fill up that which remains” of the afflictions of Christ. We are part of a high calling of God in Christ Jesus, Paul states in Philippians 3. We are servants of reconciliation. We cannot do anything significant against sin until our obedience is completed. Meanwhile, the whole creation groans, waiting for the sons of God to be manifested.
  2. After the church of Christ is complete, the Apostles tell us they will work with Christ to reconcile the entire world. We “will judge the world”. We “will judge angels”. We will shepherd the nations with a staff of iron. We will not simply be rewarded in heaven, but we will bring heaven to earth. It is true, faithful, humble, obedient Christians who will be the “pearly gates” … the way of access to God.
  3. The universe has been rigged against people for all of human history. We are told in the Bible that God has allowed an Enemy to deceive and mislead people. He has allowed heredity to bias people toward sin. He has even, Isaiah says, “hidden himself”. His eyes behold, but his eyelids (his apparent sleeping, ignoring what people do) test the children of men.
  4. For the next thousand years … just around the corner … the universe will be rigged in favor of all people. All the sins of the past were atoned for by the cross. All the people who have ever lived will be resurrected. Both the just and the unjust. Whether they “deserve it” or not. At the end, the playing field will be leveled for the first time. And then whoever chooses life and righteousness will live. And those who don’t will die.

The best part of what Rob seems to be saying now, in my opinion, is the encouragement it gives to anyone, anywhere, no matter what their spiritual background or level of belief. I agree with his thesis, that all the trouble people face has value. And it is frightful, shameful and tragic what the average person around the world must cope with — all of that pain has value and will help them in the future age of restoration to move toward reconciliation with God and with each other. Jews who died in the Holocaust and didn’t survive to tell us about it will awaken to discover value in that bitter experience. Nazis who persecuted them will awaken to discover hard lessons that they must learn if there is to be value for them in the experience. But both will learn lessons of forgiveness and righteousness that will last forever.

What is the role of the church? To bring the personal value of their struggles against sin when it was tough to be righteous. The value of the church will be knowledge of how to overcome, how to be humble, how to be patient, how to forgive their persecutors. And the joy and character they will bring as the “bride” of Christ will empower them to do the “greater works” that Jesus promised his followers in John 5. The whole creation will find its one head in Christ.

So a plea for mini-reconciliation: Christian friends, please listen to what Rob is saying (and what I’m chirping too). Don’t slam the door of communication on us. Test what we are saying with what the Bible says. Please respond with your questions and comments here. I’m listening to you.

And pray for Rob that this opportunity will become a new, wider ministry for him, not a stumbling block as fame and influence so often does. So far, I’ve been impressed with the joy and positive vision he has brought to every stage of his ministry.

Resurrected intent

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, gnosticism, John Piper, Rob Bell

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Here’s what I wrote about my goal in this blog when I first changed its name to HappyGod in 2002… the aftermath of 9/11, the time when I was taking care of my dad in his waning months, and working alone at home. I guess getting and staying happy was important to me:

So here’s what this blog is about. Why is God described by the Apostle Paul with the Greek adjective, makarios — best translated, “happy”?

Well, Paul was countering, and teaching Timothy how to counter, the heavy influence of Gnosticism. The foundational attitude behind Gnosticism is the view that the Creator of Earth is not a happy guy at all, but a sort of male chauvinist who grumbles whenever anyone else is not in pain. Twice in his descriptions of God in the epistles to Timothy, Paul calls him, not “the Blessed” which means we praise him, but “the Happy” which means he’s cool whether we bless him or not.

So this blog explores that view of God and that attitude. How to be happy though not blessed. How to be aware of what makes God happy. How to understand that God is not happy with current events but he’s happy because of where they’re leading… to the place where all people are humble, alive, thankful, and in love with God and each other. Hard to see that just now, but that’s where we’re headed, as I read the Bible.

So I’ll be arguing with the Hell viewpoint among my Christian brothers. I’ll be arguing against Calvinism, and against Arminianism, too. I’ll be having a conversation with anyone who’s willing to question a Christian orthodoxy which views the human race as a failure, a nice creative exercise that got screwed by the Devil and human self-will.

Let me just quote Solomon: “God has made everything beautiful in his time.” Hard to believe but I hope to convince you!

That was the goal then, and you know what? It’s still the same. Except I’m no longer trying to convince anyone….

Back then, I had just read Desiring God by John Piper… and that’s probably where I discovered this nugget of insight into the meaning of the Greek word that is twice used to describe God. And the funny thing is, his idea of the gospel is a tiny shadow of what I believe the good news really is … something called the Restitution of All Things by Peter … something really good for ALL people who have ever lived. But when, a couple of years ago, Rob Bell wrote a book called Love Wins that suggested the hope that maybe everyone would benefit from Jesus’ life, John Piper tweeted, “Goodbye, Rob Bell.” So much for Piper’s “Christian Hedonism”… happy to watch the masses burn.

The issue remains vitally important to me, and though it doesn’t seem to be getting much traction, I want to keep talking about it. I am focused on getting these ideas out of the corners of Christianity and into a broader discussion. With brevity, gravity, clarity, levity and all the depravity that comes from being associated with me!

Brevity is the soul of wit

20 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, Personal Observations

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I’ve been reviewing all the stuff I wrote in years past on this blog. It wears me out just to look at all those words. No wonder it never got any traction.

So going forward, I am hoping to put brevity at the front of my short list of objectives.

2nd, my goal is to be grounded in the solid, substantive hopes of the Bible, not a lot of speculative or argumentative areas. I want to be relevant to most Christians.

3rd, my goal is to NOT use religious jargon. Because though I have a faith-based world-view, I think that skeptics and atheists have valid reasons for questioning the Bible and Christianity based on their scientific, moral, and historical observations. I am hoping to have dialogs with lots of different categories of people.

Light-heartedness/humor is my 4th goal. How can I be happy if I’m heavy? More to the point, how can I have a constructive dialog with those I am criticizing (primarily Christians) if I adopt a snarky tone in an effort to please my non-Christian readers?

Personality is my fifth goal. I think it will be far better to present a local,

The elevated vantage point from which I write. (actually, this is the view from Mt. Edgecumbe, about 10 miles from my house. Looking northwest toward it's smaller volcanic brother, Crater Ridge ... and west to Shelikof Bay.

The elevated vantage point from which I write. (actually, this is the view from Mt. Edgecumbe, about 10 miles from my house. Looking northwest toward its smaller volcanic brother, Crater Ridge … and west to Shelikof Bay.

even partisan viewpoint on a timely topic than a timeless, universal observation that takes forever to write, and even longer to read! I’m now willing to risk offending people in order to give this blog a human voice, time, and place.

So that’s my resolution for happygod.me in 2015: brevity, gravity, clarity, levity, and depravity… er, stuff that comes from me.

Benjamin Button – more about death than life

27 Saturday Dec 2008

Posted by in a happy God, eschatology, Hell, love of God, movies, prophecy, religion, Theodicy, universalism

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I took my wife to see the Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Christmas day. We both enjoyed it a great deal.

It’s a love story, and an adventure story. Someone compared it to Forest Gump, but it’s never as emotional as that masterpiece, nor as funny. But it’s got some humor, I’d give it it a thumbs up for the quality of the writing, acting, cinematography, and directorial artistry. And I love the way sunrises over the water are like a character in the film … somehow Benjamin is attracted to them, and watches them regularly by himself, with family members, etc.

As I stated yesterday, what makes me resonate with the movie the most is the way it presents human growth backwards from the norms we see every day…. aging, failing, dying. Here, a person emerges from the womb as from the grave, in decrepitude, and then grows toward youthful vigor. The “youthful” Benjamin writes in his diary at one point (perhaps at 15 biological years, now with the body of perhaps a 60 year old) “Some days I feel different than the day before…” His wrinkles are disappearing, his hair is sprouting “like weeds”, his hormones are catching fire.

Does the Bible really support the idea that such a miracle is possible? That it will happen to the masses of humanity? Yes and Yes!

Jesus himself states the case as emphatically as words can say: “Don’t be amazed…. All in the graves will come forth.” Unfortunately the fog of neo-Platonic concepts like immortal soul and hellfire make it difficult for most Christians to really see what Jesus is saying here. It’s quite simple, though. The ones who enter into a relationship with God during this age, and continue walking in grace and faith, emerge in the resurrection of Life, what Jesus calls the First Resurrection in the book of Revelation. For such, their resurrection is instantaneous, glorious, and in heaven. The entire rest of mankind, who remain in their sins, emerge from the grave still in their sins, but experience a gradual resurrection, through a process of judgment or trial and testing. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul states that God gives each a body as it pleases him. This is tremendously reasuring, because it means that disfigured, disabled, distorted folks in this life can look forward to being whole upon emerging from the grave. Then, their education will begin and it will take most of the Millennium for each person to build the finegrained righteous character that is going to be their birthright and their ticket into everlasting life as a member of the human community.

Isaiah describes the scene in several places, including chapter 35. He defines its scope as “the ransomed of the Lord” (which by the authority of 1 Tim 2:4-6 I claim means “all the human race”). He states that they return (come back). That is, they don’t go to a place they never were before, they come back to where they were before.. planet Earth. They come back joyfully, and yet they have some travelling still to do. Isaiah calls it a highway of holiness. He describes it as a place that you can’t travel if you’re unclean (dirty or sinful) … and yet he says that it exists FOR the unclean. He says that the wayfaring man (Joe Sixpack), though they be but fools, won’t err therein. They will figure out how to navigate that highway to holiness, and with the help God has provided with his powerful Son and his patient Bride they will get to that place of moral excellence, of wisdom, of forgiveness, of victory over doubt and selfishness and fear. I envision the Bride or spiritual government of that age as all the great and saintly Christians of ages past; myriads of powerful spiritual mediators working overtime to help everyone with a cloud of supernatural help and faithbuilding efforts. The result of all this effort is the process of age-reversal that Job described in the verse I quoted yesterday… returning to the days of youth.

Isaiah hints at the remarkable reversal of all that we think about in this new living (un-dying) process. He says in 65:20, “”No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred and the one who does not reach the age of one hundred will be thought accursed.”

What an odd verse! I think the normative experience during the Millennium will be to awaken from the grave near the beginning of the Millennium and live under the authority of Christ and his “Bride”. Joe Sixpack will be living, learning, getting the occasional rebuke but mostly lots of great instruction and encouragement, for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Then comes the end, when Christ turns over the Kingdom to the Father, and there is one last final test, known in the book of Revelation as the “little season” when one more time an evil deceptive intelligence (Satan) is allowed to try and organize opposition to God. This will finally settle who really has love in their heart and really wants to live eternally on the earth…(see Matthew 25:31 to 46)

So I think the Isaiah 65:20 text is saying that since every person can expect the better part of a Millennium to be their minimum opportunity,  anyone who dies at, say, 100 years old in that Messianic Age will be like a child in comparison to the 700, 800, 900-year lifespans that the vast majority will experience. And all those who die before the end of the Millennium would do so only as a final judgment… so after a 100 or so years of the most patient and thorough tough love imaginable, those who are executed will be truly sinners, truly deserving of the curse of death. They’ll be the few, the occasional incorrigible folks who simply refuse to buckle down to the righteous authority of the Lamb and his Bride. They will be recognized as accursed sinners by their fellow men.

The Button story isn’t remotely about any of these things. It explores the challenges and unique tragedies that would face a man whose 70 years of experiencing the hereditary fall of man if his growth pattern were reversed. So in the end his life is still a process of dying, not a real life as the Bible envisions it for all people in the future.

It’s tough for us to shake the perception that this life is LIFE. It ain’t folks. It’s death. Cradle to grave, dying we die. That’s why Jesus said weird things like “let the dead bury the dead.” Even the people he resurrected remained firmly dead … that is, dead in trespasses and sins, not released from the condemnation upon all who get their life from Adam.

Those who receive new life from Christ are indeed alive, however. Christians in this age are truly set free from death, and though their outer man appears to die, inwardly they are being renewed with an inner spiritual life that is the spark of an immortal, spiritual existence beyond the grave.

But those who do not receive Christ in this life remain in their sins, and will have to be dealt with in the next age. And of course, that’s where I differ from the main stream of the Christian community… in seeing a second age of grace for all the rest of mankind.

So enjoy a good love story… but also try to put your mind around the incredible love story of a happy God for ALL the human race. Not one that falls flat because most folks don’t respond… [SPOILER ALERT] not one in which the leading lady gets old and dies, and the leading man gets young and dies … but a love story that is reasonable, fair, and yet results in everyone who wants to living happily ever after!

Back with a vengeance

14 Sunday Dec 2008

Posted by in a happy God

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Man, have I missed blogging. Not that anyone noticed I was gone. But I still don’t feel whole when I can’t speak into the silence, and keep hoping for someone to hear something that is useful to them.

There are so many things that have flowed by … the campaign, the election, the financial meltdown. I am convinced the fingerprints of a happy God are all over those pivotal events.