Category Archives: salvation

Redemption through Sacrifice

13 Tuesday Jan 2009

Posted by in movies, salvation

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It seems like redemption through sacrifice is a major theme in the movies right now.

Seven Pounds took this theme to the limits of credulity, but I loved the movie. I’ll wait another month until most folks have likely seen it before I discuss the plot in detail.

Last night on my birthday I saw  Gran Torino, which also features a leading character who is willing to put his ife on the line in order to protect his loved ones. Again, I don’t want to spoil the part so I won’t get into the plot details.

In both cases you have an unlikely hero — one is an IRS agent who likes to throw his weight around; the other is a grumbling, sneering, unhappy old man who hurls racial epithets to his neighbors and makes himself unbearable to his children and grandchildren.

In both cases, the heroes struggle with whether they should lay down their lives for another person. In other words, the question that life confronts them with is: if you want to help someone and the best way for you to do that risks the loss of your own life, what would you do?

Both movies also include guilt as a major plot element, and both heroes seem driven by personal guilt over their past sins to redeem themselves while they are trying to save others.

Seeing the lives of just one savior and maybe 10 beneficiaries of his efforts on their behalf reveals the immense task before anyone who would lay claim to the title, “savior of the world”. Ultimately our romantic, poetic notions break down under the weight of a burden that is too great to bear.

It’s amazing how much the Bible says about this point. In Psalm 49:7, the  lesson is that “no one can redeem his brother.” Perhaps Moses penned this one, spurred by the terrible events of the sons of Korah … and he states that people should stop kidding themselves into thinking they can interfere with the death sentence they are under:

“For the redemption of his soul is costly,
And he should cease trying forever—
9 That he should live on eternally,
That he should not undergo decay.

Redemption is costly… and no one can make up for either his own fatal flaws or those of his loved ones. In a passage where Paul urges us to carry other people’s troubles as much as we can, the apostle still reminds us that ultimately we have to carry the final weight of our responsibility alone. (See Galatians 6, especially the first 5 verses)

Job takes up the question in Job 33

Elihu, himself a messianic figure in the conversation, describes the role of the deliverer as one who has a righteousness of his own, which qualifies him to be a true messenger from God, and a go-between or mediator in the negotiation. And what is the burden of this messenger’s words? To show unto man His (God’s and the messenger’s) righteousness. When we see that God is righteous and we are sinners, we are ready for God to be gracious to us, and apply the benefits of salvation personally on our behalf:

If there be a messenger with him, a mediator, one among a thousand,
to show to man His uprightness:
Then He is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.

This teaching is reinforced in the New Testament in many places, including Romans 8:19ff where Paul states that the whole creation waits longingly for the revealing of God’s children… a time which ushers in a worldwide redemption. (see an interesting theological treatise on this passage here).

Perhaps the most thorough discussion on this issue in scripture is Romans 5, where Paul talks about the willingness of a few to die for another: a woman for her child, a soldier for his trenchmates, etc.

6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Notice that Paul’s position is that as humans we are helpless. We really can’t save ourselves, much less each other. Dying for a neighbor, while noble and admirable in every way, is only salvation in a poetic way. The end result is still one person living on a little while longer under “the wrath”, while another succumbs under “the wrath” — the global human curse since the beginning of human history.

Only the entirely external redemptive process initiated by God and carried upon the cross of Christ can actually redeem or buy back a human soul from the curses of his fallen and incomplete existence.

It’s refreshing and heartwarming to see great actors mirror this human struggle, and inspire us to do the most we can and the best we can to meet the needs of others. What I get from the Bible, though, is that realistically no one can do diddly squat in the final analysis. If there is no hope in Christ, we who hope in human redemption are of all men most miserable, because we accept the grim reality that no other hope or bootstrap efforts can possibly avail.

Benjamin Button Biblical?

25 Thursday Dec 2008

Posted by in eschatology, movies, salvation, Theodicy

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I’m excited to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I may even go see it tomorrow.

It’s a love story in which Brad Pitt plays a freak of nature who is born as an old man and lives his standard, finite life in reverse… starting out with an aged body but immature mind, and then progressing through a 70+ year lifetime until he has the mind of an old man in the body of a baby. Somewhere in the middle, he crosses paths with Daisy, played by Kate Blanchett as the love of his life, whose progress follows the normal trajectory of mind and body maturing together.

Interesting dramatic twist… and some of my favorite actors apparently do a terrific job of breathing life into the proposition.

What interests me most, however, is the on-screen depiction of a biblical idea. It is actually verbalized in the book of Job. There the character of Elihu, a young messianic prophet, paints a word picture of redemption in which “his flesh shall become fresher than a child’s; he shall return to the days of his youth.” (Job 33, verse 25) Clearly he’s not referring to religious conversion in most cases… becoming a Christian doesn’t normally equate to a “fountain of youth” experience.

Bear in mind that I am convinced all people who miss out on the opportunity for Christian discipleship during the current age will enjoy a universal, practically fail-safe opportunity for full redemption in the next age.  True Christian disciples, in my view, have most often been persecuted or ignored in their churches or other communities…. unpopular with the worldly but also hated by the “religious” who run most sectarian institutions. So while the perhaps 5 or 10 percent of folks who have truly followed Jesus’ footsteps as authentic believers during the last couple of millennia have experienced a redemption, it has been quite inward and almost undetectable to those around them.

Not so the coming redemption for everyone else. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and indeed all the prophets describe exactly the sort of thing that Benjamin Button experiences, physically speaking. Health. Youthfulness. Happiness. Houses. Food. Peter called it “times of restitution” or restoration of all things. (Acts 3:19-21) All things… including health, life, hope, happiness, and a planet that is in tune with its residents.

But unlike Benjamin, life will not be limited to 70 years or fewer, as most people have experienced it. In the Biblical depiction of world salvation, all people will emerge from the graves with the advantage of previous experience. Their decades of living with love  as well as hate will give them a start on the curve of moral development. And they’ll all be walking and working and learning together…. whole genrations at a time. For a thousand years, people will have the experience of being reunited with family, old friends and old enemies, apologizing for past sins, being exonerated for past mistreatments, and coming to grips with what it means to be actualized as a free but obedient, loving, honest, good person in community with the rest of the world. And when the thousand years is past, in the words of Amazing Grace, eternity will have just begun.

Pretty dramatic, don’t you think? GIs coming back to the love of their lives, perhaps to meet the child they never met… And the curses which shorten life, which frustrate all of us, will be gone. The benefits will be especially noticeable to the poor of the world of the present age.

I could give you Bible verses for just about every claim, every phrase …. but it’s too laborious right now… gotta run.

After I see the film I’ll review it and let you know whether it lives up to my expectations.

Merry Christmas!

Q: What about Violence and Lust in the OT?

09 Wednesday Jul 2008

Posted by in a happy God, Bible Questions, eschatology, love of God, prophecy, salvation, Theodicy, universalism

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Eyoel writes:

But I really need your brotherly help this time…

This week, I’m going to debate a [person who does not accept Jesus as the Son but does believe other sacred texts which I do not believe are true]. I have seen [friends like him] pick the violent verses of the Old Testament (and Moses), and ‘lustful’ parts from it, mainly from the chapter Songs.

I can readily answer any question raised from the NT, even some from the OT. But..I have a huge problem with the things I mentioned above.

How can one understand the ‘violence and lust’ mentioned in the Old testament? I don’t want to look like a fool in front of him, and my desire is to try my best to bring him to Christianity.

Hi, Eyoel,

God did tell the Jews to remove specific groups of people from the Land he gave to them. He made it clear that it was His land, and they were to not have anything to do with the people who were already there — the Amorites, Phillistines, Amalekites, etc. He made it clear that they were judicially executing them for His own reasons, but we can think of a few reasons why God would give these orders:

1. God gave the land to Abraham and his seed of promise, Isaac.

2. These people were “polluting” the land itself with their idolatry, their sexual sins, their diseases and their own vicious ways.

3. If the Jews left the people there, in the nature of things they would have ended up (and indeed did to a large degree) copying their religion and their sexual sins, and pick up their diseases of body and soul.

4. God wanted to teach lessons that would create a vivid picture of his determination to have purity and His righteous standards in force in human society in the future.

5. God wanted to create a record of battles, conflicts, and both victories and defeats that would serve as spiritual lessons or “types” to the true spiritual people of God who he planned would come along later.

6. God wanted to forge the Jews into a tight nation, very tribal and very genetically separate, who would be able to survive for the 2000 years that God knew they would be scattered among mystic Babylon, before it was time to regather them again onto their own land. The promises of their resurrection as a people are now being fulfilled. Though even many “Christians” hate the Jews and can’t forgive them for their mistakes as a nation, God does not see it that way. He loves them and has already begun to restore them.

7. God also loved even the enemies of the Jews, and knew that since all people are born dying — as good as dead — they really are learning lessons too … and will be resurrected and restored in Christ’s kingdom. There are specific promises of land for the Arabs, the children of Lot (Moabites) … even the Egyptians and Assyrians in the future. All will be restored, including the enemies of Israel and their kindred tribes, Sodom and Gomorrah. (see Ezekiel 16)

By contrast, the other religions you are dealing with do not provide an everlasting hope of peace and brotherhood among those who it considers enemies. Those sacred writings seem suspect to many who have looked for authentication, because the “original” manuscripts are lost, and the “messages” came through one man whose story is questionable when put to a variety of reasonable tests.

The Bible is verifiable in every detail, and has been supported by the fossil record of the order of creation, and thousands of archeological findings.

***

As far as the lust part, the Bible is very clear about the limits and guidelines for human love. To the extent that the Song of Songs is a picture of human marriage, it is a vivid description of the kind of love that rightfully and purely exists between a man and his wife…. and in the song their love is not consummated yet because the marriage has not occurred.

But the Song of Songs is much deeper than that. It is also a spiritual account of the love that exists between the King of Kings and his chosen wife, a “black but comely” woman who he sought and claimed as his bride, in spite of her lack of royal bloodlines. It is a picture of Christ and the Church, and it describes the stages of her transformation by God’s grace.

It also discusses her “little sister who has no breasts” – a picture of what Psalms 45:14 refers to as “the virgins her companions who follow her” — the less developed, less fruitful category of Christians who grow up with those Christians who are most faithful and desirable to the Heavenly bridegroom. (no denominational connections here — it’s an individual character-evaluation only God can make). Compare this to Jesus’ story of two groups of virgins — pure and loyal followers — who are distinguished by fruitage in their lives — some wise, some foolish; some with oil of light in their cups, some caught in the nighttime without it. Matt. 25:1-13 Or compare it to the salvation promised to both those who build their lives with “gold, silver and precious stones” and those whose life is merely “wood, hay and stubble” — 1 Cor. 3. Both groups are saved by God’s grace, but one group gains a reward, and the other experiences trouble which humbles and purifies them in the end.

In the Song a question is raised about the Shunamite’s little sister, and the answer is given: (paraphrasing) “She will be examined to see if she is a door or a wall” — a sexually active (spiritually speaking) person or a virgin (spiritually speaking) — that is, faithful in mind and heart or having sold out to the world system and its various idolatries, as many scriptures in both the old and new testaments describe. If she is a door (no longer a virgin), she is boxed in with cedar planks — a coffin — emblematic of eternal death. If she is a wall, and has not lost her spiritual virginity, she is used to build a palace of silver . Silver is the metal used to describe the class of people mentioned in Revelation 7 and other places as a secondary group of saved Christians. Primary group, in the throne and joint heirs with Christ; secondary group, serving in front of the throne. Gold is used to describe the purest, most faithful group of saved Christians. (see Psalm 45:13ff)
See Song of Solomon 8:9

I might suggest asking the person who gives credit to different “sacred texts” where his God promises life for all men (Isaiah 25:8); or restoration for even the enemies of his people (Isaiah 19:23-25)

God has promised through all his holy prophets to restore everything, including the earth, life, and fellowship with God for all people: Acts 3:19-21

This of course harmonizes with the character of God as taught to us by Jesus: he loves his enemies, and his anger toward them is but for a moment, but his mercy endures forever. Psalm 100:5

The question is, does the anger of other traditions’ God only last for a moment? Does his mercy toward all last forever?

Once again, the way I see it, God is happy because he has a plan in place that will restore everyone, including his enemies, and give them a full opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Grace be to you…

Terrifically Salvific

01 Tuesday Nov 2005

Posted by in Calvinism, christianity, love of God, prophecy, salvation, Theodicy, universalism

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The shallowness of evangelicalism leaves it largely inequipped to deal with the difficult issues. If we are to be a people that brings hope to the hopeless, purpose to the purposeless and joy to those who know only sorrow, we must be prepared to give answers that are biblically-based and Scripturally-satisfying. To do this we must wrestle with the difficult doctrines of sin, love, sorrow and suffering. We must be prepared not only to give an answer for the hope that lives within us, but for the suffering that causes us to draw upon that hope and to take our refuge in Christ Jesus, the One whose death gives us hope for now and for eternity.

These words by Tim Challies certainly resonate with me. I also appreciate his statement, “I find much beauty in traditional Protestantism, but realize that in some areas traditions are not Scriptural. Where that is the case I am open to change and improvement.” 

Though we are in very different places in the Protestant tradition, I certainly identify with his words above.

I think that more and more Christians, no matter what their denominational affiliation, will be drawn by the power of the terrifically salvific message of the Bible. They will realize that mainstream Christianity has been too judgmental of the sins of the unbelieving world, while too lenient in evaluating and correcting its own sins.

Here are a dozen or so questions that I believe explore how salvific the work of Christ will yet be — so terrifically salvific that it will reach all people — bringing the Christians who responded in this life to heaven, and then restoring the rest of the world through a judgment or probationary process to life on earth…

  1. God says it is his will for all to be saved, and that he performs all his good pleasure. Who can stop God from accomplishing this “will”? Can Satan stop him? Can human “willfulness” or “hardness of heart” stop God from causing the redemption of Christ from reaching everyone? (see my post from yesterday on this)
  2. Jesus said God could do more to teach Sodom and the other cities of ancient Israel. He said, if the mighty works done in Capernaum were done in Sodom, they would have repented. Evidently God could have done more for them, but chose not to at that time.
  3. God says during Christ’s reign he will bind Satan, keeping him from deceiving the nations until the “little season” at the end of the millennium. If God can do that, and now is the only time for man’s salvation, why doesn’t God bind Satan now and keep him from deceiving people?
  4. Ezekiel 16 says that God will indeed restore Sodom along with the nation of Israel, and forgive them, etc. If God is going to forgive Sodom and “restore” them — and Sodom was set forth as an example of what it means to suffer the “vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7), then can there be any doubt that eternal fire does not mean everlasting torment, but rather the annihilation or death of the wicked?
  5. God tells believers that they should continue to dwell with unbelievers as long as they are willing, in the hope that eventually the unbelievers would respond to their righteous character and be saved. Is God any less committed to trying to recover unbelievers than he instructs his children to be?
  6. God tells believers to love their enemies. This love is sacrificial and redemptive. Does God ask his people to stop thinking that way the moment their enemy dies? After that point, is it godlike to stop one’s ears to any future appeals, cries of help, or expressions of repentance by an enemy?
  7. 1 Corinthians 15 states that God will swallow up death in victory through the resurrection. Does anything in this chapter state that the resurrection only benefits those who were followers of Jesus in this life?
  8. Doesn’t it speak of the followers of Jesus as part of the “first resurrection”? Who, then, are part of subsequent resurrections? Would it not be the same “all” who died in Adam?
  9. Jeremiah speaks of God as changing the stony selfish hearts of man into responsive, teachable hearts of flesh. Is this a power and intention of God that ends when people pass into death?
  10. Romans 8 states that the whole creation groans, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Does this imply that they will stop groaning when the sons of God are revealed, or that they will continue groaning in agony forever, since they were not part of the “sons of God” class at their death.?
  11. Romans 11 states that God loves Israel in spite of their sins, because of their fathers. Will God forget this loyalty and commitment to the fathers, and instead send all unbelieving Jews into eternal death or even worse, eternal conscious punishment? If so, then why does it say, “all Israel shall be saved”?
  12. Jesus said that his followers would do even greater works than he would. He speaks of raising all the dead who have ever lived, etc. When does this promise have its fulfillment? Are the ‘greater works’ things that have already been happening on earth during the Christian era, or are they some events we have never really seen yet?
  13. Peter speaks of “times of restitution of all things”. What does restitution mean? What was lost by mankind, and what is promised by all the prophets to be restored?

Atrocities from Absurdities

01 Tuesday Nov 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Hell, love of God, salvation, Theodicy, universalism

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“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”

“Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once.”

Voltaire

It’s almost like a joke, for a Christian like me to use Voltaire to correct other Christians who I consider to be believing absurdities. But this is what I am doing. Bright and godly men are telling the world that eternal hell awaits everyone who does not receive Christ as their savior before “this life” is over. If the only thing in the Bible were messages which seemed to teach this idea, I would leave it alone. But the Bible is equally strong, indeed much stronger, in saying that God is merciful and loving and has planned the redemption of all people. The bright and godly men whose works are listed on the above site are consistently willing to attack and degrade anyone who presumes to draw hope from the loving and optimistic promises of scripture.

At times like this, a Christian needs to learn from a good atheist, like Voltaire. (Or was he a deist? — see Thomas S. Vernon) We need to speak to our Christian brothers who still believe in the notion of eternal hell, with all its absurdities, with the divine balm of toleration.

This is all the more important to me as I discover from Howard Dorgan that often the Calvinists of today turn on a dime and become the Universalists of tomorrow. In his book In the hands of a Happy God: the “No-Hellers” of Central Appalachia, Dorgan points out that the Baptist leaders who adopted a “salvation for all” belief did so by clinging to the concept of predestination, and simply allowing for the idea that God chose to save all rather than some.

Now, I’m not a Universalist. But I think the golden key that unlocks the Bible is this: that Christ died in exchange for Adam. What man lost by Adam’s sin, through heredity, Christ restored. The children of Adam lost a relationship with God, and the opportunity to truly choose for themselves how they would live, before they were born. They were born dead, so to speak, “without God and without hope in the world”, as Paul puts it. What Jesus provided was a voluntary “righteous act” that offset the single act of disobedience of Adam.

This is reciprocity at its simplest. One man sins, and dies. Another man does a noble sacrificial good deed, choosing to pay the penalty of that first man’s sin, thus releasing the first man and making a second chance possible for him.

And this act of free grace also benefits the children of the first man, by giving to them something they never had: a first chance to be sinless, in a garden paradise, where they could decide whether to obey God or not.

That is what Jesus brings by his act of reciprocity.

And it frees Christian believers from the absurdity of administering Eternal Torment for folks who under God’s sovereign arrangement simply do what they are inclined to do by virtue of their heredity and environment.

I’ve been traveling but when I return I hope to write about some of the atrocities that the above absurdities have generated.

Grand Fatherhood

18 Tuesday Oct 2005

Posted by in eschatology, fatherhood, Hell, John Piper, love of God, salvation, Theodicy, universalism

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First things first. My first daughter had her first baby, my first grandchild, my first male descendant, and his initials are… A.D. It has been a really good year in the Lord, and Adrian is just one of the many reasons. Fatherhood is better than ever, starting with the first day of the year, when my fourth daughter was baptized. Now all of my kids have turned the key to their heart over to the Heavenly Father. They have all received Christ as their Lord and Savior, and all of them are, from my biased perspective, making a positive impact on a lot of people. What I love most about my kids is that they are both humble and independent, both gentle and emphatic, or as Hugh Ross put it in his outstanding book, A Matter of Days, both tolerant and discerning.

Which brings me to the issue of Fatherhood.

As I was waiting for the baby to come last night I was reading Desiring God by John Piper. (he has a nice tribute to his own father at http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/05/061905.html )

As I read John Piper’s words, I can’t help but see a warm and loving man, who delights to do the Heavenly Father’s will, enjoys the manifold grace of God to all believers in this life, and eagerly anticipates the glory and endless joys of an eternity that is promised to all believers. I share those God-directed hopes in my own walk with God, too.

But I think there is an aspect to God’s loving character that is being overlooked by Pastor Piper: he defines the goal of God as being the maximization of his own praise and honor. I don’t think so. I agree that God is honorable, praiseworthy, and deserving of all praise. I agree that he is sovereign and works all things according to his own plans and will, and I agree that what he says, he will do. He will not be disappointed or frustrated.

But God is love, and love means a commitment to give of oneself in every area for the good of another. God saw the world he had created, and whom he had allowed to become enslaved by that sin, and whom he had placed under judicial restraint, a curse of “dying though shalt die.” That is the anger and wrath of God, and it will not last forever.

Piper quotes Ephesians 1:5-6: {God] predestined us in love to be his sons . . . to the praise of the glory of his grace.” And his emphasis is on the fact that God will get praise and glory as a result of his grace toward his sons. I get a different emphasis from this. In Ephesians 1:10 the apostle goes on to say that there will be one family, in heaven and earth, and it will all be in God’s name — that is, God’s character. There are sons now, and I’m happy that this makes me the brother of a John Piper, even if for now we don’t agree on what God’s goals are.

The reason why God is working at this project is so that he will have a family — not a group of people who automatically do what he says, and praise him no matter how many people seem to be going, going, gone, lost forever without hope, without God. Because in John Piper’s, Jonathan Edwards’, John MacArthur’s view of the world, many more people are lost than are saved. That’s OK with them because they trust God knows what he is doing, and they’re convinced that is the way God says it will be. I read the Bible differently, and I see God saying he’s going to save EVERY soul from Adamic condemnation, and bring them to an accurate knowledge of the Truth – Christ.

According to Paul in Ephesians 1, God is the Father, the originator. We are sons, and brothers to each other. And when we see other brothers who are perishing, succumbing to sin, terribly beset by seemingly random acts of violence, what father could fault us for going to him and saying, “Dad, this brother or potential brother of ours just got hurt. This one just died. What can we do about this? What are you going to do about this?”

I could look at the 14-year-old Palestinian who recently told Israeli police that he was told to blow himself up or his fellows would kill him. And I say, “His friend who blew himself up last week — a Palestinian who does not know Jesus, does not know the God of Abraham — where is he now? How has God’s love and plan affected him?” And I turn to God’s word for answers, and I am very happy with the answers I read there. And I can see why God is happy, God is OK with the trouble in the world, because he really does have a plan in place that will deal effectually and wonderfully with that one boy, or the millions that died in the Iran/Iraq war, or the earthquake in Pakistan or Katrina or whatever the disaster-du-jour might be.

So, punch-drunk as all sensitive people are by the trouble and disaster in the world, it’s great to be able to turn to Ephesians 1, 2, and 3 and be told there is indeed a family under development, a very very large family, of both people and spirit beings, in heaven and earth, who will all, from top to bottom, consider God their Father, and actually obey his principles, and actually have his character. (his Name). (Ephesians 3:15). Character is everything. Bad character is why the world is such a mess. To contemplate a world where every single person has learned the hard way, through experience, what is good, and has chosen to, with God’s help, do what is good … well that almost seems to good to be true. If I didn’t read emphatic statements in a trustworthy source that this indeed will happen, I would think it was impossible. As a father who worked hard to develop good character in his children, I’m really happy to believe that God has planned from the beginning how to impart good character to all the people who are willing to learn it — a character of love, unselfishness, willingness to serve others even when it is painful, willingness to delay gratification, and to be merciful — to go as far as is possible, be as gracious as possible, to reclaim, correct, recover an erring soul.

This is what God is doing, setting us all an example of grace, humility, patience, kindness even to the arrogant and unholy.

God is a father, and as I become a grandfather, I see more clearly that the goal of a father is to bless his children, to see them grow and respond and learn what he knows is best. The role of a grandfather is to watch his children provide the discipline and correction, so that he can provide the fun and the candy. That’s how I see God working, through Christ, to bless the world. Praise in the end will not only be spontaneous, it will be universal, because all who are alive will delight to give God all the praise for his great plan of grace and salvation.