Interpreting the Story of the Nephilim

The story found in the first few verses of Genesis 6, really the introduction to The Flood account, has been the subject of speculation, fantastically wild interpretation, and the bridge through which ancient, uninspired writings have walked their way into theology and doctrine within orthodox, evangelical churches. All the fuss about this story is mostly centered upon the identification of "sons of God." So come, take a dive with me into the heart of the story and we'll see what we can see.

Let's start with those 120 years. Some take this as a pronouncement of the maximum life expectancy for human beings. That fails immediately in the following narratives in the Bible which routinely report lifespans much longer than that. It also runs afoul of Psalm 90:10 which says that a human's lifespan is 70 years, 80 if by reason of strength. So 120 years is not the life expentancy of mankind.

The word translated "contend" or "strive" is most readily understood in terms of judging. So the most reasonable explanation, in my mind, is that God's prophetic pronouncement of judging humankind concerning sin would go on for 120 years before the literal outpouring of God's wrath began. No one knows exactly how long it took Noah to build the ark, but it doesn't seem a stretch to say he had 120 years in which to do so. Every time anyone saw it during that time it preached of  coming doom.

Next, let us delve into why there is a story at all (including The Flood account of which this forms the introduction). Simply put, this is a story about the wrath of God and the judgment he sent upon man and beast throughout the world for a very specific reason. Understanding God's reason for unleashing his wrath leads, ultimately, to understanding the broader context of this story (reaching back to Genesis 4) and brings into clarity that strange detail that is the particular focus of this post.

To establish this premise (i.e., it's all about wrath and nothing but wrath) let me point out the glaring succession of statements in the text related to and about the wrath of God. With each statement through the account of the Nephilim and just beyond into the Flood Account, a growing clarity develops about the subject:

v. 6:3  God limits the days of striving in judgment (contention) with mankind; humans are but flesh (NIV says mortal, but mortality has nothing to do with the issue, the word used means meat, basically, and the reason to note that will become clear as we proceed)

v. 6:5 - Humankind (note: no other kind referenced) had become saturated in wickedness 

v. 6:11 - The whole earth was corrupt (ruined) and filled with violence

v. 6:12 - All flesh had corrupted their way (and so were responsible for its ruination before God)

v. 6:13 - The end of all flesh was determined by God because through them the earth was filled with violence

The reason that God's wrath spilled out in the flood is clear enough--violence. What ticked God off to the point that he regretted creating life and moved him to destroy all the living was violence, pure and simple, and not just amongst humankind, but with the animals as well (v. 7). That reason had nothing to do with angels-- fallen, hybridized or otherwise. His wrath was directed toward all flesh that walked upon the ground save for that small sample that found grace, with Noah, in the eyes of the LORD.

The most critical issue, however, in understanding the role the Nephilim account plays within its greater context is, what, exactly, is meant by the phrase, “sons of God?” In the OT, this phrase occurs in our text, at Deuteronomy 32:8, a few times in Job (1:6; 2:1; 38:7), a few in Psalms (29:1; 82:6; 89:6), and in Daniel 3:25. Though, at first blush, the phrase may seem to refer to angels in these texts, we know that is not necessarily so because of the testimony of Jesus.

Speaking of Psalm 82:6, Jesus says that the “sons of God” are those humans (as context reveals) to whom the word came. So, people that God reveals things to are his sons. Furthermore, Exodus 4:23 and Hosea 11:1 have God referring to Israel as his son. Not the same exact phrase, but the usage is clear nonetheless—God refers to humans, as well as angels, as his sons. 

In the NT, believers in God and those who are obedient to God are called "sons of God" too; note: Matthew 5:9; Luke 20:36; John 11:52; Romans 8:14; and Galatians 3:26. There are many instances in which the phrase, "children of God" is used as well. Clearly, human followers of God are sons of God. The most telling reference of all is found in Luke’s genealogy of Jesus, where, finishing a long line of citing whose son was whose son, the passage concludes with “Seth of Adam, Adam of God.” 

The Lucan genealogy relates directly to that in Genesis 5, which is part of the greater context for the text we're examining in chapter 6. In reverse order from Luke, Moses starts with God's creative act of making humans in his image. Adam was created so and then Seth was from Adam. No mention of Cain, no mention of Abel is made. To understand the line of God's image (or as I contend, God's sons) the line of descent proceeds from Adam to Seth, and thereafter from Seth until the time of The Flood. 

Therefore, the force of “sons of God” cannot be seen as referring solely to "spiritual beings" or "elohim." Those beings created by God who hear his word and do his bidding are sons of God whether they're flesh and bone or merely spiritual. Those beings that do not are sons of the Devil. This is true for spiritual beings, such as angels and demons, or flesh beings, such as humans. In the case at hand, it is clear, I think, the phrase refers to humans.

Getting a grasp on what angels actually are is essential to being able to make such an assertion, so let us look at a few of the biblical descriptions of angels to gain an understanding of what they are and what they are not:

• Hebrews 1:14 tells us angels are "ministering spirits" (pneumata)-- creatures of breath, spirit-beings rather than flesh, that do what God tells them to benefit those about to inherit salvation (Christians);
• Luke 24:39 tells us spirits have not flesh and bone, they’re not corporeal, even if they take the form of man;
• Luke 20:35-36 tells us the resurrected are equivalent to angels in that they do not die-- so angels do not die;
• Luke 20:35-36 also tells us the resurrected are equivalent to angels in that they neither marry nor are given in marriage-- so angels do not reproduce sexually.

The Bible doesn't give us all that much information about angels, not near as much as humans have an appetite for anyhow. Problems arise when we try to fill the knowledge gap by turning to uninspired works of the ancient past, even if those sources are presumably Jewish. Even if those sources are cited or alluded to in the inspired scriptures we do have. Even if those sources were found among copies of writings which are inspired. One who takes sola scriptura as the rule of faith and conduct doesn't give credence to myths and endless genealogies, which can only promote unhelpful speculations.

We are told in Job 1:6 and 2:1 that Satan reported to God amidst the angels presenting themselves to God. Satan is referred to under the term "also,” (Hebrew: gam), which, it seems to me, is meant to distinguish him in some way from all the sons of God. Even though he was the same type of being (a presumption in Job rather than being explicitly stated), his distinction from the sons of God is pointed out unmistakably. He's definitely not treated as the same, as if he's just another angel.

Which bring us to the lack of distinction in Genesis 6 that would be necessary if "sons of God" were fallen angels in that account. Presumably from Revelation 12, fallen angels, like Satan himself, fell in Genesis 3. Satan was cursed there, which is certainly not what happens to an unfallen angel. The curse kind of makes it impossible to not see Satan from that point on in a light that would preclude him from the company of the sons of God. It would make him an "other" from that point on.

To have disobedient angels mating with humans after Satan had been cursed would have required those fallen angels to be distinguished from sons of God in some way as well. Perhaps they would have been called "demons" or "unclean," or by some other distinction, but they definitely would not have been called "sons of God." If this circumstance is envisioned as the instance of their falling, that too is fraught with problems, because taking wives (plural) and having children doesn't happen in a moment. It takes time. At what point would it have been sinful, stopped by God and judged by imprisonment? 

And yet, the only thing judged in Genesis 6 is flesh (human and animal) for violence by death.

In a nutshell, then, angels are incorporeal beings incapable of breeding among themselves, let alone humans. They do not die. Fallen angels are no longer called "sons of God" but evil or unclean spirits, demons, devils and Satan and his angels. The notion of them producing hybrid offspring which God had to judge by the flood is, well, ridiculous.

Since the Nephilim could not possibly be angel hybrids, we have to ask ourselves what is this story about. We know it's about God's wrath, but is there something in the broader context that explains God’s striving with mankind, the limiting of time for that to conclude, the declaration that man is flesh, and that this whole affair seems like it was touched off by a separation between the godly and the merely human being no longer maintained? 

YES! resoundingly so, YES!

It does need to be pointed out at this juncture that it wasn’t the separation, itself, that was important in causing God's judgment. That the whole race of humankind was becoming violent as a result of it no longer being maintained is what mattered. The story, after all, is about violence, and specifically, about God's wrath in response to it. In that regard, the story doesn't really begin in Genesis 6, but back in Genesis 4 with the violent death Cain visited upon Abel.

Genesis 4:8-24 lays out God's reaction to Cain's crime: he and his family were driven from the presence of the Lord; Cain was marked in case someone stumbled into him and wanted to take vengeance; he was enjoined from farming and sentenced to be a restless wanderer (hunter/gatherer is the implication) instead. His wife went with him into exile and so a race of people followed, separated from the rest of mankind and alienated from their created purpose of tilling. The lineage derived was more tightly constrained genetically than the Sethites, which had many offspring of Adam and Eve with which to reproduce.

In chapter 5, the story of mankind is retold but without any reference to Cain and Abel (Cain’s line is treated separately in 4:17-24). Humankind without Cain is recast as God’s children, the creation of God through Adam and Seth as can be seen in the repetition of "likeness." Adam was made in the likeness of God, Seth in the likeness of Adam. With the appointment of Seth (which means put, set) to take the place of Abel, and Cain segregated, a human line of God's children was reestablished.

Many sons and daughters were born to Adam after Seth, but Seth was the named successor and so the head of the line that were sons to God (remember Luke 3). At that time, the Sethite, human, sons of God began to call on the name of the LORD. So the situation leading up to the Nephilim account was that, near the beginning of human history, God's judgment had separated the line of Cain from the rest of humanity because of violence. The line of Cain was human, certainly, but it was the line of Seth, though human as well, that carried the name of God, called on that name and had the distinction of being called "sons of God."

At some point in time, when Cain's line had multiplied sufficiently, the males of Seth's line began running into and noticing the daughters of Cain's line. They were beautiful. The Sethite sons of God took (in a replication of Eve’s sin in garden) as many as they wished as wives and cross-bred. Since the cross-breeding was only one way (Seth’s line took Cain’s women, but Cain's line did not take Seth’s women) the implication is that unequal strength was brought to bear, perhaps even... violence.

The interbreeding within Cain’s line up to the time of this cross-breeding produced a much more constrained gene pool in Cain's line as compared to Seth's. When the lines cross-bred, gigantism manifested, probably not dissimilarly to the production of ligers when lions breed with tigers. The giants thus produced were called “Nephilim.” These folks of great stature physically also gained stature socially, and I think the inference that they did so through violence is reasonable.

It seems that the gene signal for gigantism remained a recessive trait in some of those descended from cross-breeding but not expressing it. This may have been the case for Noah's daughters-in-law, or Noah's wife, or maybe even in Noah himself, maybe even some combination of all those possibilities. Whatever the source, in the post-diluvian Sethite race derived from Noah's sons and their wives, gigantism manifested itself again. When it did, it seems the same proclivity toward violence and notoriety was manifested in Nephilim whether prediluvian or post.

The problem that led to The Flood, with all it's death and destruction, was that the human, but godly line of Adam and Seth had become violent, like the human but ungodly line of Cain. In the mixture of those populations, violence filled the earth and giants roamed the land. God regretted having made any of them and so judgment came in a deluge. So there it is, simple and straightforward—no angels, no angelic hybrids—just human sinners doing as sinners do, all the time.

Thankfully, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and so can we. 

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.

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 Should We Do?

Solomon was an interesting figure. Blessed with incredible wisdom, intelligence, wealth and power, he decided to test drive life by his own wits. He set out to figure it all out and experience everything he could. He studied everything he could, sought out every kind of pleasure he could find, built great projects, amassed fantastic wealth, and at every turn felt nothing but emptiness. Famously, he decried, "All is vanity and a striving after the wind," in despair at the discovery.

He looked at the people around him and saw they experienced the same thing—emptiness. The Hebrew word translated emptiness or vanity throughout Ecclesiastes (hebel) literally refers breath or vapor. Quite accurately it conveys the fleeting quality of thing that seemed to be there but then wasn't. For Solomon, after all of his efforts, achievements and experiences, life boiled down to a merciless sentence with emptiness at every comma and a period ending it all in the suddenness of death.

A very dour perspective, to be sure, but all that matters is whether or not it’s true. 

Despite the endless despair over the emptiness of human existence cited throughout Ecclesiastes, a positive conclusion came at the end. “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Now that is a perspective we can live with! In very practical terms it makes living through so much meaninglessness meaningful with the added benefit that it's easy to remember.

"Recognize God, respect him as your creator, live life in regard to him" is how I would state it. That may seem very “Old Testamenty” from a New Testament vantage, but it translates readily into a Christian worldview. For Christians, life revolves around recognizing Christ as God in the flesh, respecting him as Savior, and living in regard to him. What Solomon learned the hard way Christians can adopt by faith, and without all the bumps and bruises along the way that come when one of trusts in oneself.

Honestly, there is only one thing in life that isn’t wasting away, that crosses the threshold of death and remains in eternity--our relationship with Christ. This is the only thing of worth we will ever have in this life and the only thing we can improve upon and have stand the test of time. It certainly is the only thing we can take with us. All the things that humans treasure and labor for and try to preserve and protect from the savages of time (and savages themselves) matters not a whit in the end.

Only what we have with Christ matters!

The only thing of any real value in life is knowing God on friendly terms. So why are people, supposedly with a Christian worldview, working at anything else? By not developing this kind of Christian worldview and living by it, believers end up living in a tug of war between the flesh and faith, between the world and the Spirit. They live defeated, worldly, empty lives and feel uncertainty about their place in the end. It doesn't have to be this way, vanity is not unavoidable.

Living with Jesus eyes is the only way to live at all. Anything else is a waste of time.

So put first things first. Above all, know God, not as a precept or a theory, but personally, as a constant companion that you want to be with. Then, simply go where he goes, do what he does, and say what he says. Live with life revolving around Jesus. If we don’t put the most important thing first, in the end, we’ll have nothing. And that would be the vanity of all vanities.

What went before...

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 Did We Get Here? Part I

Earth is a very friendly environment for life, even in places that seem completely inhospitable. Virtually anywhere one goes on or near the surface of the planet, life is teeming. In the biosphere of this planet the chemical processes of life find a safe haven for their action and interaction. And yet, whereas biogenesis is rampant on the planet, abiogenesis is non-existent, not even in experiments designed in its favor. Is that a problem?

It isn't for me, but then I'm a believer in biblical creationism. For the atheistic evolutionist, however,  it is an insurmountable wall. If the evolutionist does not have a plausible, credible, demonstrable theory for how chemicals progressed from soup to life, they have nothing but a realization that species adapt because of breeding and mutation. They do not have an explanation for the origin of life, therefore no explanation for the origin of species, nowhere near an explanation of where we came from, and certainly no reason to pitch concerns about a Creator over us out the window.

There are really only two possibilities to explain the origin of life on earth: it arose by chance chemical reactions or it arose as the result of purpose. Those who favor atheistic or naturalistic explanations favor chance, folks of a more spiritual bent prefer purpose. The promoters of chance must embrace an existential nightmare springing from the meaninglessness of life, the promoters of purpose are faced with the weighty matter of whose or what purpose brought life into being. It seems to me the chance promoters have a bigger challenge that requires a greater faith!

The basic building block of life as we know it is protein, a polymer made up of varying units of some 22 different amino acids. Nucleic acids, enzymes, sugars, lipids, as well as liquid water, are essential, but everything truly alive is made of protein. The precursor molecules of these organic materials have been shown to self-assemble in both natural environments and experimentally, so it seems a simple matter to serendipitously get the right zap, and presto chango, life sparks into existence. But that didn't happen, it couldn't have happened, it will never happen because it's impossible. Why?

Probabilities for one thing. Life, even in its simplest forms, is actually very complex. It's not just the order of elements in biochemical compounds that matters, it's also the shape of the molecule. Chirality, as much as anything else, is what allows the proper shape to be possible: in living things amino acids are left-handed, sugars right-handed. To function in the processes of life, compounds must be made of the right stuff in the right order and in the right shape. If not, processes go wrong or don't function at all.

That said, what of the probabilities I mentioned? Given a rich chemical soup containing an infinite supply of amino acid residues, the odds of a single, specific, small (150 residues long) functioning protein self-assembling is more than astronomical--1 in 10 to the 1064th power (my thanks to Dr. Meyer). To get a sense of that magnitude, there may be no more than 10 to 86th atoms in the entire universe! Even if there were natural, chemical ways in which these odds could be lessened they still would not become anywhere near probable, and we're only talking about one, small protein. Life requires multiple proteins, generally much longer.

The likelihood of one small, specific, functioning protein self-assembling in a chemical soup is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

RNA-world theories hardly fare any better. Order in sequence is still necessary for function, particularly since protein synthesis is ultimately required to produce life as we know it. Even if the can is kicked down the ally a way, it still has to be picked up to clean up the situation. From my layman's perspective, the specificity of functioning proteins is still the hurdle (biologically and probabilistically) that a naturalistic origin of life must get over, even if starting with RNA. Self-assembling the thing that could code the assembling of a functioning protein is, if anything, more improbable than a functioning protein assembling itself.

I cannot see where experiments that demonstrate RNA's capacity for "natural selection" demonstrate anything other than RNA's replicative capacity. Has that not been understood since we've known about RNA? Those capabilities do not mitigate the probabilities involved. They certainly don't address the twin peaks of specificity and function. The truth is that the only thing we know for sure about the generation of life is that it takes life to make life. 

Given the extreme complexity in the chemistry of the cell and the time available for random sampling in any chemical soup (whether for proteins or RNA) the odds of useful, functioning, biochemicals self-assembling by chance are so insignificant as to be impossible. If all the universe were nothing but the chemicals needed, put into the most advantageous environment imaginable, the odds for self-assembly by chance would not be reduced significantly enough to change the impossibility. Life was undoubtedly created on purpose.

And even if one does not buy into purpose, the fact that life isn't coming into existence naturalistically on Earth now still has to be dealt with. The environment is very friendly now given the ubiquity of life now, and yet new life isn't spontaneously developing so far as anyone can tell. Whatever was happening to start life on Earth isn't happening now, despite how life-welcoming Earth is. We only see the unbending rule that life arises from life.

Naturalistic explanations for life's likely singular origin reach for scenarios that properly belong in the realm of imagination. The Bible, on the other hand, sets forth the scenario we see in reality--life was started at some point in the past and then ceased coming into existence--and it did so long before anyone ever did a scientifically sound abiogenesis experiment or knew just how ubiquitous life was. According Genesis 1:31-2:3, God exerted creative force in putting all creation into place, with all of its life, and then he ceased from his creative work. No more energy or mass and no more life was created afterwards.

Truth comports with reality.

Therefore, a Christian worldview perceives everything, including life, as arising from the hand of God on purpose. That is how here got here and that is how we got here. We all are creations purposefully made by God and our existence is lived in the light of our Creator who is over us. Are you ready to live life knowing there is a God who purposefully made you and to whom you must answer? Are you ready for truth?

Part II...

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...