Tag Archives: restitution

All Tears Wiped Away

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in eschatology, Promises of God, prophecy, Theodicy

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1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

As with many of the visions of the Bible, this one from near the end of the book of Revelation (Chapter 21) appears too good to be true — or at least too big and broad to be believed.

To make sense of it, we’ve got to find a way to limit it. First, it can’t be referring to the planet, and the known universe, because the literal statement here is that heaven and earth… that is, everything in the Universe, will cease to exist. And then, just like that, a new heaven and earth is created… except the new one doesn’t have any oceans. (Which with what we know of life on earth as we know it, simply couldn’t happen. The ocean is the key to biological life.)

And to complicate the picture, we have a description of a city arriving on planet earth from some distant place in the cosmos. But how could this be, because the cosmos just ceased to exist. Also, verse 3 says that God is now going to live with mankind…. but how could this be? Didn’t we just lose the earth? Where are the people now?  Is this why they’re crying… because the earth ended?

So let’s try viewing this as metaphorical. Let’s think of heaven as the spiritual or religious realm of human society. Turns out if we do this it can help dozens of places in Revelation and elsewhere in the Bible seem more reasonable.

A new heaven would then mean a new way of thinking about religious things, and therefore new people in charge, new rules, new values, new perspectives. The old religious scene is simply gone. “Imagine there’s no heaven.” John Lennon could picture this, and I can too.

And a different earth … the physical part of human society. That’s gone, too. No republicans and democrats arguing about who is right. No supreme court justices needed to interpret laws, because … well Jeremiah and Isaiah saw the picture with all the laws written in people’s hearts. No courts are needed to explain or enforce obedience among reluctant citizens. And thus no angry youth afraid of police, and no police harassing them.

Now, a major change in this new imaginary scene is where God is. In the old picture, the one we’ve grown up with, God is basically nowhere to be found. He “hides himself”, as Isaiah puts it. And those who claim to have found him have trouble convincing others that they really have. Is it because the ones who seem to know about God aren’t very good examples of what we would logically expect a spokesman for God to be — or is it because the people who they are preaching to are just plain bad … and don’t want to know about God, no matter how nice the preachers are? Or maybe could it be a mixture of both?

So now we have this new picture, and in it God isn’t hiding somewhere or speaking through ancient Jews or weird people who show up on TV or surrounded by stained glass, dress funny, ask for donations, smile too much, and generally just irritate us. All those folks are gone, but God is living with us. Right next door. Maybe even in our spare bedroom.

Now who are the people of God? Is it still the church folks… a small percentage of the population? No, the way John seems to see this picture, all the people are now God’s people.

We know this because they’ve been crying, they’ve been dying, they’ve been in pain… but God is suddenly standing there next to them, wiping their tears. He’s removing their pain. He’s ending death.

How many of the tears are being dealt with in this way? All of them.

How much of the pain is being eradicated? All of it.

How much death is being thwarted? All of it.

Now, here’s where the picture makes us furrow our brows and clench our fists.

Wait a minute! I understand the picture that is being painted. But why is this artwork being created? What does it mean to me? Is this really a true picture of the way things are going to be, or is this some kind of cruel joke? Is this really just saying that the ones who are already setting them up to be the God-people are going to have THEIR pain and tears wiped away, but the rest of us are just going to see them off in the distance, wishing we could be there … and suffering on forever and ever while the lucky few get to live in their own paradise?

The Hope Diamond.

Boston+WashDC_trip_2592_w1920

Well, the guy who painted this picture thought of this… so he put the Jesus followers into the picture too. He put them in there as the “holy city”, which comes out of heaven — the religious world … and comes down to earth. It’s a city with some features like Jerusalem, with its protective walls and its government buildings and its houses and its festivals where lambs die to restore people to God — and its temple where priests mediate between God and man … restoring everyday people to full fellowship and access to God, by making payment for their sins.

And this picture doesn’t only refer to the truly good guys as Jerusalem… he also compares them to a bride who is married to the Lamb… Jesus. How is this bride pictured? Well, she is dressed in white, and she’s beautiful, and the Lamb really, really loves her. What does this bride do? She is attractive to her husband … and that leads her to become like a mother to the rest of the human race. It might even be thought of as the new mother of humanity, in the same way that the Lamb is the new father.

The human race in this picture was orphaned when their first father messed up, and left them outside of paradise, living under curses that mom and dad are to blame for. Now there’s a new father and mother … Jesus and his bride. And all the people who were related to the original father … every human who has ever lived … are released from their curses and welcomed back into this expanded, updated Garden. A garden with no Serpent. A garden with no weeds. And with no Angel of Death to keep people from living there forever.

Too good to be true? No, redemption is the plan. A redeemed and restored earth is precisely what we must learn to expect, to hope for, and to pray for. And whether we pray or not, believe or not, even whether we survive until it arrives or not … it’s a gonna happen.

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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!

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?