If We Would Just Catch Our Breath

It has been broadly accepted that mankind is nothing more than a highly evolved animal, not really any different from any other living thing out there. No other animal is even remotely like us in the ability to reason, or to will, or to communicate, or to abstract, but according to the modern conception that is only a matter of degree rather than substance. I don't believe that, but then, what makes man so special in my view? In the early chapters of Genesis, we are told exactly what that is and especially with regard to all other life.

The creation account in the beginning of Genesis is really an elucidation of God’s determination to make mankind in his image. The creation of the universe itself and all other lifeforms is treated as the backdrop to that ultimate aim. No more explanation than “and God said…and God saw that it was good” is offered for all of those creations, but for mankind a bit more needed to be said. The thrust is that mankind is unique, special among God's creations with something nothing else in all the physical world has.

Mankind was made in the image of God, which means they are a likeness resembling God. God is non-corporeal and outside of the created order (John 4:24; 1 Timothy 1:17), which means that man’s resemblance to God is not physical but something else. Physically, mankind is much like anything else that is alive and is separated by mere degree from all else. However, nothing else is like mankind in those areas of divergence noted above and that is where the image of God shines forth. God is the only thing other than man (and angels) that shares those qualities.

Presumptively, God fashioned man, physically, from the same material he had used to make other creatures. Whereas they were brought forth from the earth by a mere word, mankind was formed [Hebrew: yatsar] by God in the manner of a potter and then directly breathed into by God which granted man soulish life. Although later in the creation account, that word (formed) was applied generally to all the creatures God had made, I find it interesting that in dealing with the detail of creation, a clear difference in how that played out is specified.

Whereas a general, creative word was sufficient for every other creature, with man God got his hands dirty and infused his own breath into Adam. Every creature had living being [Hebrew: nephesh chayyah, the animation of living being] granted by God, but had so without any reference to breath breathed into it by God himself. For creatures, God merely said, "Let the earth bring forth..." For man, God took dust in his hand and formed the creature, then breathed out of himself into man's nostrils the breath of life.

What is important about this distinction, it seems to me, is that the quality that makes mankind living souls uniquely from God is also the means by which God’s image was uniquely communicated to man. We are in God's image, not just because we are like God descriptively, but because we came directly from God substantively. We are, in essence, breath from God. Human beings truly are the offspring of God.

As wonderful as that is, it has a drawback--it means we last forever, just like God. God is eternal and the breath that came out of God and was put into man (and made him a living soul) lasts forever too. Therefore, people never cease to exist, their soul is eternal. Ultimately, body and soul will brought together, as at first, and permanently assigned to their place of eternal abiding. So the only question about our future existence is not if we will, but where we will and under what conditions.

We certainly can't be destroyed, anymore than God can!

Most of us are only all too aware of our need for the redemption of our broken, dying bodies: physical death, and what leads up to it, is enough to get that message across. Thankfully, we have the necessary vicarious sacrifice in the death of Christ and his victorious resurrection from the dead for that, provided we place our trust in him. But what is the more essential need included in the mix is the redemption of our eternal souls, those whisps of the very breath of God which last forever. Everlasting life is in our hands from the scarred hands of Christ, if we would just pause in faith and catch our breath.

A Christian Worldview: What Is Truth?

Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

In a world where truth is asserted on the basis of consensus, or conversely, to be hyper-individualized, is there actually such a thing as truth? The contemporary search to uncover truth includes immense computing power sifting massive amounts of data and modeling at levels not possible just a couple of decades ago. Has it brought anyone closer to the truth? Who knows? Regardless, it seems to me that each person does have a conception that certain things are true, and that truth conception influences their lives, that is their decisions, direction, interactions, relations, and values.

This series is about the development of a Christian worldview, and in that matter the basis for one's conception of truth is foundational. In the above snippet from the Gospel of John the word used for truth [Koine: aletheia] communicates a basis for understanding truth objectively, namely, that truth aligns with reality. Whereas Pilate demonstrated a relativistic view on the subject, Jesus had a very definite position on the existence of truth, and that truth had to correspond to reality. Jesus came to tell the truth; the thing that was actually so, the thing that was perseveringly so, the thing that cut across that which wasn't so.

If a Christian worldview is about seeing life through Jesus eyes, then Christians who have such will also have a robust concept of truth, just like Jesus. According to that kind of view, whatever a person may say, or believe, or promulgate may not actually align with reality. It is possible to be right or wrong, for something to be true or false, justified or unfounded, even in matters of morality, religion, and ideas. Christianity itself rises or falls on the reality of a single truth claim, that Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead. If that event did not actually comport with reality, then Christianity is false and claims that it makes concerning morality and metaphysics would be called into question.

If truth doesn't have to comport with reality we devolve into a wonderland where the difference between fact and fiction is indiscernible. Imagination would rule the day, until a two pound hammer fell on the imaginer's head from a scaffold and ended the dream. Consciousness may be a weird, subjective thing but it cannot shrug off reality or the environment in which it arises will end up turning on that consciousness and biting it on the rear. We don’t get to make up the world we want and call it truth, we’re stuck with the world as it actually is.

Even metaphysical and moral "truth" has to comport with reality, the ultimate reality that is... God. The metaphysics and morality of Judeo/Christianity arose from that ultimate reality speaking for itself. The unseen creating God told people what his supernatural power did and what his omniscient wisdom knew was right. Jesus Christ represents the most direct sample of this occurring, so to have truth in one's morality or metaphysical concepts those have to align with Christ and what he said.

Because truth comports with reality, it also will function within reality, it must. If something is true, it will work. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543 CE) famously dealt with this certainty in dealing with retrograde motion of the planets. Geocentrism didn't work, and couldn't possibly comport with reality. I deal with claims, similarly non-functioning, all the time, especially in the charismatic circles I run in. Doctrine that comports with reality, particularly the reality of Christ and his word, will work in reality. Doctrine that doesn't comport won't work and is bad doctrine.

Inevitably, bad doctrine leads to bad practice.

Understanding the truth and looking at life on the basis of it is the heart and soul of a Christian worldview. Living by that perspective keeps followers of Christ from going off the rails; it keeps them from being deceived; it keeps us from being lost in the dark. It helps us to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Show me a claimant to Christianity that doesn’t have this robust concept of truth and I’ll show you someone, undoubtedly, not living according to Christ. So dear reader, how are you living?

"Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth."

"...you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

The next part...

Death Be Not Proud

Death is said to be natural. It isn't. I know everything dies--bugs, trees, ocelots, and us--it's part of life as we know it. The struggle to avoid death, and the ultimate succumbing to it, are foundational to the naturalistic explanation of how life develops and species emerge. Yet, deep inside my heart, I hate death and chafe against its imposition.

And it is an imposition. God, the Creator, by revelation and definition doesn't die, weaken, decay, rest, rust, or turn to dust. All creation is an expression of who and what he is, so death doesn't fit! How can it be baked in the cake? The fact is that it's not: it's imposed supernaturally, as a curse from God.

The natural, created state of human beings was everlasting life. Sin is what brought death and all of us alike suffer from it. I think that despite the marring of God's image within humankind due to the curse on sin, deep inside, most of us feel that same chafing at death's imposition that I do. It doesn't feel right that it all should end with a breath. No matter how long we've lived in its shadow, it still catches up to us too soon.

I wish there was some way to fight that which is never satisfied; to yell, "That's enough!" and have it cease. If translated into some strange, spiritual dimension into a spectator's seat observing the battle between the living and the Grim Reaper, I would hiss at his every advance. I would boo at all of his progress. On particularly tragic days, like a crazed soccer fan, I'd rush the field hoping to beat him with my own big stick.

But wait a minute... I do have a big stick and in the here and now! 

God came from heaven, took on human form, hung on that stick, died on it, and then rose from the grave victorious over it. Then he handed the power of that stick to us. Jesus defanged the hated beast and unstung the bee, and handed the victory to you and me. For all who trust in Jesus and what he did on that stick, what was natural is natural again.

Existence never ends, even if life does. For those trusting in Christ neither existence nor life end. Still, we must all cross over that dark threshold and chafe at the loss we feel as we and those we love die. Yet, our grief is not like the world's, for in the midst we find an overwhelming, inexpressible joy knowing that the Lion has risen and death works backwards. 

So, my friend, restore the natural order that was intended by God through embracing interjected supernatural means--put all your hope in Christ and live forever!

The Olivet Discourse: The Trumpet Blast

In their accounting of the Olivet Discourse Matthew and Mark describe, briefly, the gathering of the saints by Christ at the end of age. Luke, however, is silent on the subject. I've written elsewhere about how this gathering relates to the timing of the Rapture of the Church, so I won't touch upon those considerations here. Suffice it to say, the discourse merely states that the ultimate gathering of the elect will happen at the end of the Tribulation, and gives us some sense of how.

Specifically, the Son of Man will send angels to assemble the saints from everywhere in heaven and earth. The bifurcation in the description is important: one aspect of the gathering is earthly, the other aspect heavenly. The expression, "from the four winds" refers to the four compass directions and entails every place on earth; "from one end of heaven to the other" refers to the realms beyond the skies and is heavenly. We would have to assume that at least the dead in Christ were part of the heavenly group, but there is no textual reason why it wouldn't or couldn't include the already raptured.

Those gathering angels are sent with a trumpet call, which might lead the inquiring reader to ask, "Exactly which trumpet blast might that be?" A succession of seven trumpet calls are mentioned in Revelation but none of them are associated with the gathering of the saints. I do not believe they are what is referenced by Christ in the Olivet Discourse. A last trump is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:52, and is definitely associated with the Rapture, but I don't believe that it is associated with the seven trumpets of Revelation either.

The seventh trumpet of the Apocalypse leads to more tribulation (i.e, the seven bowls) rather than the Return of Christ after tribulation is finished. The seven trumpets are not referenced anywhere else in scripture (even though modeled in a sense at Jericho), and I do not think the Apostle Paul would have even known of them when writing to the Corinthians in 55 CE (at the latest). John wrote the Apocalypse in 95 CE, and I doubt the Apostle Paul had the same type of revelation or awareness of detail as John would have prior to him receiving his vision on Patmos. There is just no good reason to associate the last trump of 1 Corinthians with the seven visionary trumpets of Revelation.

Last (Koine: esxate, meaning final, extreme) certainly implies more than one, but if it's not referring to the series of seven in the Apocalypse, then what is it referring to? Perhaps Israel's mandate to use trumpets during the exodus can provide some insight.

A long trumpet blast, not followed by another, in other words, the last signal trump sounded meant all Israel was to gather. It seems reasonable to me that Paul could have had this in mind when writing to the Corinthians (or even that a succession trumpet blasts were signaled when they set out by camp, the last signaling that all Israel was on the move). If so, then Paul was merely relying upon that imagery in conjunction with the word "last" to get across the sense of totality and finality in God's people moving into their eternal state, rather than connecting this to any series of trumpet blasts.

So, at the end of this age, immediately after the Great Tribulation, there will be an actual trumpet blast, unconnected to the seven visionary blasts of the Apocalypse, which signals the final ingathering of the saints in heaven and on earth to be with Christ. All the faithful dead will have been raised at that time, and those alive and remaining will have been changed. That doesn't mean that some of either category won't have been raised or changed before, only that all those that will be will have been so at that particular time.

The Olivet Discourse: The Secret Rapture

Some look at the description of Christ's return within the Olivet Discourse and jump to the conclusion that the secret (i.e. pre-tribulational) Rapture of the church is an unscriptural teaching. The sudden catching away of the church prior to the Tribulation and the ascendancy of the Antichrist seems to fly in the face of the text, which plainly states that the return of Christ and the rescue of his saints occurs at he end of the Tribulation. I don't blame folks for holding this position, in fact, I thought this way myself in my early days as a Christian. 

What changed my mind was a "Eureka!" moment while poring over Revelation 12 (see this). When I understood the imagery in that passage, it was as if I'd been given a key that unlocked everything else the Bible said about eschatology. Suddenly, just about everything fell into place, including the Olivet Discourse. As it did, I no longer disdained the Secret Rapture teaching, but found myself, to my surprise, accepting it and thereafter promoting it.

The mechanics of Jesus' return as detailed in the Olivet Discourse are the same regardless of which approach to the Rapture one takes. Astronomical wonders and some uniquely associative heavenly sign immediately precede the visible return of Christ through the clouds. The series of events will be absolutely unmistakable and inescapable, like lightning illumining the whole sky. As he comes through the clouds, he will gather his saints together from the four winds (all over earth) and from one end of heaven to the other.

Pre-tribbers and mid-tribbers assume at least some saints were already in heaven (i.e., raptured, not just the dead in Christ) when Jesus finally arrives on earth. The text explicitly states that he gathers his saints from from all over the heavens so that is certainly a valid perspective. How those on the earth are gathered is not intimated, it is only said that they are gathered in the lot. I see nothing in the text which implies that those on the earth are quickly whisked up into the air just to experience a meteoric descent back to earth immediately afterwards with Jesus.

Post-tribbers have to assume that very thing, the sequence as follows: Christ appears in the heavens, gathers the saints from heaven (the dead in Christ) and earth (those alive and remaining) in the air (necessitated by 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17) and then immediately returns to earth with them in tow.

Among other issues with that scenario, it does not jive with Revelation 19:19-20:5. That text clearly states that there are saints who did not take the mark of the Beast and that are raised from the dead (raptured, for all intents and purposes) in isolation from the rest of the dead. The passages that deal directly with the faithful dead being raised or raptured (1 Corinthians 15:50-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17) clearly state that all the faithful dead at the time of the Rapture rise together. Therefore, the unmarked saints from the Tribulation cannot be part of the faithful dead at the time of the Rapture. 

The only way the math works out is for those unmarked, Tribulation saints to die after the Rapture has occurred.

If those Tribulation saints must die during the Tribulation but after the Rapture, the post-tribulation perspective is untenable. The mid-tribulation perspective is not eliminated, not at least by the passage mentioned above. It does have issues with what follows in the Olivet Discourse (see this), however.  It seems the escape of the Rapture, at least for the broadest measure of the Church, must happen suddenly in the midst of ordinary life, and hence pre-tribulationally, according to the scriptures. 

I must admit my approach to the Rapture in the Olivet Discourse is not a slam dunk. The language Jesus used in these passages is ambivalent enough for anyone so determined to justify in their own mind seeing these passages in another light. I do believe my approach to the Revelation and Daniel is more than solid and that everything else fits together within my interpretative schema, whereas nothing does under a mid- or post-tribulational regimen. If either of those approaches are right, no worries, bad things will happen to awake the slumbering before Christ returns, and they won't be caught with their pants down. 

If my approach is right, we need to be ready now.

The Keys of Death, Hades and David

The Keys of Death and Hades

He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades."   Revelation 1:17b-18

We use the word key in various ways. It can signify the crucial piece to understanding something or solving a problem. It can merely signify the importance of a thing. It can serve as a figure of affection; for instance, "the key to my heart." It can reference authority, or it can simply be a key, a device that opens a lock.

When it is said that a person holds the key to something the meaning is relatively straight forward. They have the means and therefore the power to unlock what is locked, they exercise control over it. To say that Jesus has the keys to death and Hades is to say that he has the ability to open the door to death and Hades and the power to release those who were locked in behind it. Jesus has authority to release people from death and Hades.

Death is the common fate of all the living. When anything living crosses that threshold, whatever animated its life is lost to its physicality. If that life isn't reinstated quickly it never can be, it's locked up behind death's door. For humans, that impelling, animating something is called a soul, an incorporeal, spiritual essence which carries not only the life force, but the personhood of the human.

Before Christ's ascension, humans souls were locked in Hades (Sheol in Hebrew) upon death. The body turned to dust and the soul was locked in Sheol. There is some thought that Sheol really just meant the grave, but I think Jesus' teaching concerning the rich man and Lazarus completely undermines such thoughts. Jesus envisioned Sheol as a place where dead people were kept self-aware, conscious. Whereas it may have been "restful" for the faithful, Jesus revealed that it was anything but for the unfaithful.

Once in either condition, there was no way out. Death and confinement thereafter in Hades was a one way trip. Jesus, however, overturned the order of all that had gone before and did what no one had done before or since. He entered into death and Hades, and then, of his own accord, he came back. His authority and power over death and Hades was thus neither theoretical nor derivative--it was demonstrative. He went there and came back with captives in tow, that is why he is said to have the keys of death and Hades.

There are not literal keys in Jesus hand, of course, as if he required a tool to open that figurative door. His power is intrinsic to who he is. The keys are merely a figurative way to put the concept into graphical terms. Jesus, the Son of God, has power over life and death, what was irreversible to everyone else is reversible to him. The most impenetrable, intractable wall humanity faces, death and Hades, Jesus had the power to walk right through, and most importantly for us, he has the power to bring others with him.


The Key of David

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.'"   Revelation 3:7

The phrase, "the key of David," elicits similar thoughts as did the phrase, "the keys of death and Hades." In both phrases, the word key relies upon the same basic symbolism which refers to the possession of authority. Whereas the first expression has an inherent Jewishness to it, the second is markedly Greek (Gentile). Regardless, what is in focus is an eschatological, teleological authority--the possessor of the keys has authority to affect and effect the end of things.

David, God's choice to rule over Israel, conquered and then established Jerusalem as the capital of all of Israel shortly after he had consolidated his power over all twelve tribes. Thereafter, the city was often referred to as "the City of God" or the equivalent. Why not? The God-appointed king was there and the only tabernacle of God on earth (the Temple) would be. So, to have the Key of David meant having authority over Jerusalem, and by extension, to have authority over God's kingdom (see Isaiah 22:20-22).

The symbolic connection to the New Jerusalem is obvious. The Messianic heir to David (Jesus) is the one in authority over the New Jerusalem. He has the power to let folk in or to keep them out (see Matthew 16:18-19 for an interesting connection and extension). If entry into eternity with God is something one desires, one will have to come to Jesus and get his approval in order to enter. Thankfully, to be coming to him is all that it takes to get it!

Though there is nothing particularly Jewish about Philadelphia, it was in the message to that church that this Jewish nomenclature was used. In the Kingdom of God, neither Jewishness nor Gentileness matter a whit, despite the fact that there is distinctive historical tracks for Israel's redemption and for that of the Gentiles. I don't think much can be read into that, for the new Jerusalem is of infinitely greater import than the original, and it is to that the symbol actually points.

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.

Communicating the Gospel

What does it take to communicate the Gospel? The message is rather simple: God came to earth in the form of a man named Jesus, lived sinlessly as that man, willingly accepted the weight of every other man's sins upon his own shoulders, died the death that was due that sin, and then rose from the dead on the third day thereby demonstrating that he'd overcome that sin and the death due it. To everyone that believes that good news and thereby embraces Jesus as Lord (and follows him), the victory over sin and death he achieved is shared with them.

Now a lot of effort has been and is made to analyse, criticize, synthesize and publicize what makes communication successful. That is particularly true in regard to the Gospel, because it accomplishes nothing if it's not shared. As would be expected in a venture that is so reliant on communication, the church world is up to its eyes in books, conferences, magazines, blogs, and courses on effective, relevant communication. Are those efforts misplaced? 

I find it remarkable that Jesus, our prime example, at the critical moment in extending his ministry, did not commission communicators to help him fulfill his vision. He neither relied on the instruction of experts in the field, nor enlisted those so instructed to do his bidding. Instead, gasp, he chose friends to help him, and not even well-spoken ones at that! That is counterintuitive at best, not at all what a wise leader should do--so why did Jesus do it?

Obviously, the quality of communication is not what converts sinners. Could it be that a church's true evangelistic success (that is on people actually becoming born again) depends more on whether or not Jesus has friends in that congregation than on how well that church markets its message? Is this not a Spirit thing after all? If his friends are not capable of communicating the gospel message with effect, and the onus seems to be on their bad technique, it may well be that it's not the gospel they are actually trying to communicate.

The Two Witnesses of the Apocalypse

"Who are those guys?" students of prophecy wonder in regard to the two witnesses of the 11th chapter of the Revelation. We are given only a few details concerning these cryptic figures: they prophesy for three and a half years at the end of time; they fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah; they are powerfully anointed as attested by signs and wonders; their ministry and death will occur in Jerusalem; they are hated and feared by the world; and they are raptured by God, publicly, after being dead for three and a half days. There have been interesting guesses about who they might be offered through the ages, but I know who they are with certainty!

How? You might ask. Well, I Corinthians 15 gives us all the information we need to figure it out! We are told there that Christ is the first one who defeated death and received an imperishable body. Furthermore, we are told that no one can go into eternity in perishable flesh and blood inherited from Adam. All born of Adam must die and/or be transformed into a new body following after the model of Christ in order to enter eternity with God. The old cannot inherit the new.

That produces a problem with the biblical record when one remembers the stories of Enoch and Elijah. They were taken by God to be with him while they were still alive in Adamic flesh, before Christ arose. Therefore, according to I Corinthians 15, they are not prepared for, nor can they enter into eternity until they put off their old bodies and rise in new ones untainted by Adam's fall. Somehow, either by an transformation akin to the Rapture of the Church (which not revealed in the Word), or by returning to earth and going through "normal" processes, Enoch and Elijah have got to be transformed. 

We have known that Elijah is in the mix forever, but the identity of the other witness has caused incredible speculation in the church. It really did not need to, for the Apostle Paul told us what we needed to know in order to identify both of them conclusively. Enoch and Elijah may have been enjoying the last few thousand years in the presence of God well enough, but they can't go into eternity the way they are. For their own good, and for the good of the Jews alive during Daniel's 70th week, those guys need to come back to earth, and then, they need to die!

The Most Important Prayer

What is the most important prayer anyone needs to pray? How about, "God, I have sinned, for Christ's sake please forgive me"?

If that prayer is answered by God, anything else answered is gravy. If that prayer is not answered by God, no other answer (really, nothing else) matters.

The good news is that this is the one prayer certain to get answered if asked.

The underlying basis for answering this prayer is already laid, demonstrably, tangibly in history. He who knew no sin became sin for us, and died in our sin that we might be forgiven. This basis for forgiveness is proven, because having taken our sin and incurring our death, Jesus rose victorious over them.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.     I John 1:8-2:2 NASB

Is Christianity Falsifiable?

Atheists, frustrated at times by the intransigence of Christians in debate, wonder if there is any evidence sufficient to make Christians question their faith. I've witnessed them asking, after throwing the kitchen sink at a stubborn Christian, if there was something that could falsify Christianity? Yes, there is, and it's quite simple--find the body of Christ, undeniably. If the body of Jesus were found, myself and all other Christians would have to recant (or be treated as lunatics) and our apologetics would fall like a house of cards.

The Romans couldn't find that body and the Jews couldn't produce it. Both had vested interests in doing so, and more than adequate power to exert to find that body if it could have been found. Persecution and oppression never motivated anyone involved in what would have to have been a large conspiracy, if there was a body, to betray the cabal and come clean. I would think the likelihood that archeology would ever come upon that body, if it existed, all these years later is next to nothing. Even if a body was found tomorrow would there be some way to positively identify it?

No, if the resurrection of Christ was to be undermined, it would have had to have been undermined in its day, it seems to me. Of course, Christians don't anticipate that body being found, ever, because it doesn't exist, at least not as a corpse or skeletal remains. Jesus is no longer dead: he came back to life and then left for heaven--his body is in use (although elsewhere), alive and well, as we shall soon see upon his return. It's true that one could destroy Christianity by producing that corpse, but that one is much more likely to produce that body by praying a writ of habeas corpus to the heavenly Father, namely, "Maranatha!"

Never Be Ashamed of God's Testimony

Christianity is predicated upon the belief that a dead guy rose, unaided, from the dead on the third day after buying the farm. That is the most ridiculous, patently absurd, demonstrably false (the dead have never risen unaided, before or since) event ever to have supposedly occurred in history. And yet myself, and every other true Christian who has ever lived believe it to be absolute truth--historically, physically, bodily. I cannot wrap my mind around people buying into this basic fundamental of Christianity, but then balking at some of the surrounding issues or other repercussions of the faith.

For instance: why would someone actually believe in Christ, but then balk at the infallibility and inerrancy of the scriptures? Jesus, the one whom they believe rose from the dead and then ascended to the height of all power, believed the Old Testament lock, stock and barrel. If one is basing their confidence in life and in life hereafter on the more than unlikely occurrence of this credulous guy rising from the dead, why so much as blink at inerrancy? To believe in the former while not believing the latter seems, minimally, inconsistent.

The same can be said concerning creation and evolution. Jesus believed in Adam and Eve and Noah's flood (and for that matter, Jonah's fish)--he cited their occurrences as factual back-up in his public disputations and teachings. How can one embrace the outrageousness of the gospel, but then hedge when it comes to instantaneous creation of kinds and Noah's flood (or any of the supernatural interventions of the Old Testament)? I truly cannot apprehend someone believing in Christ for salvation and simultaneously believing in evolution. It's a case of trying to have one's cake and eat it too.

What motivates those who believe in Christ but hesitate at believing in what Christ believed? Perhaps they bow down at the altar of their own intellects, all too willing to cede authority to human reasoning rather than Jesus' testimony. Maybe they would be embarrassed to believe such things and are unwilling to be thought a fool for Christ. It could be that they are merely ashamed of Christ before men. Regardless, what they need to remember is that Christ's resurrection is true or false with no shades of color in between, and if you're in it for a penny, you're in for a pound.

Come on, pick a side, make up your mind. It's not rocket science that gets anyone to eternal bliss in the hereafter with God, but Christ. You who believe in Christ, stop catering to the unbelieving and to your natural mind. The only good side that anyone needs to be on is the good side of Christ! He who is not with him is against him, so go "all in" for Jesus and stop hedging your bets. Never be ashamed of God's testimony.

Only Jesus Lives

Only God lives. Nothing else has this quality in and of itself. Everything other than God borrows its derivative existence from him, regardless of whether it may be animate or inanimate. Therefore, no being other than God has any claim to personal life (i.e a right to live) or personal rights (i.e. it's my life, I can do with it as I want). We have not made ourselves and we do not exist by and of independent animus.

In the grand scheme of things, only that which is precisely within God's will, that is in agreement in thought and deed with him, can possibly live. If anything in opposition to him had the ability to maintain itself in such, that would prove that evil was actually in God, since ultimately only God is. That which is in opposition to God, cannot do so eternally, but only temporarily and only because there is purpose in it for a season. Evil is a vanishing mist.

Among those in flesh and bones, only Jesus lived precisely in God's will. He never strayed from that line, and never will. It is his chief demonstration of divinity, and it is backed-up by his resurrection from the dead. So among those in flesh and bones, only Jesus has life and knows how to live.

For any other being made in the image of God, life can only exist in being in Jesus. This "being in Jesus" is not merely a positional or theoretical conception, but an actual and active participation in his Spirit. The one in Jesus is recast in his image, and thereafter walks as he walks. His atonement may have been the means of getting a sinner out of death, but only living and walking in him, like him, can sustain life.

As Jesus is flesh and bones with the person of God dwelling in him, those that will live are flesh and bones with God's Spirit living in them. As he, humbled in the form of flesh, lived agreeably with his heavenly Father, so to will those that live walk humbly in their flesh agreeably with the Spirit of God. To have Jesus within is to live, to be without Jesus is death, because only Jesus lives.

Entropy, Sin and Renewal

Having said that entropy is a death principle, I must also say that death is an entropic principle. That characterization, naturally, would also extend to sin, since it was sin that gave rise to death. Therefore, sin is an entropic principle too. Sin requires the exertion of some soulish "energetic principle" which cannot be fully recaptured, or restored, or reused once is has been expended. Sinning empties the tank of something that made sinning possible.

Sin is soulish spilled milk. Once accomplished, even at some minimalistic level, sin marks the sinner for the rest of his or her life. He or she cannot go back to the spiritual quality he or she had before. Something is used up which cannot be unused or self-restored. Sin is the indelible stain of the soul.

To deal adequately with sin, the sinner must look beyond his or herself, and beyond anything else that suffers from entropy--something which cannot only jam the dhinni back in the bottle, but can also erase the record of the failure in time. Anything less would not be true restoration. There is nothing that fits that bill except for almighty God, for he alone is not entropic and also supertemporal.

God is willing to both erase the spiritual decay of sin and it's record. He is willing to reset the clocks, as it were, and start again. There is a time he's appointed to do that, and in the meantime, he has graced us with a taste of what is to come. What is necessary to overcome sin and death has been provided by the only source possible and it has been made widely available to all who wish it.

For all who've faced the undeniable conclusion that they are not what they should be, and that they can't do anything about it, there is great news in Christ. He's demonstrated his ability to take away our sin and overcome death. He promises to make anyone who trusts in him to do so new on the last day and take them into eternity without decay. Life without entropy awaits us, what are you waiting for?

Lead With Sin

When Christians engage the educated and urbane evangelistically and/or apologetically, they often make a mistake of order, as I see it. They will engage the unbelieving on some issue they think will bear fruit, like the existence of God, the historicity of the resurrection, the founding of the church, etc.. More often than not, they end such entanglements having convinced their "opponents" of nothing more than that Christians are idiots who accept flimsy evidence, and who, with flawed conscience, follow an immoral figure as god.

It irks me beyond measure to see and hear the arrogance of this new class of atheists who seem everywhere at the moment, and who appear on the ascendancy culturally. They willingly engage Christians in debate along the manner limned above, and smugly toss away the challenge to their views--even though on the basis of sheer forensics, they've gotten their clocks cleaned. They're heroes to the young, brain-washed, and uninformed, who follow them like lemmings to their inevitable plunge into hell.

Why do these unbelieving, self-inflated blusterers seem bullet proof? I think that as long as the issue is God in general, or even Jesus Christ in particular, these blind guides and their rodent trains will continue to the precipice undaunted. They can be out debated and argued under the table until the cows come home, and it won't change a thing. A change of heart and mind is desperately needed, but it isn't going to come by arguing about things that are outside of themselves.

You see, change is wrapped up in the notion of repentance. Jesus has not come to call those who see no need for repentance but those who do. If any headway is to be made evangelistically with the growing horde of the educated, urbane, and unbelieving, the argument will have to be about man, not God. The man in them has to be humbled, shown that he is sinful, that he may be able to think a noble thought but lacks the self-control to live a noble life, that as a species he is tied up with the death of everything.

If something doesn't snap the pride of man, he marches unheeding into the fires of doom. An awakening must arise in each one, individually, deep inside. Something has to break the gaze upon self, so that the head can turn to see that the Redeemer is near. Christians have attempted to engage the unbelieving with every argument imaginable, and found their punches landing without impact. Perhaps it's time to lead with sin.

It is not like a logical, even a factual argument is going to bring anyone to salvation. That cannot happen apart from that unseen work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus did clue us into what the Holy Spirit is convicting people of, and it's not forensics. So, if one wants to flow with the Spirit, and see their witness have supernatural affect, the effort to concentrate on is to help the unbeliever realize he is a sinner. Apart from that he'll never be saved.

What Happens After We Die: Final Thoughts

I think the scriptures are reasonably clear about what happens when people die. The body turns back to dust in death and the soul departs to one of two places. For the believer (or the immature child of a believer) the soul is ushered into the presence of God, where he or she stays until the Rapture. For the unbeliever, their soul is placed into Sheol (in Greek, Hades), under some duress (if the story of the rich man and Lazarus was intended to describe the afterlife factually).

At the end of time God will raise all the dead who had not been raised up to that point. Everyone of them, soul reunited with body, will be brought before God's judgment bench for final disposition. Those written in the Lamb's Book of Life are taken into eternity with Christ, those that are not are judged by their works and thrown into the appropriately heated place in the Lake of Fire. The conditions of all parties is final and eternal.

We cannot be essentially destroyed; we cannot have our wills co-opted and still be what God made us to be; the unrepentant among us cannot be allowed to roam free. What can be done with the likes of man after death and for eternity? Those that repent and embrace Christ can be cleansed and remade and then freed to live in agreement with God. Those that do not repent must be locked forever into an environment that will keep them from expressing their sinfulness.

Annihilation is clearly unscriptural; universalism is as well; inclusivism is and isn't at the same time. For the incapable children of believers, inclusivism is absolutely true. For the incapable among unbelievers there is some reason to be optimistic that it might be true. For what I'll call "noble savage inclusivism," the doctrine can only betray the semi-pelagianism of the one promulgating it, and it is patently untrue.

When we get to eternity, I am sure there will be surprises concerning who made it and who did not. There is no reason not to think that we will find the odd unknown walking the golden streets, who far from the climes of the Levant, was visited by God (like Abram), repented and put trust in him as a result. While I'm satisfied admitting my necessary ignorance in the matter and leaving it to the judge of all the earth to do right, I am certain that there will be no post-mortem grace, nor will any idolater see the kingdom of heaven.

What Happens After We Die: Inclusivism II

We continue our talk on what happens after we die by delving further into the subject of inclusivism, which posits that people who do not know Christ directly or perfectly will be included in the salvation he has wrought.

Even the case of the immature and the infirm being included in salvation is anything but airtight. At best a hopeful biblical principle, rather than an explicit statement, can be derived for their salvation. As I see it, three possible grounds exist for inclusivism concerning the immature and infirm: (1) infants have nothing to repent of and so would be included in Christ's resurrection; (2) the immature and infirm are not able to apprehend creation's witness of God, are not truly able to meet the condition of salvation (faith in Christ), and so would be included in the provision of atonement which was made for everyone; and (3) the children of a believer are included in the the body of Christ unless they decide not to believe.

I do not see how infants could have anything of which to repent. Even though they are born into sin and death, separated from God, they have not sinned personally. They have not even had the opportunity to ignore God's witness in creation, so including them in judgment would seem a travesty of justice. It is a God-given principle that children are not made to pay for the sins of their fathers, so it would appear they must be safe.

We do have some disturbing precedents in scripture, however. I wonder, how many infants died in the Flood, or why infants and children were killed by the invading Israelites under the command of God? It seems evident to me that there are mysteries in understanding how God views the situation of children. I search in vain for that one clear, unequivocal passage of scripture that answers these questions.

To me, inclusivist doctrines purporting to understand what God will do in these instances reflect more what the author would like God to do than they report what God said he would actually do. Given Christ's universal atonement, I see the logic in formulating an exclusion to the condition of faith in Christ for those incapable to express such faith through disability. What I do not see is that clearly demonstrated by scripture.  

Theological Repercussions of the Resurrection

There is nothing more foundational to Christianity than the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. There would be no Christianity apart from it! That undoubted focus means that incarnational truth is more fundamental to the corpus of Christian doctrine than any other theological truth, for it is the resurrection that proves that Christ is more than a mere mortal and verifies his virgin birth (who'd have believed that if he hadn't risen from the dead?). The resurrection is what demands an answer from the world for that famous question put to his disciples.

As a simple act in history, the resurrection either occurred or did not. Forensics over epistemic or ontological concerns get so much of our theological attention, but neither can produce the foundation, nor the assurance, for Christian beliefs. It is an act in history (attested by eyewitnesses, recorded by some of them for posterity, validated by their behavior, and productive of the most beneficial, incredible change in people to this day when believed) upon which certainty concerning Christianity can rest. The fact of the resurrection makes Christology the most important aspect of Christian theology.

Everything else in theology must be seen, in some sense, as derivative--known by the light Jesus, risen from the dead, shines upon it. Soteriology is concerned with why he died, eschatology is concerned with how he will return and wrap all things up, cosmology is concerned with what he's made, ecclesiology is concerned with the organization of his followers, the canon is the record of things he said or caused to have said, the Trinity is the description of how he is related to his Father and the Holy Spirit. You get the picture, everything revolves around Jesus!

The most important, fundamental question for any human to answer is, "Who do you say that I am?" The resurrection of Jesus Christ means that the only valid answer is, "you are my Lord." Tradition cannot inform that answer, theology cannot enlighten it, only the historical witness of that singular event can. In my heart I believe the unimpeachable testimony of those eyewitnesses--Jesus rose, bodily, from the dead. That means Jesus is Lord, therefore I will be led by him. Anything else I may believe can build on that.

What Must One Believe to Be a Christian?

First, we need to understand the kind of belief that's relevant to the question. When the New Testament speaks of belief of the sort that's in view here (Koine: pistis), it's referring to a persuasion. In other words, belief (i.e. faith) is quality of certainty regarding a proposition: for instance, "God exists." Hebrews 11:1 (ESV) describes it as such, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." So belief is a state of certainty about things that can't be seen.

When we add the parameter of belief according to the standard of the Bible, a rather clear picture emerges. 

Let me lay out on a scale which builds this standard from the most fundamental and necessary to the least. Only one who believes according to the entire scale could truly be called a Bible-believing Christian, anything less would call into question the genuineness, according to the biblical measure, of such a person's faith. Will people who believe less than the whole scale be saved? Yes, I think that is possible, but they will be weak in faith and limited in their growth into Christ.

1. Jesus rose from bodily from the dead
2. Jesus is the Son of God, that is, God with us
3. Jesus is our leader, unquestioned, as is everything he taught and said
4. The Old Testament is true, every jot and tittle
5. Moses was an actual deliverer, the Exodus an actual migration
6. Noah was an actual person, the Flood an actual event
7. Adam and Eve were actual persons, the Creation Week an actual occurrence

What is generally concentrated on in discussions of Christian doctrine is the why's and how's (e.g. penal substitution, grace vs. works, etc.), but often at the cost of ignoring what is actually the foundation underlying everything. Christianity starts with an event-- Jesus rising from the dead. If you buy the top of the list, the next three are logically consequent, leading to the last three. One repercussion of this approach: a theistic evolutionist is not in any way, shape or form, a biblical Christian. Are you?

How Old Is Stuff?

How old is stuff? I don't know, but I don't think it's necessary that it's billions upon billions of years--not even million upon millions. It's not that I do not understand radiometric dating, the geologic record, or the concept of a light year. I think there is ample evidence to posit that the universe is something over 13 billion years, and that our solar system is well over 4. Folks who can do that kind of thing say the math works out--I don't doubt that it does.

The fact is, however, I have a credible witness who says the biblical account of creation is true, and that would make stuff orders of magnitude younger. He spoke of Adam and Eve as real people at the beginning, and spoke of Noah and the great flood as real history rather than a metaphor. Perhaps he should be written off as just a crazy rube, an ignorant man of his times, but he proved his trustworthiness by doing that which no one has ever done. Without a PhD, calculus, or a computer he, Antonio Cromartie like, announced his intents, and then went ahead and backed up his words up by dying and rising from the dead (and without any assistance!).

No cosmologist, paleogeologist, evolutionary biologist or any other scientist has ever willingly offered themselves to death so they could prove their mastery by raising themselves back to life on the third day. When they do, maybe I'll listen to them instead of Jesus when they talk about our genesis. It is not that they are dumb, or even mistaken about their evidence, its their forensics I take issue with. Like folk trying to definitively settle the Ripper case, the best they can do is spin a tale that fits the facts, but they'll never decisively prove their case after the fact.

So why is there so much heavy duty evidence for billions upon billions of years? I would think it would be a given that creation would reflect the properties of its Creator. God is infinite and timeless: he is from everlasting to everlasting and is everywhere. What would one expect a universe created by such a being to look like? It seems evident to me, it should look really, really big and appear really, really old. Otherwise, it would give a false representation of its maker.

Some old-earthers say that amounts to deception, but I honestly don't know how it would. It's perfectly reflective of God's attributes and it speaks parabolically to the pride of man. There has always been an issue with humankind as to whether we will depend upon God's word or our own reasoning. As it was for Adam and Eve in the Garden, so it is with us generation after generation. God says one thing, our reasoning says another--faith goes with God, pride goes with us, and soon thereafter comes the splat.

It's not that there are not reasonable clues out there that stuff hasn't been around all that long. We could see it if we were willing, some do, most do not. When we look at stuff, it should reveal the majesty of our infinite, eternal maker, without necessarily providing any clues as to how we've gotten here (that is what Genesis is for after all). I don't have any problem saying that stuff does so without the necessity of billion upon billion years of age, nor for that matter, that unbiblical formation concept called evolution.