Tag Archives: love of God

Grandfather’s role

11 Friday Nov 2005

Posted by in a happy God, eschatology

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Yesterday I got to do two things that are part of Grandfather’s role, as I am discovering it. The first is fixing up the family’s house. Yesterday, it was a frustrating little plumbing leak. Also, looking into a refrigerator problem. And getting to hold the baby and help with its bath.

Guess what. These are fun things for a grandpa to do.

And for me they are insights into what God has in mind for the future. First he has to bring all those people, who had the potential of being his sons, back from the grave. He has to teach them his ways as he has promised he will do. If we think of Jesus and has bride as the first generation of God’s children, the spiritual generation, the fruitage of the rule of Messiah who gain their life from the Second Adam and the Second Eve will be…. God’s grandchildren.

Jesus and the church will have the heavy job, all the diapering and disciplining of those masses of mankind. But God will be enjoying the role of Grandfather, it seems to me. He’ll do special things to make their home better after so many years of being a shambles. He’ll anticipate the needs of all these children, and look for ways to show them grace and glory.

Looking forward — past the current Federal Reserve woes and debt troubles and energy fears — makes me happy, and it helps me to see why God is happy. Everything is under control and moving according to plan.

A father’s joy in a child’s home

03 Thursday Nov 2005

Posted by in a happy God, love of God, prophecy

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I’ve been discovering that one of the pleasures of fatherhood is watching to see what your children will do for their own home. Where will they settle? What kind of home will they choose? How will they furnish it?

Traveling anywhere with our family has always involved a running commentary about the houses we pass. “There’s a nice house!” “I hate that house.” “Cute house — lousy location.”

What’s emerging as great fun for me is to help the kids move, do little things to help them adapt the house to their needs, give them meaningful mementos to furnish or decorate their home as they see fit; and above all, join them for the creation of memories in their new abode.

It’s also fun for a father to notice the values which guide their children’s decisions. When I see my kids wait a bit longer to buy, or opt for a smaller, less extravant house than they can afford, or use the home to share guest quarters with friends and strangers … it fills me with the pleasure of kindred sentiments. “They’ve learned to be frugal, patient, and cautious.” “They’ve discovered what it means to entertain angels unawares”. When I see them excited about the proximity of a park, or a great climbing tree in the yard, it shows me they are valuing nature, and thinking of the enjoyment of the people who will share that lace with them.

Surely these are the kinds of thoughts God, the Father, entertains, as he enters into the joys of his children. So far, my children’s choices have been quite evidently guided by the Heavenly Father, as my kids and their spouses looked carefully, waited patiently, and sought God’s leading in prayer. By committing their way to His guidance, they entered into their eventual commitments with the full assurance that God was pleased, and had provided. Still, the choice was their’s — honored by God but not dictated by Him.

Looking forward, I can see another important reason why God is a happy God. At present, the housing arrangements of the vast majority of mankind are woefully inadequate. But God knows his plans, and knows that as surely as He is God, the time will come when all people will enjoy his handiwork. And they will augment it with handiwork of their own. “They will build houses, and dwell in them. They will not build and another inhabit; they will not plant, and another eat…. Before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”

Abraham Lincoln’s problem with orthodoxy

01 Tuesday Nov 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Calvinism, eschatology, love of God, orthodoxy, prophecy, religion and politics

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I’ve been a Civil War buff for years, and a Lincoln buff. I’ve never read anything that would indicate what my evangelical brothers would call “saving faith” in Lincoln’s life. A few who knew Lincoln claimed him to have such faith. Some of Lincoln’s own words are laced with religious language. His mission in life was certainly, on balance, a moral mission. But as the above article documents (though with evident bias), Lincoln could not find in orthodoxy a creed that he could subscribe to without reservation. For example, the above article (lifted directly from a 1936 book by Franklin Steiner called Religious Beliefs of our Presidents, quotes Curtis:

“Abraham Lincoln’s belief was clear and fixed so far as it went, but he rejected important dogmas which are essential to salvation by some of the evangelical denominations. ‘Whenever any Church will inscribe over its altar as a qualification for membership the Saviour’s statement of the substance of the law and the gospel, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,” that Church will I join with all my heart and soul.'” (Abraham Lincoln, p. 375.) 

Like me, Lincoln was troubled by the inability of orthodoxy to provide a reasonable explanation for all the misery in the world, or for the redress of wrongs that are obvious on all sides in human history. It troubled Lincoln that, on the one hand, orthodoxy teaches that a man can escape all consequences of a lifetime of debauchery or exploitation, simply by saying a few words on his deathbed. Steiner documents that Lincoln was equally troubled by the orthodox concept that a person who, like Lincoln himself, finds the traditional church’s formula for salvation inconsistent, or unconvincing, will be remanded to an eternity of torment as a result.

For example, Steiner quotes William Seward’s recollection of a time when Lincoln read a newspaper clipping to make a joke in one of their meetings:

“I recall President Lincoln’s story of the intrusion of the Universalists into the town of Springfield.
“The several orthodox Churches agreed that their pastors should preach down the heresy. One of them began his discourse with these emphatic words: ‘My brethren, there is a dangerous doctrine creeping in among us. There are those who are teaching that all men will be saved; but, my dear brethren, we hope for better things.” (Travels Around the World, p. 545.) 

No question about it, there just seems to be an aversion to any success on God’s part in doing what God has stated to be his will: the salvation of all people. (1 Timothy 2:4)

The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry argues on this text that God only wishes or desires men to be saved, but that man’s choices will trump God’s preferences; and they present the idea that the only opportunity to avail oneself of the sacrifice of Christ is in this life. According to them, once you die, it’s too late.

They say:

Does this verse prove that God will save all people? No, it simply states that God “will have all men to be saved.” The word “will” in Greek is “thelo.” It means “will” (1 Cor. 7:36), or “desire” (Mark 9:35; Phil. 4:16). God desires that all people be saved. But, not all people will be saved. 

I need to respectifully disagree here. Let’s talk about “thelo” first. This is what the Blue Letter Bible lexicon says (Strong’s #2309):

1) to will, have in mind, intend

a) to be resolved or determined, to purpose

b) to desire, to wish

c) to love

1) to like to do a thing, be fond of doing

d) to take delight in, have pleasure

The word count in the KJV for the use of thelo is as follows: will/would 159, will/would have 16, desire 13, desirous 3, list 3, to will 2, misc 4; 210

So, out of 210 occurrences of this word, the vast majority are translated “will”, meaning, most commonly, to will, have in mind, intend; to be resolved or determined, to purpose.

Now, if this were a man we were talking about, I don’t suppose it would make much difference whether we said “will” or “wish”, “desire” or “intend”. But this is God we are talking about. This verse is saying that God purposes, or intends, or if you prefer, takes delight in, the idea that “all men be saved.”

Those who ascribe to God greatness, sovereignty, all power, etc. can’t have it both ways. Either he has the power to do what he wills or purposes to do, or he does not. To those who read the Bible and take it as God’s word, there is a real challenge here. God states that he will accomplish all he says (Isaiah 55:11); that he will do all he intends, indeed, all he pleases.

In fact, an excellent source for just how much God claims the power to accomplish what he intends, is the Calvinist listing of God’s sovereignty at mslick.com

I readily concede that many verses also indicate that in the end, there will be unrepentant sinners who will not be saved eternally, that is, will not gain everlasting life. But I think there is a much better way to understand the 1 Tim 2:4-6 verse and many others. The key is in looking more closely at what is meant most often by the term “saved” or “salvation”.

In mainstream Christian teaching, when it says “saved”, it is assumed to mean “given eternal life irrevocably”. I don’t agree that this is what is meant by most scriptures on the topic. For example, the 1 Tim. 2:4-6 verse introduces an apositive phrase that restates the meaning in different words. It says, “to come to an accurate knowledge of the truth.”

I believe that is the solution to the problem. God has willed or intended, purposed since the beginning of time, that mankind will be saved and come to an accurate personal knowledge of the truth. Salvation is not, in this limited sense, a guarantee of eternal life, but rather a guarantee of release from “the fall” and “original sin” as a Calvinist would put it. In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. In Christ, we are restored all. All. A-L-L. Jesus Christ tasted death for every man. All people will experience this “good tidings of great joy.” The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces. The ransomed of the Lord will return, the stumbling blocks will be removed, the highway will be a wide, easy road of holiness, which the unclean shall not pass over, but it is FOR the UNCLEAN. The wayfaring, man, though a fool, (though an unbeliever or atheist or backslid Christian or worldly Christian or unregenerate Christian or violent, nasty quasi-Christian, or Nazi or Moslem or Buddhist or Satanist in previous times) will not err therein.

Now, once the people learn God’s ways, learn to speak the language of God’s grace, come to bow their knee to Christ and acknowledge God’s glory, then there will still be a test, as Jesus describes in Matthew 25 and Revelation 20. It is not a foregone conclusion that all those who know the truth, and have the ability to obey the truth, will indeed pursue and love the truth. Some will choose to forget God, and they will be returned to sheol — oblivion. (The Psalm 9:17 text just cited clearly refers to people who come to an accurate knowledge of the truth, and then turn away from that knowledge. You can’t forget unless you have already known.) Only this time, the 2nd death, will be permanent. No resurrection.

There is so much more. Another day to explore it some more.

But in summary, I am happy, and I believe God is happy, because there is a plan in place that is sensitive and generous in spirit, as Lincoln was. It is a plan that includes the likes of Lincoln, who did not apparently arrive at a conviction that Jesus was his savior, but who did hope that God is good. As Steiner put it:

An old edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica says: “His [Lincoln’s] nature was deeply religious, but he belonged to no denomination; he had faith in the eternal justice and boundless mercy of Providence; and made the Golden Rule of Christ his practical creed.” The 14th edition of this great Encyclopædia speaks more precisely: “The measure of his difference from most of the men who surrounded him is best gauged by his attitude toward the fundamentals of religion. For all his devotion to his cause he did not allow himself to believe that he knew the mind of God with regard to it. He was never so much the mystic as in his later days and never so far removed from the dogmatist. Here was the final flowering of that mood which appears to have lain at the back of his mind from the beginning — his complete conviction of a reality of a supernatural world joined with a belief that it was too deep for man to fathom. His refusal to accept the ‘complicated’ statement of doctrines which he rejected, carried with it a refusal to predicate the purpose of the Almighty. 

 

Yet more wrath?

20 Thursday Oct 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Calvinism, eschatology, Hell, John MacArthur, John Piper, love of God, orthodoxy, Theodicy

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I love the premise of “Desiring God” — that our chief end is to delight in God, enjoying Him forever. It can and should be “all joy” to know, and be loved by, the great and good God of the Universe. But when John Piper gets to describing what God is doing, and how the heavenly Father is treating the people he created, I see a disturbing picture that fails to find a balanced vantage point, an internally consistent understanding of God that harmonizes all that the Bible says about His attributes of love and justice. Let’s start with the first of brother Piper’s statements about God’s “final” wrath — that it is “eternal — having no end.” He leads with the following statement in support of his proposition:

In Daniel 12:2 God promises that the day is coming when “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” 

Let’s look at Daniel for a minute to see what he is arguing. In verse 1 he talks about the beginning of Messiah’s rule, when it starts to make an impact on the world scene. And he talks about 2 resurrections: those who awake to olam life, and those who awake to olam contempt.
Now, there is no question that olam, a Hebrew word for indefinite time, can and often does mean “everlasting”. There is also no question that the life of the righteous who are awakened at the beginning of Messiah’s rule do indeed live beyond the age of Messiah, into the unlimited future — everlastingly. I would argue, however, that the contempt referred to here is limited by other scriptures to the age of Messiah — the “judgment day”. As such, this scripture is focusing on the experience of 2 classes of people who are awakened and dealt with by God during the day of the Lord: those who were already proven righteous beforehand, and those who arrive without having done “the good deeds”, as John 5 describes it. For them, the age of Messiah will be an age in which abhorring or contempt will be their experience.

Take a look, for example, at another use of olam with regard to God’s wrath: Isaiah 57:16. There God says that he will not be always angry. How long is he angry? a long and indefinite period of time (olam in the sense it is apparently being used in Daniel 12:2); but not FOREVER (olam in the sense it is apparently being used in Isaiah 57:16). How long will he be angry and exert pressure on the sinners? Apparently, until the heart becomes contrite, and humility appears. Until that time, there will be no rest for the wicked. Or as the Psalm I quoted yesterday puts it, “call his wickedness to account till you find none.” (I think a number of passages make it clear that God has set aside one day of 1000 years to do all this — it won’t go on longer than that.) At the end, there will still be some who are incorrigible in their wickedness, as Revelation 20 makes clear. Their fate? Revelation 20 calls it the “second death”. The next verse here in the Psalms states, “the strangers are perished out of his land.” He will judge the fatherless and the oppressed, so that the man of the earth may no more oppress. (Psalm 10:18) He is trying to teach as many as become willing to learn. Those who refuse after God’s amazing grace has attempted with sweetness and fury to reach them, will perish — vanish, die, be exterminated according to Strong’s.

The problem God has with sinners is their sin. His hand is not shortened, it can save. But God is working with people in a way that is respectful of the condition he created them with — free moral agency. Unlike Satan, who dominates and enslaves, God allows even sinners the individuality of their will, such that they are able to choose not to be contrite, not to submit to God. Granted, as long as they remain in sin, in one sense they are not “children” of God until they come back to him in the only way he has appointed — repentance from sin and faith/obedience in the Son. But all people, including those still rebellious, are God’s creation, and God has promised some things for all of them.

Some nuts are really tough for even God to crack. Human fathers find this, too. Some of my kids were so responsive that I could catch their eye and melt them. Others needed direct, vigorous confrontation and the imposition of consequences to turn their behavior and, more importantly, their attitudes.

This variety of the tools of love needed for different folks is described in Isaiah 59.
Again, it is talking about the same group of people Daniel refers to, those whose sins have kept them from having a familial relationship with God. In 59:18, 19, God spells out the principle he uses in meting out vengeance — according to their deeds, he will repay. There is reciprocity there, and the penalty is appropriate to the sin. More on that tomorrow.

Still, hope is held out because of the power and commitment of God: (Isaiah 59:20)

And come to Zion hath a redeemer, Even to captives of transgression in Jacob, An affirmation of Jehovah. (Young’s Literal translation) 

This is the verse which Paul quotes in Romans 11:26, to support his conclusion that “all Israel shall be saved.” Paul reads it as meaning, not that the Redeemer will only benefit the repentant, but that he will succeed in turning the “captives of transgression” toward righteousness. He will be a victorious Redeemer.

The Redeemer that is referred to, in the context of Isaiah 59, is Christ, of course, but I believe that Christ in the full, composite sense is meant. The entire body of Christ, the church and its Head, is what both Paul and Isaiah have reference to. For example, in Isaiah 59 God muses that there is no man that can accomplish this redemptive work, this intercessory work, on behalf of the rebellious of Israel. So he sends “his right arm” — a reference to Jesus. And this man puts on a helmet of salvation, covers himself with a breastplate of righteousness, and wears the garments of zeal, of vengeance. (See Isaiah 63 for further description of how Jesus is the agent of vengeance, paying for the sins of the world with his own blood).

All studious Christians will recognize these elements of the Redeemer’s clothing, the breastplate etc., as being descriptive of the soldier’s garb that is also given to Christians who follow in Jesus’ steps. (Although in this life Christians are told vengeance is not appropriate to them, it is promised as a reward in Revelation 2:27, and it is spoken of as what we are being prepared for in 2 Corinthians 10:4-6).

No question, the Bible is difficult to understand. And it doesn’t work to try and erect competing lists of “proof texts” to see whose list is longer. Let’s roll up our sleeves and earnestly try to catch the spirit of God, what the attitude of God is toward human beings.
I believe the harmony is found in recognizing that God’s anger is “for a moment“, and his mercy or undeserved kindness will indeed “endure forever.”

(Psalm 30:5, Psalm 136)

Remember. The Daniel text, and other seemingly harsh texts, must be harmonized with the picture of a father that Jesus gave us in the parable of the prodigal son. The father is willing to let the son squander his inheritance until he comes to his senses — and then he is ready to meet him more than halfway, helping restore and welcome him back to the fold.

Tomorrow — more on trying to understand God’s anger, its appropriateness, and its fairness and redemptive impact.

Father Provides

19 Wednesday Oct 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Calvinism, Hell, John Piper, love of God, Theodicy

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My son-in-law passed the first day of his new role in promising fashion. He stayed up with the baby to let Mom sleep. As with the human creation, night came first, and as in one of my favorite texts, there was a lot of weeping.

Like a good father, my son-in-law met the needs of his child, and also the needs of the others who were dependent on him. That’s not always easy, as any father knows. And it always involves a strong emotional investment and sacrificial commitment by the father.

So as I plug those reflections into my quest to understand the heavenly Father, and how he is viewing the human race, I am confident that when the record is complete and everyone can see clearly what He was doing all these thousands of years of the “night of weeping”, we’ll be very amazed at his loving concern and commitment. Though I’m glad for brothers like John Piper to tell me that everything is fine, God is sovereign and can’t make any mistakes, I am not reassured by him — he just seems a bit insensitive to the real situation, the real impact of things on God’s creatures. Here, for example, is what my brother Piper says about the wrath of God toward those humans who do not come into the fold before they die:

If we focus on the wrath of God that falls on human beings at the final judgment, we can say at least these four things about it: 1) It will be eternal—having no end. 2) It will be terrible—indescribable pain. 3) It will be deserved—totally just and right. 4) It will have been escapable—through the curse-bearing death of Christ, if we would have taken refuge in him. (Sermon on God’s Wrath from 2005)

Over the next few days I’ll deconstruct this and, I trust, demonstrate that this sad view is both incorrect Biblically and, from Pastor Piper’s perspective, seriously at odds with his life goal, to praise God and enjoy what God is doing.

This morning, I’m just thinking about what God does to provide for his children. When I read the Bible, there is ample testimony from the scriptures that God had clear goals in mind, and is causing even the bad stuff to work out FOR THE GOOD of everyone.

For example, he wanted to give Jesus some people who could share with him in the governance of the world. (John 17:6-11) So Christians need this “world” of opposition in order to develop the kinds of gracious character, wisdom, trust, patience, and humility that God looks for as good fruitage.

Another example is the desire God has to teach the rebellious. Heaven knows that there are plenty of rebellious folks, going all the way back the beginning of the human race. Well-meaning brothers from Augustine to Luther to Piper have noticed, as I have, the scriptures that explain God’s commitment to the eventual destruction of rebellion. What is less well known is the equally clear message of hope for those who respond to God’s medicines for rebellion. I’ll expand on this in coming days, too, but for now just meditate on this one verse: (Psalm 10:15)

Break the arm of the wicked and the evildoer,
Seek out his wickedness until You find none. 

Seek out each person’ wickedness until… until there is no more wickedness there. As a father, I can relate to this. Proverbs tells me that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.” But I don’t spend my days beating my kids to get it out of them. I give them experience, put them into situations that will tax their skills, place them under discipline, etc. until their foolishness is gone. Now, my kids feel to me like they’re my friends, my confidantes. I feel like I’m in a family of counselors, because I took the time to work with my children’s needs for correction and encouragement and admonition and love.

This is what I see many, many scriptures describing as the intent of what Pastor Piper calls “the final judgment”. God will have used 6000 years of human history to teach collective lessons about what humans can and cannot do without following his laws. He will also have used each lifetime to teach personal lessons about the pain that comes from disobedience. Then, when the evildoers are resurrected as the Bible plainly says they all will be, they will have some motivation to persevere through the time when God will, through the good offices of Christ and his gentle, loving but righteous Church, “seek out their wickedness” until it there is no more. All the wickedness will be found, exposed, repented of, and healed. As Isaiah 26:9 words it, “when [God’s] judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”

God has been saving for mankind’s college education. Not that it will be entirely a pleasant experience, any more than the years of self-will and Satanic deception have been fun either. But to prepare for a glorious, unlimited, wonderful future absent ANY pain or suffering, God has been allowing people by their own choices to “build up for themselves a storehouse” in the day of judgment. (Romans 2:5,6) That storehouse of undealt-with, uncorrected sins and character flaws will require some tough medicine. But it will be a benevolent learning experience, not a retributive frenzy the way Piper’s words above describe it. More tomorrow….

I’ll say goodbye with a photo my wife and I took last year of Zion… National Park, that is. But what an inspirational insight into the greatness, and goodness, and beauty, of our Father which is in heaven.

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.

God can defend himself

28 Monday Feb 2005

Posted by in eschatology, love of God, Theodicy

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Friday I talked about how God needs a PR firm. But the truth is as the poet said, “God is his own interpreter. He will make it plain.”

I poked some fun at people who like to justify God’s actions or inaction in the world. The spectacle of a faith-healer calling God to action at his behest, to lengthen a leg or clear up a lung, while that same God chooses not to grant the petitions of millions of earnest folks causes me to cringe. When I think of the history of Christianity, and its involvement in slavery, exploitation, and carnage, I am saddened when I hear Christians complaining about how us poor Christians are being beat up by the “liberals”. Is it not true that “Christians” have hurt millions of people? Yet many of my brethren want Christians to have more political power, I think the unvarnished truth is that the more power “Christians” have had in history, the more they have mismanaged it.

Yes, Christianity has a good view of marriage and morality. I agree with that. I disagree with the notion that man is the only God, and I certainly do not agree with New Age notions that there are many pathways that lead to God. Christianity is shockingly clear that there is only one way to God. But what most Christians seem to be missing just now is that God has more than one way, and more than one time, to get his message to all the people who have ever lived. Jesus died for universal redemption, and that redemption will be available for those who do not respond to the “call” or “drawing” of God in this age.

Contrary to what most Christians think, God has not done all that he plans to do to interact with the world. At the moment, he has, according to a number of clear statements in the Bible, wrapped up his plans and purposes in a mystery. Most people simply don’t understand what he is doing. As Romans 1 puts it, the wrath of God has been revealed — everyone can see it. They can see God is opposed to evil. They can see that people suffer and die. That is God’s wrath, and every time you go to a funeral you see it again. But in the same context, the writer says, “The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” In other words, only people of faith can see that God is good and righteous. Most people simply can’t see it.

Romans goes on to say that those who are granted faith in God’s love and goodness become the sons of God. Not that all who have faith understand everything. But they have enough trust to get through the rough points in life and keep believing in God and keep learning lessons from him.

Later, in Romans 9, the apostle writes that the whole creation groans together, waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. And it says that all of the world of mankind was made subject to this vanity or frailty against their will, by God, for his own reasons.

The big thing that all people can look forward to in confidence is that someday soon God will indeed reveal his full plans, and take charge of the earth. And here is the surprise for most Christians. That day will be unpleasant for the world of mankind, much the same way that Midterm Exams are unpleasant — since all people have significant badness in their lives, but it will not be the end of human life, but rather the beginning of God’s plans to teach everyone else. “When God’s judgments are in the earth” — everyone dies? — no, “the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” – Isaiah 26:9

Now is the time for the learning and testing of God’s children, authentic Christians of any and all denominations. When that work is done, God will stop playing his cards so close to his chest, and will start explaining things.

Still, if anyone wants to know what God is planning, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or get a degree from the Dallas Theological Seminary. In fact, they may not let you graduate from the DTS if you read and believe what the Bible says God’s goals are. They are clear and plain, but they are directly opposite most main-stream teachings:

The earth? He created it to be inhabited.
Heaven? It will be united and harmonized with earth.
People? They will be more valuable than gold. All of them shall return from the dead. All the graves will be opened. Even the fools will find it possible to be transformed — stumbling stones will be gathered up, hindrances to obedience will be removed, and the pathway to true righteousness will be so wide and smooth that everyone will be able to go up it. The blind eyes will be opened, the old man will return to the days of his youth. The church of Christ will be the rulers and judges and teachers of the whole world. Spontaneous music and joy will erupt from people everywhere. There will be NO ignorance of God. The earth will become a paradise. Evildoers will be eliminated, first by transforming most of them into righteous people, second, after a millennium of attempting to teach and correct the incorrigible, by eliminating them after a final test. There will be no pain, tears, or conflict when the process is complete.

And all people will glorify God because of their own private experience with how he rescued them and made all their pain contribute to their education and moral development.

More on God’s Goals at http://www.whyjesusdied.com/q08_ggoals.html

Pleasant Vengeance

31 Friday Oct 2003

Posted by in love of God, prophecy, Theodicy

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A friend wrote a letter, describing her re-immersion in college life, as “pleasant vengeance.” “I am back on campus with a pleasant vengeance, enjoying everything like a freshman all over again.”

A nice and clever turn of phrase, which works quite well in its context. But I’ve been struck with the utility of the phrase as a philosophical and Biblical concept, and for me, it works nicely.

Consider one of the strongest vengeance passages in the Bible, Zephaniah 3:8, in which God says that all the world will be devoured by the fire of his vengeance. Unpleasant! But then the next verse says, “Then, I will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.” Huh? I thought the earth was devoured. Yet people are left, and they are converted and unified in the aftermath of the vengeance.

So clearly, the fire and even the term earth are symbolic. And the vengeance has a pleasant result.

Here’s another one: Psalm 10:15. Here, the writer asks God to not spare the wicked. But what does he really, ultimately ask? That the Lord seek out the wickedness until He doesn’t find any more. The implication is that by exposing the wickedness repeatedly, eventually the wicked will reform until they are wicked no more, because they have corrected their ways.

Another interesting text in this vein is Isaiah 26:9, which precedes a point that is obvious to any parent: “Though the wicked is shown favor, he does not learn righteousness; he deals unjustly in the land of uprightness…”

But different are results are promised in verse 9, if God’s judgments are seen — in other words, if there are clear consequences meted out for every act of disobedience. “For when the earth experiences Thy (God’s) judgments, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” People WILL learn the right way to act, not by throwing them into a utopian state, but by gradually exerting discipline and a combination of favor for goodness and punishment for moral obliquity. This is vengeance with a goal of correction; “pleasant vengeance”.

And so I take great comfort in Jesus’ promise that, as king, he will “shepherd the nations with a staff of iron.” The iron rule is designed to remove the waywardness from the sheep. Of course, Jesus also balanced all of this pleasantness with the parable of the Sheep and the Goats — and there, the sheep are people who are so unconsciously loving that they don’t even remember doing good deeds, while the goats are apparently outwardly righteous — just not loving enough to see opportunities of doing gracious good to their fellow men. What a searching standard of love and unselfishness is held out as the standard for entrance into God’s eternal kingdom!

May your experiences of thinking freely and looking for the lessons of life take you through the crucible of pleasant vengeance!

The Unthinkable

16 Saturday Nov 2002

Posted by in eschatology, love of God, Theodicy

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Is anything unthinkable? Well, I wish there was something. But the ugly realities keep telling all us humans that nothing in the universe is unthinkable. As free moral agents, we’re free to think about anything, and do most things. And that means an awful lot of … unthinkable stuff … happens. Take 9/11, since that’s our current horror reference for the time being. (Until Osama decides to blow up the Rose Bowl while a billion people watch, or some other unthinkable, unspeakable dark deed.) Until about a year ago, hardly anyone had thought of hijacking a plane, or several planes, and then turning them into bombs and killing all the passengers on board including the hijackers themselves. A friend of mine was an air traffic controller on duty when it happened. He heard there were 1, then 2, then 3 planes hijacked. OK, they thought, they won’t tell us where they’re headed… wonder where it could be. Maybe Cuba? Then the first one slammed into the Tower. Suddenly the lights went on. What had been unthinkable became all too thinkable. In fact it was all we could think about for months.

The Holocaust is like that. It was unthinkable that it would happen. That men would do such things. That God would permit such things. That “Christians” who had the power to intervene would silently ignore or even cooperate with such things. Yet the unthinkable happened. And today’s unthinkable idea is that it never happened. Too outrageous for words but yet it’s a growingly popular thought throughout the world.

 

We unearthed an old letter from 1978 yesterday, and in it my wife related to my parents, who were in Japan at the time, the tremendous impact made in our lives and around the country by the first airing of the mini-series, “Holocaust”. It was so very gut-wrenching because it related, not the horrific numbers — millions of nameless victims — but the daily lives of just one family. NPR carried a talk show about it, and one fellow whose title was “Professor of Religious Science” was asked, “How can we come to terms with a God who would permit such a thing?” His answer, “God needs our forgiveness in this and throughout history.”

Whew! So like God’s this powerless guy who lets his creative power get a little out of hand, and we, his creations who suffer because he couldn’t or wouldn’t do the right thing, have to forgive him for his mistakes or his powerlessness or his callousness or his unfairness…. ??? Unthinkable!

The whole Holocaust, the more we learn about it, is unthinkable. That’s why the Jews were as cooperative as they were … they believed the Nazis lies because the rumors they were hearing of gassings, mass kilings, etc. were just too outrageous to be credited. The logic of everything that was done — keep your clothes together, make sure your name is on your suitcase, time to take a shower, etc. all made sense … after the war, after we submit to working for the Nazi war machine, we’ll start over and everything will be OK. The truth was unthinkable.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and one of the amazing things I’ve learned is that these awful events were actually predicted in great detail in the prophetic writings of the Hebrew sages. The scattering of Israel to every nation, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem which began it, the isolation from the world community, the wandering and alienation of the Jew at the hand of wicked tormentors, the time and place of the ending of this Diaspora, the sending of “fishers” and “hunters” to get the Jews back to Israel, the reforging an Israeli society on the “old heaps” — old ruins of the ancient civiliization…. the desert blossoming and feeding fruit and flowers to the world (Israel is now the largest shipper of fruit and flowers to Europe)… and even the bitter dregs ofthe Holocaust was predicted, along with the bitter reaction of young Jews to it: they are described by Isaiah, after their terrible ordeal, as “like an antelope caught in a net” — a proud creature on its side, unable to stand, unable to graze, unable to be free. Read it in Isaiah 49:7 to 52:10.

I have written extensively on this topic – see http://www.Israelrestored.com — both the message to Christians and the message to Jews. Also the Reply to Bradley Smith, a Holocaust denier, which was published in the Ohio State Lantern in January, 1992, and is reprinted on that web site. Another site I write with lots of material on the Holocaust and the role of Jews in human history, is http://www.whyjesusdied.com

It is unthinkable that anything like a real God would need us to forgive him, or to explain his actions. By definition he is able to explain what he is doing. So either there is no God, or he has a plan and a strategy which is designed to allow the unthinkable to happen, and then he will totally outdo it with something better. Is Isaiah explaining what God will do next? He says so, part of what he said has happened… perhaps the rest will, too? I think so!

To God, the only wise, through Jesus Christ, even to Him be the glory through all the Ages! Amen