The One Sided Coin

This week I would like to make a comment concerning the ongoing culture war by considering a well known incident in the life of Jesus.  I will translate it from Mark's Gospel account (Mark 12:13-17) because the other Gospel writers (Matt. 22:15-22 and Luke 20:20-26) probably used Mark as their source material:

And they sent away certain ones of the Pharisees and Herodians in order to ensnare Him [Jesus] by [His] word.  And after they came, they said to [Jesus], "Teacher, we know that you are true, and in you is no bias concerning anyone; for you do not look into the face of people, but you teach the way of God in truth.  Is it lawful to pay the poll tax [i.e., a tribute imposed by Augustus in 6 C.E.] to Caesar or not?  Should we pay it or shouldn't we pay it?"  But having seen their hypocrisy, Jesus said to them, "Why do you test Me? Bring to Me a denarius so that I might look at it."  They brought [Him one].  And [Jesus] said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  Jesus said to them, "Pay the things of Caesar to Caesar, and the things of God to God."  And they they were exceedingly astonished by Him.

Brother, nothing is new under the sun, is it?  The same political manipulations and trickery used two thousand years ago live on today without mitigation.  Duplicity is one of humankind's best weapons against its self.  Our advanced technology definitely has afforded us the ability to refine duplicity into a high art and science, but we are still as nasty as ever.

Some nineteenth century American scholar/statesman--I don't remember his name--once said something to the effect that politics makes strange bedfellows.  It's true.  Here we see two opposing forces in first century Palestine--the Herodians, who represent the economic and political arm, and the Pharisees, who are the religious arm--in cahoots to blacken Jesus' eye of reputation in order to turn the people against Jesus.  They attempt to liquor Jesus up with  Jim Beam's oldest and most potent recipe affectionately dubbed, "Vanity."  They hope that in His inebriated condition He would slip up and either answer "no" and get the Romans down on Him for fomenting sedition, or answer "yes" and incite the Jewish zealots against Him.  What they don't understand is only the will of God intoxicates Jesus--as it should all of us.

What we need to see in understanding Jesus' response is what coinage represented in the minds of people in those days.  Whoever struck a coin was in effect saying, "this is my realm, my rules, my things!"  Whoever's money you exchanged with others marked you as an ally of the minter of the money.  For this reason, the Jews only used faceless coins minted by either Herod, Herod Antipas, or, until the reign of Vespasian, the Romans in deference to Jewish sensibilities (see A. Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Hendrickson (2000): p.740).  In this way the Jews maintained their allegiance to the Jewish nation and therefore God.

Don't miss what they were doing in the incident under discussion.  In order to win their culture war against Rome and Jesus--because Jesus, by standing outside of the war, was undermining the causes of both sides of the conflict--the Jews willingly contradicted their own sacred beliefs and traditions; they resorted to using their enemy's methods to achieve their own purposes; they showed their true alliance was with the sword which they hoped someday to wield, but for the time being remained in the hand of Caesar.  The Herodians had long ago bought into the so-called truth of might makes right; but the religious Jews were not far behind them; they would later fully capitulate to this so-called truth when they would confess before Pilate, "We have no King except Caesar!!" (end of John 19:15)

 Jesus' answer to all those hypocrites might be restated as, "Let Caesar do his gig, you play God's gig."  Jesus wasn't into culture wars because the present world order--if we can be so gracious as to call it an order--will do whatever suits it, and what suits it will always oppose the perfect order and love of God's kingdom Jesus has brought to us.  This doesn't at all mean Jesus condones or doesn't care about all the evil persisting in the present age--He does, and so should we.  But such evil will never be beaten by its own methods because the evil feeds on its methods.  The present world system will only be vanquished by the methods of God's kingdom, which are love and forgiveness.

As members of Christ's kingdom juxtaposed on this grim, dark, and evil world system, we should not be trying to fight a culture war because eventually we will be drawn in to use the same tactics and methods of our opponents--that's how wars always work.  Inevitably, as did those Jewish leaders of two thousand years ago, we will attempt to make our point by investing our enemy's money against them, as if to say I represent one side of the coin and you represent the other side.  In reality, though, the coin is one sided.

For example, we cannot hope to show the truth of God's kingdom by repudiating abortion while at the same time war mongering and supporting the death penalty and harboring bitterness against other people, as evidenced by a relentless spewing of vitriol against everyone who doesn't see it our way.  In the end, everyone is killing everyone else.  Instead, we must stand for the sanctity of all life by investing ourselves in a crumbling society by trying to lift people from the desperation, despair, and false allegiances leading them to their murderous decisions and outcomes.  We do this by living according to the sacrificial and humble nature of God's love, which by its very definition means we won't be liked by the present world--indeed, they will try to snuff us out.  But we should not be deterred because God's love is the Truth; and we know this because our King, Jesus the Christ, is alive.  I mean, really folks, what are we afraid of?

Our fear is palpable because we insist on fighting a culture war.  As long as we keep fighting culture wars, all that our opponents will see is our fear.  And our fear will defeat us because fear is contrary to the only force that can bring life, beauty, and peace.  As John writes in his first epistle, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear holds punishment, the one who fears has not been perfected in love." (I John 4:18)

The people of the present world system are afraid, so the methods they employ are fear based.  When we use their methods we show them we are afraid, too.  There is only one side to the coinage of the present world system, and it is fear.  We need to bring to this fearful world a new coin--a rare, precious, and beautiful coin--that has been minted in a kingdom they do not know, yet long for without knowing it.  We need to dazzle them with the resplendent and bright coin of God's holy love by loving them as Christ has loved us.  Only in the light of the stark contrast of our fearless love will they perhaps come to see their fear and all that fear leads them to do to escape it, only to keep dragging them farther down into its hopeless misery and despair.

Jesus said, "I have spoken these things to you so that you might have peace in Me.  In the world you have tribulation.  But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
 

Lost

A few years ago, I was sitting at my wife's desk waiting to take her out for lunch.  She was a therapist at an elementary school, and was away somewhere on the campus dealing with whatever she dealt with.  I watched the children passing by her open door on their way to the cafeteria.  Each child or group of children streaming by became framed for a moment by the doorway as snapshots of the human race.  It was all of us coursing before my eyes that noon: the flamboyant, the timid, the tough, the haughty, the humble, the weak, the contemplative, the playful, the scared, the invincible, the popular, the marginalized, the swindler, the wheeler and dealer, the politician, the bully, the picked-on, the predator, and the prey.  There we are, I thought.

Then I sat up a little because a small boy--maybe eight or nine years old--drifted through my view, wearing out in the open what all the others were concealing.  There were elements of despair and worry in his face; yet none of these quite described what I witnessed in that little shaver.  In fact, those descriptors--even though accurate at one level--are too easily spoken--too glib.  If they were all one saw in that little guy at that moment, then one would completely miss the profound impression I'm trying to convey. No, he was lost; but lost in the deepest sense.

It was quite evident that he had found himself up against a high, blank, and impenetrable wall.  He knew something lay on the other side, and he knew he needed to get there in order to survive.  But he had looked up and looked to his right and looked to his left, and all he saw was featureless gray.  He no longer thought of going back.  The little lad had come to a point where there were no answers.  It was as if his tender mind simply shrugged its shoulders and told him, "I don't know."  The boy was lost.

When my wife returned, she saw my eyes had welled with tears.  After I explained what I had seen, she said, "Oh, yes, he is one of my students,  He lost his lunch box."

We don't often have such an open window to our selves as I had that day in my wife's school.  I wouldn't see that little light again until sometime later when it reappeared in a woman.

I was waiting for my girls--as I am wont to do--outside a department store when I spied a solitary, middle aged woman walking away from the store.  All she was carrying was her purse; the scene was quite ordinary.  What caused me pause, though, was the manner by which she held her purse.  Her bag had nothing to distinguish it.  As I recall, it was plain and perhaps a bit worn; I don't even remember its color, except that it was monotone.  Yet she carried the purse as if she were carrying her self.  She was clearly lost in the same deep sense as the little chap back at school was lost.

Everyday, millions and millions of people tote around their purses, backpacks, and bags.  If a robber were to snatch a bag from one of these people, you know he or she would get mad--and rightly so; the person might even go after the thief.  But after it was all over, the victim would simply go out and buy new stuff.  This was not the impression that lone woman left me with.  If someone were to suddenly lift her purse, I'm convinced she would end up standing there where it happened in exactly the same state as that little boy had found himself. She would be paralyzed by a hopelessness she couldn't understand.  She wouldn't see her self as a victim--only as one without recourse or options or explanation.  To take something from someone else is wrong; to take that poor woman's purse would be an inscrutable cruelty that would leave her devastated.  And the bleak sadness in this is she wouldn't be able to articulate her devastation because she is lost.

Two people afforded me two glimpses into all of us.  We are all lost just as I have described here.  We are a race in denial.  We are experts at hiding our selves from our selves.  We are all like those with iTunes(R) blaring in their ears in order to drown out themselves in those unwelcome silences.  We are a people without hope until we are willing to quiet the white-noise and finally meet our selves.  We cannot really help each other, either; unless we are willing to look beyond the smoke and mirrors--clever and intimidating as they often are--and see each other as God sees us: the little guy without his lunch pail, the lonely woman clutching her purse.  And when we do that, let us turn back to God; the only one who holds the answers, who finds the lost, who leads the way out, and who genuinely loves us.

"When Jesus saw the crowds, he was filled with compassion concerning them, because they were distressed and sunk powerless like sheep without a shepherd.  Then [Jesus] said to His disciples, "The harvest is great, but the workers are few.  Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest so that He might cast out workers for His harvest (Matt. 9:36-38)."

And on another occasion:

"After He heard this [i.e., about the execution and burial of John the Baptist], Jesus departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself.  And after the crowds learned this, they followed after Him on foot from the towns.  And after He came out, Jesus saw the populous crowd and was filled with compassion for them, and He healed their sick (Matt. 14:13-14)."

Oh, and by the way, my wife made sure her bewildered little charge had lunch that day.

Ol' Dad's Advice

My wife and I recently returned home from our annual anniversary getaway weekend.  In the mail that had accumulated in our absence was a contest promotional from a regional business.  It was one of those scratch and play deals, where if you match three icons, you win.  Well, I scratched away and sure enough I matched three $25000 icons.  The sheet claimed I was a certain winner, although there was an asterisk following this proclamation. But even after reading the fine print, it seemed I had really won.  After fifty-plus years my ship appeared to have finally come in; perhaps lady luck was giving a wink to this old luckless Kokko.  It was Sunday, so I put the document aside to pursue on Monday.

As the day wore on, though, I kept thinking about how I was going to spend the twenty-five grand--well, actually the twelve grand after taxes.  Then I recalled a piece of sage advice that was part of a trilogy of wisdom nuggets my Dad had passed on to me the day I left home for the last time.  He said, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."  I related this to my wife, who then went on the internet to see if anyone had posted anything about the company or its promotion.  Sure enough, the business had played this game before in another city.  A winner in that contest was awarded a fifty dollar gift certificate, which she later learned was really only worth five dollars.  When she complained they told her the contest had ended and all prizes were non-negotiable. My Dad's wisdom and my wife's cool objectivity rescued us from a lot of wasted time and the embarrassment of looking like rubes.

Perhaps you are curious about the remaining two pearls of wisdom my Dad had left me all those many years ago.  Some people--mostly my mother--have been a bit put off by the colorful manner by which my father packaged his little gems.  But even this shows how wise my father is; after all, one will probably forget, "You don't get anything for nothing," but will almost certainly remember, "There's no such thing as a free lunch!"

According to my mother's sensibilities, my Dad's other two pieces of advice to his parting son are not fitting for any child with any breeding.  By today's standards--if you can call them that--they pretty much read PG.

Dad had actually introduced me to the first when I was in high school, years before my famous send off.  We had gone to a small shopping mall near our home, that day.  As we entered the mall we passed by a sixties-something woman, who was holding a shopping bag and a purse, and standing by the front doors, apparently waiting for someone.  Coincidental with this my Dad blurted (I don't remember what we had been talking about) out loud, "Yeah, you don't want to be a closet drunk."  Well, as it happened, a short while later we passed through the same set of doors and the same woman still waiting for whoever, when my Dad offered, quite for all to hear, what would become the first of his famous canon of wisdom:  "Well, just remember to save your money and buy good bourbon!"  The poor woman was noticeably appalled that a father would teach his young son (I looked like I was ten in high school) such horrid things.  But I have never forgotten what he taught me that day, and I bet you won't forget it, either.

What was the third piece of the trilogy, you ask?  Well, he told me, "And, son, always pay your poker debts."  It's perhaps not as poetic as Shakespeare's "Neither a borrower, nor a lender be," but it sure hits you right in the gut--don't you think?

Did God Create Some Humans to be Damned? Part 7

Conclusion

Even though the title question seems to emerge from an airtight syllogism, we cannot afford to decide such an important theological issue on the basis of logic alone; because such simple logic is totally silent to the character and purposes of God.  Certainly the character and purposes of God fall far beyond our capacity to understand them (Rom. 11:33-36).  Nevertheless, we are also not totally ignorant because we can see what God has revealed about His nature and purposes in His one, only, and unique son, Jesus the Christ.  Through Jesus we see God’s goodness and the primacy of His goodness.  We also see that because of His goodness God has predestined a place to dwell with us, who are His image-bearers, in perfect justice, which is the right order of all things through righteous relationships of holy-love.  And He predetermined that this place of perfect relationships would stand in Christ, and Christ alone, forever.  This eternal realm is the kingdom of God and His glory.

A person stands in Christ and therefore in His kingdom because he or she chooses, under the all-sufficient light of God’s grace, to repent and surrender him or herself in uncompromised humility wholly to Christ.  A person remains outside the kingdom of God only because he or she stubbornly and arrogantly clings to the delusion of his or her self-sufficiency.  And the only one of these two people you will ever find boasting of his or her decision is the rebel.

God knew before all time the decisions we all would make in the light of grace afforded each of us because of the faithfulness of Christ.  But just because He had such foreknowledge doesn’t mean He had destined us to our choices; for to do that would contradict His goodness and subvert His purpose of a just kingdom of holy-love.  God predetermined to create us and the cosmos to be His kingdom fully aware of those who would resolutely rebel against Him; and He allowed for such rebellion because His love can have it no other way and still remain His love.  This meant that with such great love would also likely be great suffering.

But ponder long and deep this love of God; God’s love loved so much and so powerfully that it completely took all the suffering upon and within itself and then consumed it.  It is as John teaches in his gospel account: 

“In Him [Jesus] was life, and the life was the light of humankind; and the light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:4-5).”

In one sense God because of His love created a universe with the risk His love would go unrequited and incur suffering. Yet even as I admit this again here, I--as I well hope you do, too--realize how simple minded it is to speak of risk at all in the context of God’s love.  God’s love is so powerful it can recover its losses without compromising its nature; so love proceeds in its purposes insensible of any concept of risk or threat of risk. This is the power of God surpassing all understanding; this is truly God’s glory.

Because of Jesus’ faithfulness in going to the cross and taking upon himself all the suffering—past, present, and future—born of unrequited love, and carrying it to the grave, and on the third day vanquishing it once and for all by being bodily raised from the dead and ascending to the right-hand of God (i.e., to reign King over His kingdom), we all stand forgiven (I John 2:2); suffering and evil no longer have any lasting power except what we grant them.

Therefore, in the light of such a love as God’s love, the very idea of God purposely creating people to be damned is ridiculous.  The God who is love created a universe by means of His love, because of His love, and for His love, and in His love; and God’s love is prevailing in Christ, forever.

So the only question remaining for any of us is, “Who is my king?” 

Jesus said,

 “The appointed time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe in the good news! (Mark 1:15)”

Did God Create Some Humans to Be Damned? Part 6

Jesus’ Response to the Title Question

Tensions weigh heavily on us human beings—modern ones in particular; I am no different.  A while ago I sat in the privacy of my library struggling with the tension of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, wanting desperately to find a clean resolution.  Finally, I prayed, “Lord why couldn’t I just go back in time and ask you or even Paul the direct question and get a straight answer?”  He would show me only a little later I needn’t go to all that trouble; Jesus already answered the question.  Let’s go back together to circa 29 C.E., shall we, and listen in….

Someone said to Him, “Lord, are those who are saved a few in number?” But He said to them, “Struggle earnestly to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  From the moment the master of the house got up and secured the door, you also will begin to stand outside and to knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open the door to us!’  And answering he will say, ‘I don’t know where you are from.’  Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets!’  And he will say, ‘I don’t know where you are from.  Go away from me all of you that does unjust deeds!’ The wailing and the gnashing of teeth will be there, whenever you will see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you are those cast outside.  And they will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and they will recline at the dinner table in the kingdom of God (Luke 13:23-29).”

The question and Jesus’ answer concern the eternal salvation of humankind.  And Jesus clearly locates this salvation as the kingdom of God; all who come and dine together with Christ in His kingdom are counted as those who are saved.  As I have discussed earlier, our salvation is to stand in the kingdom of God, in Christ.

How do we come to stand in His kingdom?  Notice carefully, Jesus doesn’t give a number—many or few—of those who will be saved; nor does Jesus say only a few who had been chosen before the beginning of time will be those who stand in His kingdom; nor does He say, “don’t worry, everybody will be saved.”  What does He say, then?  He says, “struggle-- literally like a warrior in battle, or an athlete straining toward the prize—yes, earnestly struggle to enter by the narrow door!”  What is the basis of this struggling?  To continuously surrender your whole self in trust to the will of God: to believe in Christ unceasingly.

Jesus tirelessly calls us to repent (turn away from trusting in ourselves and the world and trust God, alone)--to be in a continuous state of believing in Christ.  Why should we agree to this?  Because the kingdom of God has come.  How do we know the kingdom of God has come? Because Jesus has been raised from the dead and rules His kingdom at the right hand of the Father.  Jesus said,

“And if I am raised up from the earth, I will draw all people to Myself (John 12:32).”

The kingdom of God has come because Christ is alive.  Therefore, God calls each of us by putting this question before us, “Who then shall be your king?”

Notice how Jesus describes here the character of those who shall remain outside the kingdom—that is, those who answer God’s call with, “I will be my own king.”  They are a people who have put their faith in rituals and institutions and the camaraderie of people who also profess Christ (i.e., “we ate and drank in your presence”).  They are a people who put their faith in their doctrines and knowledge of Christ (i.e., you taught in our streets).  When Jesus first spoke on the subject of the narrow door leading to life, but the broad door leading to destruction, he further described people taking the broad path as those who will say to Him,

“Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy by your Name, and by your name cast out demons, and by your name do many miracles (Matt. 7:22).”

All these people are serving their selfish-ambition by invoking the name of Christ.  Some do so to check off the box labeled eternal security on their life to do list, where professing the name of Christ is nothing more than a get-out-of-jail free card to them.  Others invoke the name of Christ in a so-called intellectual attempt to sate the nagging feeling there is meaning in the universe even though they are certain there is no meaning.  In his book Escape from Reason in Trilogy, Crossway Books (1990): p. 241-242, Francis Schaeffer explains it this way,

“Neo-orthodoxy seemed to have an advantage over secular existentialism because it uses words that have strong connotations, as they are rooted in the race—words like resurrection, crucifixion, Christ, Jesus.  These words have the illusion of communication….One hears the word Jesus, one acts upon it, but the word is never defined. The use of such words is always in the area of the irrational, the non-logical.  Being separated from history and the cosmos, they are divorced from possible verification by reason downstairs, and there is no certainty that there is anything upstairs.”

None of these people or of the many others we might uncover through Jesus’ descriptions of them has surrendered him or herself to the kingship of Jesus.  And Jesus rightly says of them, “…I never knew you, depart from Me you who work lawlessness (Matt. 7:23).”

   

So, then, what does it mean, “struggle to enter through the narrow gate?”  Jesus says,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the person who is doing as a consistent practice the will of My Father who is in heaven (Matt. 7:21).”

So what is the will of the Father (i.e., God)?  Jesus says,

“This is the work of God [i.e., the work God expects us to do], that you believe continuously in(to) Him [Jesus] whom He [God] sent (John 6:29).”

As we have seen, believing as Jesus describes here is not a simple confession of Christ, nor is believing intellectually acceding to Christ.  No, believing is a continual trust validated by an objective obedience of Him.

Because Jesus is who He is and has demonstrated such ineffable love towards us, we struggle and labor in love for Him by loving the same way He loves us.  We struggle because to love this way goes counter to all the present world stands for and rewards, so we encounter relentless resistance both from without and from within ourselves.  We labor because the kingdom of God has come, and as true believers we are kingdom dwellers; and as kingdom dwellers we are to be about the work of the kingdom: to be a light and a salt to a tormented, angry, disillusioned, and lost world (Matt. 5:13-16).  And we do this by acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly before God because only in Him can we do this.

Paul expressed this tension that is no doubt weighing on you at this point succinctly as follows,

“Therefore, my beloved ones, just as you always heard, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, accomplish the salvation of yourselves [i.e., Paul is telling us to live as the kingdom dwellers we are] with fear and trembling [i.e., in the humility of complete subjection of our whole selves to Christ]; for God is the one who is working continuously in you both to desire and to effect for [His] good pleasure [i.e., because by standing in Christ we know what really needs to be done, why it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and we have the desire and the wherewithal to do what needs to be done, and we will be forgiven should we fall short] (Philippians 2:12-13).”

The apostle John describes the tension this way:

“But the one who is practicing the truth comes to the light in order that it is made evident that the person’s deeds are deeds that have been done in God (John 3:21).”

Jesus describes the beauty of the tension of the righteous relationship we have with God, in Christ this way:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it shall be opened to you; for everyone who is asking, is receiving, and the one who is seeking, is finding, and to the one knocking it shall be opened (Matt. 7:7-8).”

Notice how the verbs begin as present tense imperatives (i.e., we must respond to the risen Christ) and are then reiterated in the present tense indicatives (actually participles and indicatives).  The present tense in the Greek means the actions occur continuously.  The volleying of present tense verbs (e.g., asking/receiving and seeking/finding) powerfully portrays the translational nature of God’s love flowing between God and His image-bearers as they walk together in the kingdom relationship.

God has placed before each of us the gift He had preordained in Christ from all eternity.  It is an eternal, righteous relationship, and therefore a clear tension of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.  It ceases to be the relationship God has prepared for us if we believe it only comes to us as totally passive recipients—such as one sleeping on a roof top, who is suddenly awakened, as if from a bad dream, surprised by some influx of enlightenment and transformation.  Ironically, people ultimately cling to this understanding--even though it is usually couched as the only way God can be glorified is if He does absolutely everything--so they can remain in control of their lives.  It is a key reason, I think, why purveyors of this theology are some of the most unloving people I know.

On the other hand, it is also not about us laboring to impress God, as if the kingdom principles were cast as examples to aspire to, but God will ultimately reward us for doing our best.  This too is self-serving and delusional because the kingdom of God is totally the work of God--a pure gift as an act of perfect love through the faithfulness of His one and only, unique son, Jesus the Christ.  We cannot build the kingdom for ourselves, nor can we build it for God; to believe otherwise is to hold to our original conceit that we can be god.

No, solely because of whom Christ is and His great love for us, we, in the light of God's all sufficient grace, repent and love Him by obeying Him.  To do this is to stand in the kingdom of God, and therefore squarely within the tension of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility; it is that simple.

If we stand back and examine ourselves and we see persons striving to bring justice by freely forgiving others, by making amends for those things people have against them,  by giving without expecting payments in return, by using both their spiritual and physical resources to restore others, by celebrating the beauty and prosperity of others instead of lusting after them, by seeking to restore others while keeping the persons’ own weaknesses always in view, by seeking peace and eschewing all violence, by seeing others as God sees them, by praying unceasingly for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done, by acting in integrity, and by loving all people--whether friend or enemy—just as God loves all people, then we are truly struggling to enter through the narrow gate.  If not, we are attempting to crash the party Jesus describes at the consummation of His kingdom.  And Jesus says all such pretenders will be cast outside where there is wailing and the gnashing of teeth--sober words, indeed.

Did God Create Some Humans to be Damned? Part 5

A Response to the Title Question on the Basis of God’s Foreknowledge

The Apostle John tells us Jesus knew beforehand who His disciples would be—that is, who would believe in Him—and the one disciple named Judas Iscariot who would betray Him (John 6:64).  Jesus also knew Peter would deny Jesus three times (Matt. 26:31-35 ). God knew Pharaoh would harden his heart (Exo. 7:3-5).  God knew the Pharisees and Scribes would have Jesus crucified (John 11:49-53).  God also knew Jesus would be perfectly faithful (Matt. 3:16-17).  And God chose every one of these people and many, many more—the good and the bad--in full knowledge of the outcomes because it is as it is written in Proverbs 16:9:

“A person plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps.” [NET]

But even though God knows beforehand what those people would do, He by no means destined them to their choices, nor did God fix their eternal salvation based upon the choices they made in the situations under discussion; although, in many cases their specific decisions would ultimately prove to reflect an irretrievable hardness of their hearts; but God certainly didn’t impose such hardness in them against their will.  Even though He used those people in foreknowledge of their decisions, He doesn’t force them to make the decisions they did.  And even more importantly, their decisions don’t necessarily decide their eternal disposition. We know this is true by the fact that Peter wasn’t lost and the players who served God’s plan by crucifying Christ were not permanently damned because they did so; indeed, didn’t Christ forgive them (Luke 23:34)?  In any event, listen to what Peter would say to them later:

“And now, brothers, I know you acted in ignorance, as your rulers did too. But the things God foretold long ago through all the prophets – that his Christ would suffer – he has fulfilled in this way. Therefore repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and so that he may send the Messiah appointed for you – that is, Jesus (Acts 3:17-20).” [NET]

God urges them and us to repent in spite of what we may have done and be saved.  And God continues to urge us to such repentance right up to the end.  God doesn’t want anyone to perish.  This is what Paul meant when he spoke of those of God’s chosen people—Israel--who remain opposed to Christ (Rom 9: 19-24).  Even though, because they put their faith in their ethnic and religious heritage instead of Christ, they now remain as vessels of wrath—that is, in God’s judgment—that have been prepared by the potter (God) for destruction, should they repent they will become vessels of God’s mercy prepared by the same potter beforehand for God’s glory; for repentance is certainly the focal point of the instruction of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 18:1-12) behind Paul’s teaching here, and repentance is also the operative focus of Paul’s teaching in his second epistle to Timothy (II Tim. 2:20-21).  God is calling us to repent by believing in Christ and so stand in His kingdom and live.  But if we refuse, we keep ourselves outside His kingdom and remain under His certain wrath (John 3:36).

God not only continually appeals to us to repent, He always offers an open door of grace out of the course we cast ourselves.  God does not want us to stumble, even if He knows we will and our actions will fulfill God’s plans. This was true right from the beginning, as we know from God’s discourse with Cain before Cain murdered his brother Abel (Gen. 4:1-6).  It was true of Judas Iscariot, whom Jesus not only knew would betray Him but chose Judas as one of His twelve disciples, anyway (John 6:59-71).    A careful reading of the drama of Judas shows us Jesus affording every mercy—every appeal of love—to Judas to move Judas to turn back from the sin forming in Judas’ heart.  Jesus revealed Judas’ duplicity to Judas; Jesus invited Judas to recline at Jesus’ left (the place of highest honor relative to the host); Jesus gave Judas a morsel (another act of high honor).  All of these expressions of love (mercy) were appeals to Judas to repent, but Judas hardened his heart with each offering of mercy extended him.  In the end, Jesus let Judas have Judas’ way, and at that point Judas became irreversibly hardened in his course; as the Scriptures tell us, at that moment, Satan entered Judas’ heart (John 13:21-30).

Another example is Pharaoh before the exodus of Israel (Exo. 7-14).  God, through the plagues, mercifully appealed to Pharaoh to capitulate to the authority of God and release the Israelites.  Instead, with each appeal of mercy, Pharaoh hardened his heart.  We can understand how Moses described the situation as both Pharaoh hardening his heart, and God hardening Pharaoh’s heart.  God didn’t coerce Pharaoh’s will, He appealed to it with mercy, with the result Pharaoh’s true heart was revealed.  This is what Paul meant in Romans 9:14-18 when he said of God, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will harden whom I will harden;” through a relentless mercy, God allowed Pharaoh to ultimately condemn himself, so God in effect hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  And because of this, all could see that God is God, the One who delivers us from our exile.

God is Good in every situation in this fallen world, and always provides grace for everyone to turn back to Him.  God didn’t predispose Judas to betray Jesus, nor did God harden Pharaoh’s heart against the Pharaoh’s will.  To do any of those things would require God to deny himself, and render the outcomes lies—mere facsimiles of what He intended for His creation.  No, Judas and Pharaoh and, unfortunately, many others like them, kept themselves out of the righteous relationship with their Creator because they contained God’s love within themselves, where it atrophied and gave way into hate.

God foreknew these players would do what they did and so fulfill God’s purposes; but God didn’t make them do what they did.  There are things that God determined before all time must happen.  Such things He both foreknew and rendered certain.  We have already discussed these things, and they are 1) God’s purpose of creation as a place where He dwells with His image-bearers in 2) relationships empowered and sustained in the state of holy love, 3) in Christ.  When the Bible reflects on predestination, it means the predestined condition of God’s kingdom, which is both necessary for and the very state of eternal life; it is as Jesus teaches:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who is hearing my word and is believing the one who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed over from death to life (John 5:24).”

This is God preordained place and conditions where all who choose to love Him must and will exist.  The place and conditions are fixed, not the roll-call; otherwise, as I hope we have already shown, God would contradict His goodness.

Now, the implication of what Jesus said is another reality is also fixed.  If there is only one place to be—and God will see that this will ultimately happen—than those who resolutely remain in rebellion against God cannot be there.  So the place for such rebellious people is also fixed, and Jesus refers to this place as judgment.  But the roster for this place is also not fixed but depends on the consistent choices (heart condition) of those who end up there.

The point is God has definitely chosen His kingdom and the ground rules of His kingdom, but he has not determined who will or who will not be there, even though he knows who they will be.

So why do the scriptures speak often of those who love Him as His elect?  Because God has chosen before all time His kingdom—that is to say, His kingdom is His election—those who truly enter His kingdom become indistinguishable from the kingdom itself—indeed, they define it—so they are His election, or His elect.  We are His elect, then, not because we have no choice in the matter, but because we stand in His kingdom, in Christ, in response to the call of God.

Jesus makes it very clear that no one comes to Him unless God draws Him (John 6:44 and 65); indeed, He teaches

 “And it has been written in the prophets, ‘and all people will be taught by God;’ everyone who hears from the Father and is learning comes to Me (John 6:45).”

But this call is not irresistible; after all, the stipulation here is a willing response from us to actively be about learning from God, and almost constantly Jesus is calling us to be in a continuous state of believing in Him (e.g., John 1:12; 3:16; and 6:29, to expose the tip of the iceberg)—not, I must add, a one-time confession of Christ.  If God’s call were irresistible, then God would not be Good.  Yet God must give each of us all the grace we need to recognize our broken relationship with Him, our need to repent of our ill-fated alliances (i.e., our misplaced trust), the desire to repent, the ability to see the alternatives, and so on.  In short, God must and does give each of us all the grace necessary to turn back to Him without contradicting love.  This call involves both God and us; where God’s involvement ends and our involvement begins, and vice versa, is a mystery.  Why some, even under the influence of such powerful and loving grace, choose to reject God’s gift of salvation is also a mystery.

When we speak of such situations as mysteries we speak without contradiction; we properly invoke mystery to those things beyond the limits of our understanding.  They nevertheless trouble us because we are a people discomforted by tensions; and these particular aforementioned mysteries reside in the granddaddy of all tensions, the tension of God’s sovereignty and Man’s responsibility.  The Bible talks within this tension constantly, yet sees no need to explain how it works.  It is, I think, as Jesus described the person having been born of the Spirit of God:

“The spirit blows where it wills and you hear its voice, but you don’t know where it comes from and where it is going; thus it is for everyone who has been born from the spirit (John 3:8).”

God doesn’t explain it to us because we wouldn’t comprehend it; but more importantly, He doesn’t explain it because to walk in God’s kingdom is to walk by faith alone.  We don’t need to know how God is working His love out in us who believe, only to trust Him to be faithful in doing so, and therefore, demonstrating such trust by objectively obeying Him.  Therefore we need to heed His warning to us:

“Today! If you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts (Heb. 4:7).”

Did God Create Some Humans to be Damned? Part 4

A High-Calvinist Response to the Title Question

The reason I have made such a long statement on God’s justice is because many don’t agree with me, and so have adapted a sordid view of what lies behind the determination of some people to choose not to love God.  The high-Calvinists answer “yes” to the title question of this paper: If God created everything, and some reject Him, doesn’t God create some to damnation? They teach God does so for His glory, which they define as His demonstration of power.  In his book, The Basic Ideas of Calvinism (Baker publications, 6^th Edition, p.54), the Calvinist, H. Henry Meeter explains it this way:

“We can begin by saying that as reprobate, as sinners, they are never the objects of God’s favor, but always of His wrath.  God is glorified in the administration of His justice as revealed in the eternal punishment of the wicked.”

Of course, this viewpoint is completely understandable when argued from the presupposition of voluntarism (above), foundational to Calvinist theology.  But it clearly impugns God’s goodness.

God doesn’t purpose to destroy people in response to their rejection of Him.  God is primarily concerned with restoring right order—the righteousness of His kingdom.  People who reject God place themselves outside of justice (i.e., outside His kingdom) and therefore are dead spiritually and therefore remain outside His kingdom.  God doesn’t need to punish them with hell because they are already in hell—that is, they remain under God’s wrath; although the hell they experience now in the presence of God will certainly pale in comparison of the hell they will experience in the second death (Rev. 20:11-15), where God’s influence is absent.  Whoever holds to a course of rebellion against God, God will ultimately leave him or her to the desire of his or her will because for His kingdom to reign fully, it must be perfectly just; therefore, no injustice can be allowed to exist—again, not because God is vengeful or retributive, but because God is Good.

Some will argue at this point the Scriptures clearly teach God will us judge based on our works (e.g., Ps. 62:12; Prov. 24:12; Jer. 17:10; Matt. 16:27; Rom. 2:6-11; I Pet. 1:17; Rev. 20:12 and 22:12).  This would seem to be distributive justice.  It isn’t.  Our salvation is to stand in the kingdom of God, in Christ.  If we are in God’s salvation it will be reflected by our most consistent character.  Whether our consistent character is of holy love (in the kingdom) or is of selfish-ambition (outside the kingdom), it will be evident by our actions and passions. At the final judgment God will assess our works and depending on what He finds, He will either say we are or we are not in His kingdom—that is, whether we stand in Christ or don’t stand in Christ.  Because we neither earn entrance into God’s kingdom, nor somehow build God’s kingdom for ourselves, our ultimate character as kingdom dwellers is the work of the Holy Spirit within us and our devotion to the Holy Spirit’s work (contrast the passages about judgment by works against passages such as John 3:21, Eph. 2:10, and Phil. 2:12-13)—that is, we live by faith.  If we reject God's Spirit, which is to stand outside of God's kingdom, our consistent character will reflect this choice, too.  Therefore, our salvation is not decided on the basis of distributive justice but on whether or not we are standing in God’s justice.

When we properly understand God’s justice as the right order of things, we can no longer even imagine God creating some people for reprobation.  Double predestination—the choosing before all eternity whom God would love and whom He wouldn’t, or even a more moderate position of God withholding necessary grace from some, so that while acting “freely” they would nevertheless be guaranteed to fail (i.e., compatibilism)—becomes an absurdity in the face of God’s kingdom justice.  To purposely create beings to be disordered—to be unjust—would undermine His purpose in creation, and therefore contradict His Goodness.  No, we must discover a different reason for God allowing the universe to end up with both people who reject God and people who accept Him.

A Response to the Title Question on the Basis of God’s Goodness

Hopefully by all of this we are beginning to understand God’s purpose in creation.  His glory is righteous relationships between His image bearers and Himself and, consequently, between His image bearers, collectively as the kingdom of God.  His glory is the power of His goodness to create a place where beings necessarily in His image can dwell with Him by the same love bonding the relationships inherent to God’s eternal being—not power for the sake of demonstration of power.  When Saint Paul states, “For all persons have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23),” he means the glory of the power of God’s goodness manifested in a kingdom of relationships of holy love.  Paul’s statement doesn’t make sense if glory meant simply a demonstration of God’s power.

God’s glory that is His kingdom has meaning only if His image bearers truly love Him in perfect tension with holiness.  This means among other things, his image bearers must freely choose to love Him.  God could, of course, create automatons programmed to love Him, but such love—if we could call it that—would be unholy, and therefore, not good; for God to create such an artificial state—except, I guess, as a toy kingdom, which was not His purpose--He would have to deny Himself.

To create image bearers who could be true dwellers with Him in His kingdom, He created humankind as neither Good, nor the absence of Good (Evil), but God created humankind innocent (Genesis 2:25).  And God called this nascent state of humankind, very good (beautiful).  He did so because had God created them “Good” they would have been like God in that they could only choose to love in justice.  But being created beings, they are necessarily contingent beings, so they cannot be God, or realize His purpose for them as His image bearers without sharing His nature.  But for them to genuinely share the Divine nature, they must grow into it through a relationship with God because only God is love; otherwise, they wouldn’t be contingent beings, but only mere projections of God.

For such a relationship to be righteous the creature must be able to respond to God’s love by freely choosing to love Him back.  Again, the kind of relationship God purposed us to enter into with Him involves genuine love, not pretence of love.  Only by a relationship can love grow within the creature—can the creature learn the reality of love--until love is eventually perfected in the creature, where the creature perfectly shares the Divine nature.  Therefore, God created humankind innocent—a clean slate—fully outfitted (i.e., created in His image) to grow through a righteous relationship with God until becoming Good, when humankind fully shares His nature.  Putting it differently, only by experiencing love, which means one receives love from God, and then one freely chooses to love God back, can one learn what love is; and this process takes time.

The kingdom relationships God created us to enjoy requires a holy love, which by definition therefore, cannot be coerced.  God could have a type of a relationship with automatons programmed to love.  In one sense the automatons would freely love God, but only because they had been predisposed to do so.  Not only would such a relationship not be righteous, it would be meaningless and therefore an effrontery to God because it would contradict His Goodness; God would not create for Himself a lie, because God does not lie.

Therefore, God created human beings fully capable of growing to the point of fully sharing His nature.  And this growth would occur through a relationship of holy love.  For a time Adam and Eve enjoyed such a relationship—like children with their parent--and they began to grow in their understanding of God’s love.  Through their burgeoning love with God, they were learning the wisdom of love.  And if Adam and Eve had stayed the course, they would have become authentic humanity—that is human beings fully sharing the Divine nature.  If you don’t understand what this means, study Jesus, who is the first born of all of us who dwell in God’s kingdom by faith.

Alas, Adam and Eve believed they could reach the goal without the process.  They bought into Satan’s lie they could take the quick fix and learn to love without loving.  In so doing, they contained love to themselves by rejecting it.  This severed their essential relationship with God, and they died.  Only in a relationship with God through holy love is there life; indeed, to walk with God in His kingdom is to live forever.

When Adam and Eve died, they ran out on their created purpose to maintain, through their righteous relationships with God and each other, the right order of the cosmos as God’s regents.  When Adam and Eve died, the physical realm was plunged into chaos.  No wonder Paul, in the eighth chapter of his letter to the Romans writes,

For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us.  For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.  For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now.  Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance (Romans 8:18-25). [NET]

Paul tells us that God allowed the creation to fall into futility.  Why? Humankind must be fully restored to the just relationship with God so humanity will then meet their created purpose as God’s regents in the universe.  Because God is good, He will not artificially restore peace to the cosmos; instead, He waits for right order to be realized as it only properly can through the complete healing of relationships between God and His image-bearers and consequently between His image-bearers.  The restoration of peace in the cosmos—what will finally quell the groaning Paul speaks of (above)—requires the restoration of Divine/Human relationships because this is how God created it to be.  And He did so because of His goodness.

Of course, as a supreme act of God’s goodness, Jesus came and dealt once and for all with our Death which disables our relationship with God.  So why does God wait to bring a close to history?  I can only say I don’t know; it is a mystery.  The apostle Peter gives us a clue, though:

“The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (II Pet. 3:9).” [NET]

God is relational.  When we ponder the title question, we must do so while standing on the foundation of righteous relationships--not contrived relationships—because God who created us is relational.  Peter’s words seem to imply God will save everyone because, if not, His will would be thwarted.  The Bible clearly stands against universal salvation, and rightly so.  If God saved everyone regardless of their choice, it would contradict His goodness—as we have already discussed.  Consequently, His goodness does impose a certain risk no one will choose Him.  So why would God create us in the first place?  Certainly, not because He needs our love; neither God’s being nor His character are contingent on anything outside Himself (see above).  I suppose the answer lies in His goodness; His goodness by its nature wants to expand out in relationships—not out of need, but by its very nature.  So why take the risk of no one choosing to love Him in return in a righteous relationship—especially at the cost of suffering?  The answer, I think, is He knew some would indeed so love Him.