What We Never Were But Always Will Be

Inevitability.

That which unavoidably comes to pass. Not merely predictable but certain. 

In the mind of God, I am quite sure, that is what the fall of a creature like man, made in God's image with its consequent independence and freedom, would have been considered.

Line up a thousand people and test the premise and all one thousand would prove it true, as would a million, or billions, or whatever number might be selected. You see, it is impossible for that which is not God to replicate the free choice and will of him who is. If God could be replicated by that which isn't him, then God wouldn't be God. The very thing that grants the freedom to choose determines that choice will, without fail, deviate from God's and become sin.

Is there anything that God doesn't know about a course of action he intends to take? If he is omniscient, certainly there isn't. Since he is, God would need no more than one generic sample of a thing made along the line of a human in order to demonstrate by test the nature of this glitch to any and all observers (including that human in the test). One would be more than sufficient-- as that one went, so any others would go. The prototype is all that is necessary to make the proof that then would apply to all others.

Adam was that sample, the prototypical temporal man. Eve was as well since "male and female he created them." Adam/Eve was not God, merely the image of God, and ignorant (innocent) rather than aware and knowing. They were created to do as they pleased, like God, but with one exception: they were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One pair of both models, one rule impinging upon their freedom was more than adequate to demonstrate that inevitable glitch that would manifest in all others of the type given the chance.

The prototype test in Eden proved to all creation that a human made in the image of God would rely on his or her own judgment rather than trust in the judgment of God. That is the particular choice from which deviation, any and all deviation, from God's will comes from. Had they trusted God there was nothing to hinder them from eating of the tree of life and living eternally. They didn't, demonstrated the inevitable glitch of which we speak and brought all of creation down with them into sin and death.

They trusted themselves, trusted the Serpent, but they did not trust God. Thereby, they became disqualified and unsuitable for an eternal life walking in the freedom intrinsic to the image of God.

Jesus was the prototypical eternal man. Not only was he flesh and bone and soulish in a human sense, he was also God in the flesh. Tested though he was, he stayed true to the Heavenly Father. He trusted his Father's judgment and stayed dedicated to his will. He never deviated, not even once from his Heavenly Father's will though he had at every turn the freedom to do so. He demonstrated that God dwelling in unity within the soul and frame of a human being made in his image was a sufficient synthesization to achieve perfection in being and eternal life.

Those who are in Christ and in whom is Christ have become, in earnest, the kind of human Christ is. We were in Adam and did as Adam did. We were flawed and not capable of being truly righteous. By faith in Jesus and rebirth in the Spirit of God we are in Jesus and Jesus is in us. What he did, as he did, we also will do. As he is righteous so are we. He lives forever and so will we. 

We were Adam, and never were nor could we ever be righteous. Now we are Christ, and will be perfectly so hereafter, and as such, will always be righteous throughout all eternity. What we never were, nor could ever be, we will be always.

How Can the Imperfect Become Perfect?

Jesus said we must be perfect because our heavenly Father is perfect. It seems an onerous demand to make upon intrinsically imperfect creatures, so is that what it intended to convey? God is undoubtedly perfect and so are his standards, so if humans are ever to peacefully coexist with him we'll have to align with his standard rather than him to ours. That much is certainly true, but I doubt that Jesus' statement was a demand so much as it was a statement of fact.

If God allowed imperfection to remain in his universe he wouldn't fit the definition of being perfect, and by extension, that of being God. If he did that, the best that could be said was that perhaps he understood what was perfect, maybe even that he wanted what was perfect, but he, himself, would not be perfect because he didn't or couldn't "make it so." "Woulda, coulda, shoulda" is not the mantra of perfection. So, Jesus spoke truth on that mount, really a logical necessity: if it wasn't so, God wouldn't be God.

We, however, are not perfect, nor can we be. We are not God. There is one, alone, who is good and it ain't us! But we must be, if we're ever to get along with him who is. We are made by a perfect creator and it is a necessity that we be perfect in all that we are. If not, we will have to be made perfect not as we are.

What?

Right now, we are free to think, desire, choose, act, create, etc. In order to continue to do so, we'll have to come into accord with, be perfectly aligned to, and be absolutely congruent with him who is perfect. If we willingly yield the degrees of freedom we have through faith (i.e. obey) because we trust God in his perfections, and are infused with the Holy Spirit throughout our being, we can thereby be enabled to walk in agreement with the perfect God. We can be like Jesus was as he walked among us.

Or...

We can be confined in hell, and by that I mean the Lake of Fire. As terrible, even barbaric, as that might seem, it is not the petty, vindictive, hissy fit of someone really big and strong. It is a logical necessity. In view of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, perfect God it is the only outcome possible. If those made in his image, and are eternal as a result, will not choose perfectly, then they must be perfectly incapacitated from making any choice whatsoever.

We are not perfect, nor can we ever be. Not of ourselves, not by our own resources. Yet, we must be perfect nonetheless! The solution to our dilemma is simple-- don't be dependent on our own resources. God is willing, even desirous, to share his perfect Spirit with those who put their trust in Christ. When he who is perfect is abiding in those who can't be perfect on their own, perfection becomes remarkably possible. When those folks are recreated at the Rapture, then their perfection will be complete.

A Christian Worldview: Where Are We Going?

In the last post I mentioned that the antidote to the place we find ourselves in is Jesus Christ, but what is it that gets people to come to Christ the antidote? Certainly, God is the most fundamental answer, but if God's effort was all that was needed to get people to the antidote, God would bring everyone to Christ and everyone would be saved. But that is not what happens--it does not comport with reality scripturally or materially. Whatever God does in the hearts of people to draw them to Christ has to be coupled with something that is not up to God to accomplish, otherwise, everyone would come to Christ and be saved.

That something is faith.

It takes faith in the antidote to actually avail oneself of the antidote. Faith in Christ like this is impossible for the depraved mind we spoke of in the last post to express, but it is also impossible for faith like this to be imposed. It wouldn't be faith in that case, it would be something more akin to instinct. So two elements need to come together to produce the faith connection to Christ: God, the Spirit empowering; and a willful reaction to trust God from the human heart. Like epoxy, two elements mix together to make a bond that works.

The old adage says that one can lead a horse to water but he can't make him drink. The Holy Spirit convicts, draws, we might go so far as to say woos the sinful human, but the Holy Spirit cannot and does not believe for him. Enabled by the Spirit's action, we must believe for ourselves. If we won't, God will not do it for us, and we won't be saved. The snag in all this, it seems to me, is that big word, REPENTANCE.

Repentance means to change one's mind, to realize after determining a course, that it was not the right course, and so changing directions. We tend to fixate on the small population of our own misdeeds when thinking about repentance, but that doesn't really get to the root of things. To repent of the thing that really ails us we have to go back to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. True repentance lies in undoing what Adam and Eve did.

Adam and Eve thought their judgment was as good as God's, we have to unthink that. Adam and Eve saw themselves on par with God as to determination of the what and wheres of life, we must "unsee" ourselves as like that. The thing Adam and Eve despaired over with regard to God, we must repair by the application of the cross and the victory of the resurrection. Simply put, we must stop trusting ourselves and start trusting God.

Pop psychology pushes people to trust in themselves, and seems to assume that people don't do so enough. As far as I have seen, most people have “trust-in-self” in spades. They really aren’t interested in trusting God, but they'll trust in their self, independent of God, even if their lives are falling apart. Pride? Perhaps. Yet, so many of those same folks still want eternal paradise, they're just not so hot on the whole overbearing God thing.

But if one doesn't love and trust God, one wouldn't like heaven.

An all-expense-paid trip to Disney World would be totally unappealing to me. I’m not interested in Disney characters, I don’t like standing in line, I have no interest in animatronics and I’m much more interested in experiencing a thrill in movement than watching a cheesy production. To top it off, I hate Florida! The heat and humidity are as close to hell as I hope ever to be. Why would I ever want to go to Disney World, even if offered an all-expense paid trip?

A similar question could be posed rhetorically to some folks regarding heaven. Heaven is all about God. Everyone there trusts him implicitly, everything there serves him unquestioningly, everyone there is fascinated by him, everything there is perfectly aligned to his will (and the people and angels there, willingly so). You see, everyone there is conformed to the image of Christ. For some folks that holds no allure. They may not want to go to hell, but they really don’t want to have life revolve around Jesus either!

The point of this life is not to get an all-expense-paid trip out of hell, nor to have life cease working against us (as in reversing the curse here and now). The point is changing our mind about God and ourselves, about realizing our need for Jesus and embracing a framework for living that revolves around trusting God rather than ourselves. A Christian worldview arises out of repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.

So where are we heading as Christians?

Toward Christ in trust. Toward knowing Christ as Lord. Toward becoming just like him. A Christian worldview sees life revolving around God. Anything less is a fallacy. So turn to him today. Follow him tomorrow. Be at it next week. Make it the principle that governs all your living. That's where a Christian needs to be going.

How then shall we live...

A Christian Worldview: How Did We Get Here? Part II

As established in the first post in this seriest, seeing life through Jesus eyes entails seeing the world and the life in it as created by God. None of us is an accident of chance (not even the lowly amoeba is); instead, all life is the result of God actively creating life at some point in the past and then ceasing thereafter from creating life. Furthermore, this perspective is one that actually comports with reality, whereas any viewpoint excluding the existence of a creator and relying upon random chance and processes that could be active today does not.

That, however, leaves us with the questions of why life is what it is and why humans are what they are. What of suffering, and death, and evil? What kind of Creator must we have when there is such misery in the creation that creator has made? The texts of Genesis 3:14-24 and Romans 1:18-32 yield an answer, which is really quite robust and needs to be braided into any Christian worldview.

Simply put, the reason that conditions are what they are is that God is angry. The word used to describe God’s attitude toward life, particularly human life (Romans 1) is wrath [Koine: orge]. Literally, the word refers to a swelling up, figuratively it refers to the state of being teeming in opposition. In other words, the wrath (orge) God feels towards humanity moves him to stand up and fight against them. That might seem a quaint idea to modern sensibilities, but it is biblical and it lines up with reality!

But why is God so wrathful? According to Romans 1, it is because mankind has endeavored, from the beginning, to marginalize and dismiss God in order to do whatever they have wanted to do. Whether we look at the story of Adam and Eve, or at the generations leading up to Noah, or at those who built a tower in opposition to God’s right to rule over and judge us, or anything since, the biblical history of mankind is played on one note: resistance to God. His counterpoint is wrath.

In this day and age, is that an idea that has any merit, any truth value to it? Look for yourself. Are people willful while they put their Creator on a bookshelf or ignore that Creator altogether? Does dismissing or neglecting the Creator allow them to pursue whatever course of action they see fit? Do they project upon God what they want him to be or what conveniences their willful agenda? That certainly jibes with my observations.

Even good people, the very best people, don’t take God seriously.

If they're not projecting their wishes and excuses upon God in one way, then they're dismissing and neglecting him on another. No one in the natural is truly unselfish or unwillful or God-seeking, and it has always been so.

God’s reaction to such was to pull the plug. Pull the plug on perfection, pull the plug on life, pull the plug on health, pull the plug on relationship, and leave us to our own devices since that’s what we wanted. The plug pulled, God removed himself from our realtime perception of him and left humankind to themselves, given over to a mind without God in it. As a result humankind lives flawed lives in a flawed world until death comes and each faces ultimate judgment.

Philosophers worry about theodicy, the justification of a perfectly good God given all the suffering and death here on earth. It’s not a thing a person looking at the world through Jesus eyes needs to worry about, for the fault lies not in God, but in humankind. The question is not how can God be all-good in the midst of so much evil, but why, since God is only good, it’s not a whole lot worse! At some point in time, given God's perfections, it will have to be.

So we wonder, “How did we get here?” and we see the Bible has an answer. In the beginning, God made everything, including life, and then he rested. He made humans in his image with divine-like powers of will, choice, creativity, etc. and placed them in a perfectly made world. But humans, in their god-like abilities, opted to trust their own judgment and do their own will rather than God’s. They rebelled and triggered the judgment of a perfectly just God.

Death and all the misery, weakness and suffering that comes with it is the price humans pay in the here and now for wanting God as he truly is out of the picture. Not only in themselves was the penalty inflicted but also upon the world around them God made for them. As it was for Adam and Eve, so it is for the rest of us. We have been given over to ourselves, separated from God, and the result is a depraved mind in a world broken beyond repair, leading to death.

But there is an antidote. God has a plan for fallen humankind, lost in isolation, brokenness and death--a redemptive plan. If we turn from our rebellion, from our rejection of God, and embrace him in our lives and living, he will welcome us into fellowship with himself and give us his very own breath so we can live in soundness of mind and fellowship with him now and forever. This is the message of Christ, this is what his death and resurrection secured for all who repent and accept the gospel.

A Christian worldview perceives that we are not accidents of chance but the creations of purpose--the purpose of God. A Christian worldview sees everything as a creation made by God but broken by sin, wrecked by death, and thankfully, redeemed in Christ. A Christian worldview sees that God has put us in this broken place so we would see the folly of our rebellion, repent, and put our trust in him.

A Christian worldview sees God in the face of Christ and realizes he is the only way out of the here we've gotten into.

A Christian Worldview: How Is It Adopted?

The concept of worldview deals with the way a person or a group of people look at life and living. It can be applied to the impact of language, or culture, or ideology, or at the level of the individual which focuses it upon a very personal and unique space. For purposes of this series, it is that last consideration I will be addressing--the context of the individual. Together, we will explore what it means for the individual follower of Christ to have a thoroughly Christian worldview.

Worldview is really about the glasses one looks at life through. Glasses, because we are not speaking about seeing objectively through the native or natural lens that's part of the eye, but of something that is adopted by the seer or instilled by the environment, and through which one sees their all-compassing perspective of life. Belief in Christ is one such viewpoint, which when adopted is meant to impact the believer sufficiently to change, develop and instill an all-encompassing way of looking at life and living. The gospel is meant to cause us to see life, not through blue eyes or brown eyes, but through Jesus eyes.

So, it’s important to understand the means by which one adopts such a Christian worldview. Using a phrase like this may lead one to think that a believer merely accepts a series of propositions and endeavors, as best he or she can, to apply those precepts to their living. That is not at all the case, though I think sometimes Christians think that way and that teachers of the faith sometimes teach like that is the case. Whereas that certainly is the case in other ideologies, it is not at all the case in true faith in Christ.

Belief in Christ is about a quantum change in our nature. A metamorphosis so fundamental that the Christian, upon coming to sincere trust in Christ, becomes a new being--a creature different in its nature than it was before. That is not to say that the Christian decides this, or adopts this by choice and thereby makes it so, even if by remarkable effort. This change is the result of the introduction and infusion of a catalyst, a change agent, in this case a change person, namely, the Holy Spirit.

The simple truth is that no one can even come to Christ and believe in him unless that one is drawn by the Father (through auspices of the Holy Spirit, it seems to me). The conviction of heart and mind in regard to Christ which undergirds repentance, in my mind, comes through the Holy Spirit as well. It is the Holy Spirit interacting with humans that empowers them to have a faith which allows Christ to dwell in their hearts at all. It is that presence, power and action of the Holy Spirit which is the foundation of a Christian worldview.

The Holy Spirit is our lens. 

Christians do not see life in a Christian manner by mere choice, but through a lens actualized and activated by the Holy Spirit. The faith that responds to and partners with the Holy Spirit becomes an all-encompassing perspective on life for the one born again. If that is not present in one claiming the faith, there is no way that one can truly be in the faith. Actually being born again matters.

Are you born again? Do you have a Christian worldview?

The next part...

What Does It Mean to Be Totally Depraved?

The one point that Calvinism and Arminianism agree upon is that humankind is totally depraved. It sounds like an incredibly harsh judgment against the creature, one that is not apparent, particularly, when looking at individual cases. This description, however, is not meant to suggest that everyone is as "bad" as they could possibly be, but to describe their spiritual condition in relation to God. In a nutshell, this characterization refers to the disabling brokenness that sin and death has caused to human nature since Adam's fall.

When Adam forsook God and was justifiably cursed by him, his innate connection to God was broken and his physical being was stricken with death. Adam was cast from the presence of God (the place where God walked) and frustrated in his relationship to the biosphere and with others of his kind (Eve to start). The individual became an island unto himself (so necessarily sinful) with no ability to get back to God, nor to truly understand and relate to him nor, for that matter, to do so with his fellow human (as seen from Jesus' high-priestly prayer). Locked in a self-absorbed prison of death and decay separated from God, debauchery ensued. If God did not initiate contact with humans, no contact, no interest, no desire would be forthcoming from Adam's kind.

Hopefully, it is evident that humankind's depravity should not be seen as something that renders humankind incapable, even in their depraved state, of responding to the interjection of God. God showing up in a way that can be responded to is sufficient in itself to break any barrier that would have kept fallen, natural man in the dark concerning God. Such is demonstrated over and over again throughout biblical history (e.g. Noah, Abram, Moses, etc.). To posit a theory in which God has to fix the depraved human being (i.e. regeneration) before that one can respond to him is unnecessary and not validated by scripture.

The truth is that what makes humans depraved in the first place is a lack of God in their lives. People are depraved in that they are like God (i.e. in his image) but are apart from and without God who's presence is what makes that image work properly. In their depravity, they have no desire to have God (as he truly is) in their lives. What they need they neither discern nor want. When God comes near in the mysterious ways that the Holy Spirit can, that lack is addressed at least to the level that the fallen human is able to see, hear, and respond to what wasn't there before. None of this requires any change in their nature and none is ever mentioned throughout the biblical record.

Human beings always had and have always maintained since the Fall the spiritual capacity to recognize God. That capacity was not such that it could independently discover God or engage him on the basis of executing that capacity in and of itself. God's direct intervention is necessary for each and every human being to come to know and understand him and his ways, but upon that divine intervention, awareness of what we otherwise would not have been aware becomes possible. However, if Adam in all of his pristine purity and perfection could ignore and forsake divine connectedness, than so can all his depraved sons and daughters.

Even the best amongst humankind is totally depraved, broken beyond their ability to help themselves--and yet even the most depraved among us can respond to the gracious visitation of the Holy Spirit. Depravity will continue to be an issue for us until Christ returns and our old dead, depraved natures are done away with once and for all, and new nature completely like unto Christ's is put in their place. That, of course, is predicated upon turning to Christ now. So let me ask you, have you responded to the Holy Spirit drawing you to Christ yet?

Objectifying the Image of God

'And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image."'               Genesis 9:5-6    ESV

This is not an article on capital punishment, but on the reason God gives for its initiation in the days immediately after The Flood. God established a causal link between retribution and the nature of the victim when he offered the reason for its enactment. Spilling the blood of man (killing) was answerable to God without exception (animals included) because each and every human was made in God's image. Man, in what could appear to be a self-referencing inconsistency, would be the agency through which the retribution was taken.

It seems clear to me that the Image of God in which every human being is made is what makes every person valuable to God. The concept is introduced at the very beginning of the Bible as it talks about the very beginning of the human race. It refers to mankind being "cut out" to resemble God. Since God is not corporeal, neither are the salient features of the image of God in mankind.

People resemble God, not in their physical makeup, but in their metaphysical makeup--we resemble his personhood.

Whenever we look at another person, God is there behind the veil. Behind the physical, somewhat apart from the behavioral, what makes God the person he is, is in that human being. The person you're looking at, that you pass on the street, that you share a bed with is a picture of God. Like a painting found in a yard sale, varnished and painted over, but interesting to a discerning eye, which upon being stripped of varnish and tarnish by a learned hand reveals a lost masterpiece, so is every single human being you will ever come in contact with.

Given the depravity of man, it is important to note that even after the Fall of Man, and after the Flood, there remained a sufficient likeness of God in mankind for God to exact the most significant punishment for the most significant act against that which still retained his image. Clearly, from God's perspective, it is of the utmost importance how we deal with that which in made in his image, even though that image is tarnished. Jesus took things so far in this regard as to make our mere thoughts or attitudes in regard to other human beings matters of God's retributive justice.

From our perspective it is easy, even convenient, to look at another person as a problem, or as an obstacle, or as a threat, or even as a possession. The Bishop James speaks of our ability to bless God and to curse his image. It's a contradiction that ought not to be so, especially amongst those who believe. Friends, we have got to start seeing people as God sees them, otherwise there will be repercussions that we will have rather avoided when they're visited upon us.

What I am really talking about here is the sin of objectification. Objectifying a human being is treating a person as if he or she was merely an object rather than the image of God. That object can be tangible or intangible, but when a person devolves into a label in our estimation, we have committed the sin of objectification. Thus reduced, almost anything becomes excusable in our minds in regard to them. It may be common among the human race to do so, but assault upon the image of God is not something God ever takes lightly.

Faith In the Authority of Christ

The central core of Christian faith is it's understanding of Jesus-- in particular, its understanding of his authority. Jesus is recorded asking people, "Do you believe I can do this?" Believers recognized his authority, whereas unbelievers disdainfully asked him, "By what authority do you do this?" That range of opinion represents a nice metric for which to measure the concept of effective faith. 

So what does it take for faith to be effective? The moment effective faith comes into existence is explored in other blog offerings on this site. With this article I approach the subject from a different tack and offer the following postulates, which I believe characterize true faith and which I believe faith must exhibit in order to be effective. In other words, they limn out what is means to believe in Jesus in a way that counts.

1) Effective faith perceives Jesus as the Lord (i.e. the ultimate authority in one's life)
2) Effective faith sees all authority in heaven and earth as given to Jesus
3) Effective faith recognizes that the name of Jesus represents the highest authority
4) Effective faith accepts Jesus' word as enduring in it's authority.

Whether we are talking about salvation or about miracles, faith that produces the desired end is faith that fully embraces the authority of Christ.

By the authority Christ granted to them to use, the apostles healed the sick and cast out demons. When they were shaky about that authority, they couldn't cast out a demon and were rebuked for a lack of faith. By that authority Peter walked upon the water, but when Peter became fuzzy about it he sank into the waves. Apprehending the authority of Christ is the difference between praying hopefully and commanding forcefully.

I wish clarity regarding this was my constant experience, but alas, it isn't. There are moments when the authority of Christ is so clear to me, and at those moments, awesome things happen. Then there are those moments when it's only theory in my head, which I assent to readily, but it's not singular or instant. I have to think about it before its crystal clear. The difference between one and the other is command and request, knowing and hoping.

I wish faith wasn't so elusive. 

Would any of us even break through to effective faith if it wasn't for the Spirit's inspiration? In regard to salvation the answer is any easy "no!" In regard to the miraculous, it's little more complex. By God's design, however, the task of believing in either regard is ours. Jesus died in our place, but God won't believe in our place, we have to. That is what makes faith so slippery. 

God has no doubts about who's in charge. When we're certain as well, our experience erupts into a faith moment. Could you do with more faith moments where you're crystal clear, instantly, about the authority of Christ? I know I sure could. Trees would be flying! But while they remain anchored to the soil, the only real question that matters is, "Who's the boss?" Faith answers, "Jesus Christ."

The Faith Moment: Salvation

How does faith congeal in the soul to become substance? 

I do not believe that God secretly presses a button he's concealed within us, which when pressed, makes us people of persevering faith. As I understand it, that is precisely what Calvinism proposes. The problem with that is that if God did do that kind of thing for any person, he'd do it for all people. Scriptures are clear that is not the way things turn out, so Calvinism's view of efficacious grace cannot be consistent with the self-revelation of God in them. 

God has made mankind with the capacity for faith, of that there can be little doubt, for people everywhere trust in things they cannot see. I think this general capacity is what separates mankind from angels, particularly in regard to redeemability. Mankind was made in innocence, really ignorance, and therefore was made for faith. Faith exists in that gap produced by unseens and unknowns, but Angels were made for knowledge and sight. 

When angels rebelled they did so in knowledge and sight and are irredeemable as a result (see Hebrews 6:4a for the concept as it applies to mankind). If Romans 12:3 applies broadly to all humanity (as I've always taken it to mean) rather than just the church (as Calvinists in particular take it), then God has in fact dealt each person at least some measure of faith. Of course, true faith, faith that actually has an effect, requires that it be placed in the right object, namely, God and God alone. That means that God has to "show up" for that faith to spark into existence.

God "showing up" is that enablement without which no one could truly believe. But God, regardless of what help he gives us, isn't going to believe for us (which is what irresistible grace is tantamount to in my mind). All of his commands to us to believe would be nonsensical in that case. No, it is we who must trust in God, that is our God-enabled responsibility.  

We are called to faith, it is the very currency of heaven. On their own, humans can only answer that call with something less than true faith in the actual God. However, when the Holy Spirit brings our focus on the person and authority of Christ into clarity, the moment is ripe for salvivic faith to be born. It is not guaranteed, as is attested to by Israel's example and the fact that not everyone comes to faith since Jesus was lifted up on the cross, but is only possible then and impossible otherwise.

Nonetheless, thank God that the Holy Spirit is sent to bring us to that moment--the faith moment, when everything comes together and Jesus is seen as Savior and Lord.

Worship as a Response to God

Like all things truly spiritual, worship doesn't have its source in the innate goodness or wisdom of the human being. Would mankind even have a notion to worship, let alone worship along the lines God desired, without some impetus from God? I don't think so. True worship, as I see it, is something that results from the Spirit's input into the sons and daughters of Adam's race.

"Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the sons of Israel; and Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses. He then performed the signs in the sight of the people. So the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about the sons of Israel and that He had seen their affliction, then they bowed low and worshiped."   Exodus 4:29-31 NASB

Worship is inspired by hearing God's word. Faith is inspired along the same lines: it makes sense that worship would be part of the package. When the Holy Spirit attends the Word of God, so that the human can hear it with perception, understanding dawns on that person and response to God's word becomes possible. Faith is the primary, necessary and effective response, worship is the consequential one.

It is not the mere fact or existence of God's word which elicits a response, but the content. A later prophet would seem to rely on the same factor. When the Holy Spirit attends the Word of God which reveals that God has plans for people, plans to prosper them and not harm them, people touched by the message respond. Among other possibilities, they worship.

Followers of Jesus have such words from God. Since they are, by definition, spiritual people capable of spiritual appraisals, Christians would be expected to be people who exude worship in response to such promises. Christians unmoved to worship, Christians unresponsive worshipfully to God's goodness, or Christians unbowed before the mighty and merciful God would seem a contradiction in terms. Christians who don't worship might not be Christians at all.

Worship finds inspiration in the acts of God as well. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are perhaps the most notable among the acts of God, but they are not the only ones that inspire worship. Past acts other than those, and present acts serve to inspire worship too. Any act of God that communicates that God is with us, that God is for us, and that he has seen our misery and is concerned for us inspire those that believe to bow down in worship.

When one hears God's words of concern and promise and sees God's acts of deliverance and blessing, and believes, worship in response to God is practically automatic. So, listen to the words of God and see his acts of wonder and let a reaction rise within you and spill out as worship.

Is Socialism Biblical?

Under the current administration, the government and economy of the United States has taken a decidedly left turn. Many believers think that such concerns really do not matter, have nothing at all to do with the Gospel, and therefore should not be a concern to a strongly evangelical Christian. Whereas I agree with such sentiments on their face, that doesn't mean one form of government or economy is as good as any other, or more to the point, more biblical than another. Let's explore (superficially, I admit) the "biblicalness" of socialism.

The the notion of private property is firmly ensconced in the Bible: not just personal property but real property as well. Socialism, in its severest form, does not allow for private property and has a limited view of such in its more pragmatic forms. If God's design for the society of his people as espoused in the Old Testament gives us any clue, means of production are intended by God to be held by individuals as a basis of self-reliance and freedom for those individuals and their children after them. Political authority exercised over the individual's talents and the individual's use of his property was considered by God a detriment, not a noble goal.

Furthermore, trying to obliterate class distinctions in society is a fool's errand. Jesus said the poor will always be with us. In the kingdom, even in the eternal age, there will be distinctions in rewards. The petty jealousy of the natural human heart which can't stand seeing someone else have something that it does not should not be the driver of public policy. However, the economically powerful should not be allowed to benefit themselves while squeezing those that make their wealth accumulation possible. An equitable share of profits going to workers is good policy, whereas equality in earnings is a hopelessly misguided fantasy.

Personal initiative and responsibility is the foundation of personal righteousness. Taking care of the helpless, the resourceless, and the weak (the poor, widows, and orphans) is a biblical construct, but transferring personal responsibility to society is not. Whereas "helping the working man" fits within a biblical framework, welfare for the able but idle does not. In taking that concept to the nth degree, we hear the convoluted logic today that considers universal healthcare (or really, anything else that must be earned by the able) an inalienable right.

People, all of them, are sinful by nature: if there is a way to get without giving in return a sizable proportion of them will opt for that choice--some more, some less. This is just the reality of human nature. To assume that big government is capable of equitably administering the crash between demand and supply which will result from a policy of open access for all seems to me the most hubristic conception to come down the pike in the modern age. Supply will become inadequate and prices will rise despite the best intentioned interventions of socialistic public policy.

Sometimes socialism is said to be a biblical idea due to the experiment of the early church in Jerusalem. I would note that the model was not repeated anywhere else the church was planted; that Jerusalem was a pilgrim city where many would have been in town on a temporary basis without visible means of longer term support; and that the area was poor and subject to drought and shortage. People liquidating personal property to help out brothers and sisters in distress was never meant to model communal living, the weight of NT scripture makes that more than clear. So much, then, for "biblical socialism."

Concentrated human authority (e.g., a king) is not God's desired option for the government of his people. By extension, any authority (king or not) that can confiscate property, conscript sons and daughters, tax parasitically--in other words, endanger personal freedom--is not what's best for God's sons and daughters. Human beings are sinful: put power in their hands over others and they'll use it sinfully. Socialism, even if democratic, ignores this reality and puts sinners in stifling control over other humans.

Can such a thing ever be expected to produce anything other than bondage?

Should Christian voters support overreaching governmental control in America, or curse our descendants with the burden of a relatively large, permanently underemployed, feckless welfare class akin to what exists throughout socialist Europe? American believers are free to join unbelievers in constructing a Tower of Babel against acts of God (that is what socialism seems to be an attempt at to me), but it won't be the Bible that influences such a choice. The Bible, as I see it, is relatively clear in its support for personal property, personal responsibility, economic freedom and trusting in God. Socialism, on the other hand, can only produce the tyranny of the sinner.

The Image of God, Freedom, Depravity and Faith

There are those made in the image of God without the presence of God within, which are thereby bound to be sinners. Sin will be their very nature, for there is nothing truly good (godly) in them. They are depraved.

There are those made in the image of God within the presence of God (as were Adam and Eve) which thereby are capable of choosing a course contrary to God and thus becoming sinners. Though they were created good, it's hard not see that sin, for them, was inevitable.

There are those made in the image of God who actually participate in the divine nature (as the redeemed do in earnest now but who will not fully, or perfectly, do so until raptured) who thereby can do as God would at every opportunity to do anything, without fail. They, like Jesus, will never sin.

It seems to me, faith is the operative element and the status of spirit the conditional element in each category which determines the outcome.

Those in the first category are born separated from God and therefore have no inclination to, nor capability of seeing him as he truly is. They do as they want, and what they want does not factor in God as he truly is. Faith in God as he truly is (without which it is impossible to please him) could not arise in those in such a condition. They suffer an incapacity, as a result, to do anything truly good (i.e. of God) with no desire to do according to God as he truly is or wants.

Those in the second category (in which only Adam and Eve ever existed, and then only until The Fall) are made to do as they choose, for that is what being in God's image entails. As long as they chose to do as God wished things were splendid. When they chose to do otherwise sin was conceived, to be born when the choice was enacted. Faith (trusting in God's rather than their own judgment) would have been the thing which could have averted disaster, but they acted without faith and threw themselves and their heirs into Depravity.

Those in the third category are actually the other categories made anew without the taint of separation and are granted participation in the divine nature. They are like Jesus. They have a complete trust in God which does not have to compete with evil drives within nor evil enticements from without, and thereby they are enabled to walk in perfect agreement with God throughout eternity.

Indestructible Souls and Irresistible Grace

"Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."     Genesis 2:7 (NASB)

The breath of God is a precious thing.

God's breath imparts that something that makes a human soul, that makes one a person. Not that every person animated by that breath is the person of God, but it is God's breath that infuses all of the capacities of soul that personhood builds on and without which there would be no person. It communicates those characteristics of personhood that are analogous to God's personhood. That breath is spirit, and more than anything else in all creation represents something directly emanated from God's being. 

Think about that: something within humans that makes them persons represents a direct input from the person of God. Some repercussions of that astounding fact are easily enough perceived--humans exercise choice (freewill), are creative (even to the extant of bringing something out of nothing), love, and... wait for it... humans are eternal. Once God invested his own breath in humanity, the persons that result have an essence that will never pass away. What an astonishing thought!

God's breath may exist eternally, but that does not translate into those infused by that breath living eternally. Breath that is separated from God does not respire, it does not go out and come in (as it were). God's breath must be actively with God, in tune with God, in contact with and in the presence of God to live. Cut off from God, separated, it merely exists. It projects some measure of its capacity for personhood, but it is dark, really, lifeless.

In order for one in whom God has breathed the breath of life to live, he or she must walk in agreement with God; however, even God cannot make creatures who possess his image but who do not exercise creaturely freedom thereby. His image makes such freedom necessary and irresistible grace impossible. Creatures made in God's image, by the capacity of choice in that nature, must freely choose agreement with God. That is an action of faith (i.e. trustful reliance) without which it is impossible to please God--faith is what it takes for free creatures to live in agreement with God.

Whereas it is very true that God loves everyone he's made, those made in his image with the capacity of choice have no future without faith. The Gordian knot is that no one born since the Fall of Man can make that choice of faith unless the Spirit has enabled him or her. However, if the enablement was such that one was rewired to make that choice without the possibility of not making it, that one would cease being in the image of God. The breath that confers such is indestructible, so it is impossible for the grace that underlies enablement to be irresistible and enablement to be a guarantee.

Enabled to Respond

There is no one who does good.
God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there is anyone who understands,
Who seeks after God.
Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one.                                  Psalm 53:1b-3 NASB

Such is a biblical description of the depravity of mankind. How can a being so described ever be reconciled to God? Obviously, some kind of gracious intervention by God would be required, but what kind and to what degree?

Suffice it to say, the depraved person is enabled to respond to God with faith as God speaks to him or her. A rewiring of the person is not required at that point, just an interaction with God. When the Spirit of God interacts with a depraved person, that person is, in effect, freed from their natural state of depravity (i.e., their inability to know good and to know God) and given a window of opportunity to respond to God with faith.

This is the most natural reading of the biblical testimony of how mankind has been since the Fall. Whether we look at Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, or the Apostles, the pattern is the same--God spoke to them and they were able to respond. None of them is reported to have been regenerated in order for this to happen, no great re-fabrication of their humanity was ever mentioned; therefore, the implication is that it was not necessary. Only the logical necessity within an extra-biblical theological system (Calvinism) even remotely suggests such a thing, not the text of scripture.

What the scriptures do teach indirectly by example, and directly through the words of Christ is that depraved human beings have no way or means (or desire) to find God by their own self-initiated effort. Even if they could make such efforts unassisted, those efforts could never be effective, for God is not obligated to appear at the summons of a sinner. God is not like a set of misplaced car keys which are found if searched for thoroughly "whether they want to be or not." If he did not make himself findable, available, we would never encounter him.

The truth is, if he didn't draw and woo us by his Spirit, we would never look. And yet, our depravity is not of such a nature that it cannot be overcome by God showing up. His tap on our shoulder is sufficient to give us the power and reason to turn to him, without the necessity of reworking our inner being just in order to do so. The scriptures do not relate the latter occurring anecdotally nor describe such theologically. Embracing such a thought can only muddy the waters and make confusing what isn't.

What Is Freewill?

Freewill is a description of volitional power which God, alone, has perfectly. He does as he pleases without disability or mitigation. He can do a thing or not do it.

When God created the heavens and earth and all that lives therein, he made a freewill choice to have that creation reflect himself, and in particular for man to resemble himself. To that end, he gave mankind a physical body made of the stuff that everything else was made of, including everything else living, and infused it with a spiritual animus that made mankind uniquely, specially in his image. Whatever a soul is (and I'm certain we really don't know what that is), it is something that came into being when the breath (spirit) of God was infused into the corpus of man.

It is that ethereal thing, the soul, which expresses itself through a physical being made for it, which makes a healthy human being a reflector of God's freewill and an expresser of it in its own accord. While an individual is in a body, that individual is beholden to that body for its expression of its soulish being. If a brain is damaged, malformed, underdeveloped, diseased or afflicted, the soulish power of freewill will be affected in its expression. God has created man as a discrete singularity made of body, soul and spirit, so that as the body goes, so goes the expression of soulish personhood.

A soul without a properly functioning brain will not express in the physical world the freewill it otherwise has the innate ability to. Without a body a soul is not a complete human, which is reflected, I think, in the crying out under the altar of those martyred souls in Revelation (and the fact that we get new bodies for eternity). When a person is intact and healthy, the existence of his or her soul, is what gives that person the capacity to express freewill. There are limits, of course, the most obvious being the physical laws of the universe, and what is more important in my opinion, the law of Spirit.

The Law of the Spirit determines the ability of the soul to express itself in harmony with God. After the Fall of Adam and Eve, spiritual death, or separation between man and the Spirit of God, was imposed upon mankind. Whatever sort of resting place the soul had been made to be for the breath of God, its connection to the breath of God was broken at that time and so freewill in mankind was incapable of willing in harmony with God. After Jesus rose from the dead and made the Spirit available to those who follow him, the born again have by that rebirth a renewed ability to will freely in harmony with God (though the not perfectly so long as they are in dying bodies).

So what is freewill? It is the volitional power human beings possess, which, among other things, allows them to be the expression of the image of God who possesses freewill in its ultimate sense. Though a soulish quality, it is communicated in the physical world through the auspices of the physical being (particularly, the brain). Natural human beings have no ability to express that capacity in line with God, supernatural human beings (the regenerated) have some capacity to, eternal human beings will be able to perfectly.

The Problem of Physical Evil

Why does an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God allow evil such latitude in our age? That God will judge such in a time to come, and cause it to cease thereafter forever is an answer, but it seems a marginal one at best to those living through this age. And to be honest, eternal judgment in the Lake of Fire for the evil done temporally seems only to exacerbate the problem, fighting evil with evil for all intents and purposes. Natural evil--catastrophes, pestilence, genetic abnormalities--seems capricious and only adds to the miserable mystery.

Physical evil certainly is a vexing problem. It rains (too much or too little) on the just and the unjust, earthquakes do not shake merely the morally shaky, tornadoes have been known to sweep through Bible-believing churches while the congregation was in the midst of worship and prayer, and pestilence, mutations and snakes strike apart from any discernment protocol. God may have pulled the plug on this creation because of sin, and let it slowly spiral down the drain, but on the surface, for those twisting in the vortex, it doesn't seem very just or loving. Who can make sense of it?

What needs to remembered in such considerations is that, according to God's standard, it's not the other guy who is evil, it's us--all of us, every single one that has ever come into existence. By God's reckoning, any opposition to his will is evil, even merely eating a piece of fruit he did not want us to. We think we are innocent (so long as we have not overtly harmed another creature), but that is just not the way God sees it. The truth is that humans do as they please, they do without regard to God, they do in opposition to God, and thus they demonstrate that they are, in fact, evil.

That humans have what opportunity they do have to live in a dying world is an accommodation of the magnanimous grace of God. "Wait just a minute," you might be thinking, "we didn't ask to be born at all, let alone the way we are where we are." How is allowing some of us to be particularly evil, while letting all of us live in an environment consistently evil, grace? Well, I think that it demonstrates that God has not written off the human race.

Everything could have ended with the failure of the prototype (Adam and Eve). God could have wiped out everything at The Fall, and been justifiably done with it. Starting over again would not have been an option, because in granting a creature freewill, the same evil to which the prototype succumbed would have been in play for any built like them (in the image of God, that is). The truth is, only God can handle being like God: those that are merely like God, but not God, must live submitted to God in love and faith.

So, though God cannot allow evil to stand and so pulled the plug on this universe, in his love for what was made good, he patiently continues what seems to us the slow, inexorable unfolding of judgment, which is physical evil, because there is a possibility of redemption. Evil creatures, which rebelled in the darkness of ignorance, can be illumined and change their mind and heart about going their own way. If they can truly take to heart the necessity of submission to and agreement with God, he can recast and reset them in a new universe untainted by the fall of the originals.

So there really isn't a problem with physical evil, but there's still a bit more I'd like to talk about...

The Nature of Freedom and Depravity

Human beings are free to do as they wish. God made them that way. Adam and Eve were free to do as they wished. They could eat anything that grew in the Garden, save that from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam could name the animals whatever he wished. He could have named them this, he could have named them that. They could have eaten this, they could have eaten that.

God made humans that way in making them in his image. God does as he wishes--it is his most fundamental quality apart from self-existence. No being is freer of necessity than God, for who or what is there that could impose necessity upon him? He could have created the universe, or he could have not. He could have made beings like us in his image, or he could have not. But God did make us in this image of freedom, excepting of course, that he could not make himself, so the image is not as powerful, nor as free, nor as able as the original.

Nonetheless, that created in the image has to be free in a way analogous to God or it would not be in his image. If God determines our desires or decrees our choices we are no more free than a robot, and nor more in his image than a robot can be in ours. If our choice is circumscribed by desire, the result is not freedom but mere instinct. The Bible generally (there are specific exceptions) shows humans in a light in which the kind of choice described thus far would have to be presupposed in order for the accounts to make sense.

Mankind, since the Fall of Adam and Eve, are not as free as they were nor as free as a being made in God's image could be. Humans, on their own, could never replicate or reflect the choices that God would make (and they've been on their own since the Fall). Dead in spirit and separated from God, they have no means of discerning the way or the will of God. This lack of ability to discover anything or to do anything truly godly translates into mankind having neither the inclination nor the power to choose as God would have them choose. Even with God's word giving mankind more information than they could have ever gotten on their own, without spiritual renewal (regeneration) mankind remains depraved.

Fallen humanity does has the power of choice--the freedom to do as they wish. Their wishes, however, can never rise to nor align with the choice of God. Apart from the Spirit of God communicating the word of God into the soul of a man and thereby enabling faith, that man is not free to do as God wills or, indeed, to know what that is. With the action of God's Spirit bringing to bear God's word on the human heart and giving faith the opportunity to arise, something other than the general depravity of mankind is possible.

What Convinces Us We Need God?

For many of us, life unfolds in the midst of having some worthy goal. We are working steadfastly toward its achievement, hitting the mile markers on the way which tell us we are doing well. We're getting the recognition of peers or consumers, we are achieving. We're together, at the top of our game and feeling good about it.

If we hear a preacher or someone witnessing for Christ who tells us we need God, our response might be, "for what?" Believe it or not, it is even possible for someone to self-identify as a Christian and slip into the same stream. Oh, these are not antagonistic toward God, or anything, it's just that they (even if they would never admit it) think God would be proud of them. If someone needs help, they figure God needs theirs.

When people are self-satisfied, they feel no need for God.

When our thoughts are invaded by the stupid, the silly, the sinful, or the absolutely debauched, a hint arises within us that maybe we're not quite so altogether as we had assumed. There's something in us we don't quite understand, itching to make us blunder and look all too much like the rabble of the unwashed masses. It's not so easily put under reins either. Maybe we don't have this life thing mastered.

It is the imposition of an unwanted thought, an undesired desire that arises within us embarrassing us as it sprouts into consciousness, which breaks the illusion of our self-control. Perhaps it is an irrational fear, or a secret prejudice that shakes our self-reliance. At some point, the failure that such things inspire breaks out in the open. In those moments we discover that we can't do this life thing by ourselves after all. We're less than we thought we were, we do need help, and from someone greater than ourselves--we need God.

Minding Our T's and Clues

The description of the natural man in the Bible is that man is dead because of Adam's transgression. It's not that we are all being held responsible for Adam's sin (i.e. punished), but that his sin happened before we came along and so it's effects (death) were handed down to us. Just as I am American because my distant progenitors decided to leave Ireland and Germany and settle in America and raise a family, so I am a sinner because Adam and Eve sinned and then had children.

The dead beget the dead. It's not like each of us would not have done as Adam did given the chance (he was the prototypical human). We were in his loins, we are as he was. That point is moot, however, because Adam did sin and did so before he had progeny. As a result, all that he could pass on was what he had--death, separation from God, and curse.

It should be noted that after the Fall, Adam's will was still intact and functioning. He was making choices, plotting direction, demonstrating creativity. If anything, those aspects of his personhood may actually have been accentuated. He even had conversations with God. Apparently, the Fall did not turn him into a zombie automaton serving only Satan and sin. I don't see any of the individuals highlighted in the OT demonstrating such a characteristic. Sinners, yes: satanic automatons incapable of hearing and responding to God when he spoke, NO!

Despite that, the Calvinistic concept of depravity (the condition of natural man) is vigorous and all too thorough. According to that reckoning, mankind has been so affected by Adam's sin as to be entirely corrupt and absolutely incapable of any good in regard to God. Man is incapable of searching for God, finding God, responding to God, trusting God, or walking according to his precepts. Man is dead in sin with no residual ability or capacity for anything spiritual.

Under such a reckoning, a divine imposition of grace is necessary for man to even so much as respond to God with faith. Regeneration, for all intents and purposes, must precede faith, and once initiated is irresistible and infallible. It seems to me that this approach has one being saved to believe rather than being saved because one believes.

In Arminianism, the concept of depravity is vigorous and thorough as well. By its reckoning, mankind has been so affected by Adam's sin as to be thoroughly corrupt and absolutely incapable of any untainted good. Man is incapable of searching for God, finding God, or walking according to his precepts. Man is dead in sin, separated from God, corrupt, and therefore incapable of truly having faith in God.

But under such a reckoning, a divine interjection of grace is all that is necessary for mankind is to respond to God with faith. Arminians, generally, see the word of God as containing such an affect. Upon hearing the word of God, the natural man is enabled to respond to God. A response is not infallibly certain, but it is absolutely impossible apart from the grace that enables it.

The chief difference in those two views of man's utter depravity comes into focus when considering the solution either envisions for the problem. Calvinism posits an imposed grace and regeneration (rebirth) as the solution: the sinner is made a saint by divine fiat. Arminianism posits an enabling grace which allows the sinner to respond to God with faith, which in turn is followed by God making the former sinner a new creature (rebirth). In either case, the solution for man's incapacity is divine.

A Summary of Theological Positions Regarding the Spiritual State of Natural Man

Calvinism: God imposes saving faith upon the depraved he chooses to save

Arminianism: God enables the depraved who hear the Gospel to respond with saving faith

Semipelagianism: God savingly helps those who use their ability turn to him in faith

Pelagianism: Man can turn to Christ on his own and appropriate salvation

The Pelagian (semi included) approaches to man's status and ability fly in the face of Jesus words: "no one can come to me unless the Fathers draws them." In maintaining mankind's freewill, they deny the innate inability of natural mankind to initiate a relationship with God through faith (depravity). This, despite the Word clearly teaching that faith comes by hearing the word of God. One does not have to posit intact spiritual abilities in natural man (i.e. little or no affect from the Fall) against what the Word says in order to sustain natural man's freewill.

Where the Calvinistic conception of depravity fails is that the record of scripture shows, readily and repeatedly, that natural man can respond to God when he or his word comes upon them. Sinners are not so "dead" as to be beyond hearing God if he actively approaches near enough, and they are not so quickened in doing so as to be above rejecting him.

Does Hell Have Anything to Do With Justice?

Eternal damnation in fire seems anything but just. The punishment is more than disproportional to the crime, really to any crime imaginable. Besides, there are folk, which by just about any measure, seem to be of a good sort, but whom the Bible offers little hope because they do not believe Jesus is the Christ. With this in mind, I ask, "Can hell have anything at all to do with justice?"

My answer is no (and yes).

Ultimately, the purpose and need for hell is not justice, it is peace--God's peace. Due to his omni characteristics, opposition from other beings to what he knows is right and best puts him, in effect, at odds with himself. Opposition to God (sin) cultivates chaos into the order he has established and leads in an unswerving path to greater and greater divergence and disorder. Where can he go to not see it, to not hear it, to not have to swallow it wretching at the taste of it (wrath)? For one perfect in every respect, things have got to go his way or no way. Any other way would make him other than what he singularly is.

Christian theologians have traditionally cast the terrors of hell as justified on the basis of egregious offenses by sinners against a righteously indignant God. By and large, however, the offenses envisioned were nothing more, really, than being human (for instance, eating a set aside apple). This misses the point entirely--God doesn't hate people (sinners) just for being people, but it is necessary for them to come into agreement with him, for there is life and love in nothing else. Rather than casting God as the ultimate, cosmic Gloria Allred throwing an eternal hissy fit over being offended, we would do well to help sinners understand the need of reconciliation with God.

Only secondarily is hell about justice, or the retribution for wrongs done. This gets the most attention, even scripturally, which makes some sense. Retributive justice is of the most practical concern for humans, but it is only derivatively divinely purposeful. God gets no pleasure from the death of the wicked, not the physical which comes first nor the eternal which will follow. There is no delectable glory attachable to hell. It is necessary rather than desirable.

To be clear, God does love justice. If death (and hell) were about justice, God would love the death of the wicked and glory in it. He'd spit on their carcasses and dance on their graves. Would Jesus have wept over Jerusalem if he loved justice in that way? God is just, of that there can be no doubt, but I do not see that hell is primarily about justice. Hell does serve the cause of justice eternally, but the nature of hell, its unending continuity, are not in place to serve justice, but peace and order as God sees it.