In His Own Words--Chapter 2

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Chapter 2 – Jesus and Our Families

The congregation of my first church in rural Wisconsin was so small that I could easily have visited every family once a week. Instead, I went door to door seeking new people. One evening, I ended up in the living room of a family that was watching a Billy Graham crusade on television. When the program was over, I said, “If you had been there, would you have gone forward to receive Christ?”

They answered, “Probably.”

I said, “Would you like to receive Him now?”

They said they would, and they did—all of them. Not long afterwards I baptized them, and they became regular attenders at the church. Unfortunately, conversion did not immediately transform an unhappy family into a joyous one. On more than one occasion, the lady of the house came to me with an unusual request.

She would begin by pointing out passages such as the following.

If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:26).

And He said to them, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life” (Luke 18:29-30).

Then she would beg me to send her as a missionary to another country. Perhaps some of the Lord’s precepts seemed rather burdensome, but not this one. She thought it would be a relief to leave her family for Jesus’ sake. I kid you not. This actually happened.

Though this lady was misguided, her notions were close to actual the experience of many missionaries. Today’s tearful goodbyes at the airport are little in comparison with nineteenth-century servants of Christ considered routine.

John Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides buried his first wife and infant son on an island filled with cannibals. (He slept for some time on their graves to prevent the natives from exhuming and devouring them.) Not long afterwards, he barely escaped with his own life. A few years later, he returned to a neighboring island with his second wife. Though the majority of the indigenous population on this island were eventually converted, the Patons were frequently in danger of losing their lives. They also had to endure year-long separations from their school-age children. For them, as for many missionaries, the calling of Christ meant putting Him above their families.

Family Loyalty in the Old Testament

To put in perspective Jesus’ insistence that we love Him more than we love our families, we need to go back to the Old Testament. I begin with the respect children are supposed to have for their parents.

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you (Exodus 20:12).

He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death (Exodus 21:17).

Jesus quoted both of these passages in Matthew 15:4 to highlight the respect and care children should have for their parents. Lack of such respect was so serious that it is scathingly denounced in the Old Testament. For example, “The eye that mocks a father and scorns a mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young eagles will eat it” (Proverbs 30:17).

On the other hand, parents properly love and care for their offspring: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children “(Proverbs 13:22). A mother’s love is so natural and good that we are shocked when a mother murders her child. God’s love is like a mother’s love, only better.  “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15).

What is important enough to warrant breaking the bonds of familial duty and affection? Loyalty to God supersedes loyalty to family.

 If your brother, your mother's son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods”  (whom neither you nor your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end), you shall not yield to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him. But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. So you shall stone him to death because he has sought to seduce you from the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Deuteronomy 13:6-10).

I hasten to add that we are no longer under this provision of the Mosaic Law. That harsh sentence was part of God’s zealous determination to preserve true faith in Israel until Christ came. However, it is clear that loyalty to God trumps loyalty to family.

Loving Family More Than God

I heard recently about a man who gave a Bible to his unbelieving sister. The next day she died in a car accident. This man became bitter and has backed away from church or any discussion of spiritual things. His love for his sister was apparently greater than his love for God. Probably most of us have loved ones who will spend eternity in hell. Oh, how that thought pains us! It torments us. But the question we must face is who holds first place in our hearts?

It is an old, old temptation, for Adam loved his wife more than he loved God, so he followed her into sin and death. Men are supposed to love their wives with a self-sacrificing love as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25), but sin enters when a man loves his wife more than he loves God.

I have often seen children pull their families out of church after the parents have pushed those children into sports. Team sports on Sunday capture the child’s heart. The father’s heart has already been captured by Sunday afternoon football, so he has no moral authority to keep his child from playing on Sunday. The parents love the child’s present happiness more than they love the child’s eternal wellbeing, and more than they love God. The result? Church attendance becomes an occasional event, and ten years later the parents bewail their child’s lack of faith.

Even without that kind of parental short-sightedness, families are divided. Apart from the gracious work of the Holy Spirit opening our eyes, we are blind to Christ and hostile to God. As the prophet Micah put it,

For son treats father contemptuously,
Daughter rises up against her mother,
Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
A man's enemies are the men of his own
     household (Micah 7:6).

Wait, doesn’t that sound like something Jesus said? Yes, indeed.

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;  and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me (Matthew 10:34-37).

It is not just an accident or poor family dynamics that creates a spiritual division between two people who would naturally love each other. Jesus divides people. He slices down through those natural ties and demands whole-hearted love for Himself.

Jesus was not asking any more or any less than for Himself than the Lord God required of Old Testament believers. God told Jeremiah not to marry and raise sons and daughters (Jeremiah 16:2). In order to be God’s prophet, he had to set aside his natural human desire for a family. One morning God told Ezekiel that his wife would die, and the prophecy came to pass that very evening. She was “the desire of [his] eyes,” but the Lord would not permit him to weep or mourn for her. God used her death and the hiding of Ezekiel’s grief as a prophetic parable for the people. Wow! That was harsh. It was “A Severe Mercy.”[1]

Does the demand of Jesus—that you put Him first in your life above your family—does this demand shock you? It should. Would it have shocked a first-century Jew? Absolutely. He would have understood that no one but the Lord God has the right to demand such allegiance. 

Hear, O Israel! The Lord [Yahweh] is our God, the Lord is one!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

If Jesus was not God, He was setting Himself up as a deliberate rival to God. So, He was either God or a demon from hell. You choose.

Before we leave this topic, are there family ties that threaten to pull you away from Christ and His church? If the devil discovers that a family picnic or a birthday party for Aunt Matilda’s dog is enough to keep you out of church, you won’t be worshiping with other believers three Sundays out of four. Do you resent God because a loved one has died in unbelief and is now suffering the wrath of God? Has God called you to a ministry that would move you away from your family, and are you hesitating to go because you love them so much? Does your faith in Christ create so much friction with your relatives that you are beginning to think following Jesus is just not worth it?

Jesus is worth it. Jesus is more important than your father, your mother, your sister or brother. Jesus is more important than your wife or husband or children. Jesus all by Himself will be enough for you because He is God, but since He loves you, He will give you even more.

 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mark 10:29-30).

The church will be your family when your family turns its back on you. “If my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up” (Psalm 27:10, marginal reading).

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[1]  This title of a great book by Sheldon Vanauken is a quotation from Book viii of Augustine’s Confessions.

The New Birth

Martin Luther

“Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.” That is how Martin Luther described his conversion.

What does “born again” mean? The phrase occurs in 1 Peter 1:23 and twice in John 3 (where it may also be translated, “born from above”). John 3 describes a conversation between Jesus and a religious teacher named Nicodemus. Nicodemus objects that a man cannot enter into his mother’s womb and be born a second time, so Jesus clarifies “born again” as “born of the Spirit.”

In subsequent verses, we read that Nicodemus does not “understand these things”; he does not “accept” Christ’s testimony; and he does not “believe.” If he believes, he will have eternal life (John 3:16), but at the time of the interview, he does not. Since he has not been born again, these things make no sense to him.

Several conclusions flow from Jesus’ interview with Nicodemus.

First, the new birth is something God does. In the natural realm, we do not produce our own birth. Likewise, those who have been born into God’s family “were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

Second, when Jesus said, “You must be born again,” He was not giving Nicodemus a command. He was telling him what his problem was. The reason he didn’t believe was that he had never been born again.

Third, the new birth must precede believing in Christ. You do not receive the new birth after you believe. To the contrary, you cannot believe until God works the miracle of the new birth in your heart. Then you necessarily believe.

This raises a problem in the minds of many people: Why does God command us to believe in Christ if we cannot believe until He changes our hearts in the miracle of the new birth? What use was it to tell Nicodemus that he was not born again if there was nothing Nicodemus could do to produce the new birth? The answer lies in the possible responses Nicodemus might have had to Jesus’ words.

For example, Nicodemus might have become angry at Jesus: “Jesus, why do you bother to tell me what’s wrong with me if you are not going to tell me how to change! That is either cruel or stupid. I think you must be off your rocker! I’m outta here!”

On the other hand, Nicodemus might have gone away with a heavy burden of guilt and sorrow. He might have said, “I am sure that Jesus was sent by God, so He must be giving it to me straight. My situation is hopeless. If God does not intervene, I will never believe and be saved. Woe is me!”

This second response is often the first step in God’s producing a repentant, believing heart. “For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).

A man must know he is sick before he will submit to a treatment that will change his whole life. A sinner must know he is helpless before he is low enough to receive the help that will reorient all his attitudes and priorities.

Apparently, Jesus’ stern message to Nicodemus had the effect of lowering his pride and bringing him to faith because in the dark hour after the crucifixion he came bringing spices for Jesus’ burial. If you do not yet trust in Christ, you cannot make yourself believe. Maybe you need to echo the prayer of a distressed man who said to Jesus, “I do believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

[I first published this in the Allentown Morning Call a few weeks ago.]

Why?

Why, O Lord, did You make us?

Was there an emptiness in You

that You sought to fill by creating what You lacked?

Such a thing could never be,

for how can emptiness fill itself?

Did Your Being need other beings

        to fill up the measure of Your Being?

Is it not folly to imagine that You could increase Yourself

by adding to Yourself creatures

that were nothing apart from You?

           

Omnipotent Creator of all,

did you possess such an excess of energy

that You were not able to contain it?

Were You forced by Your fullness

to overflow into some other vessel,

a vessel of your own making,

a world fashioned from Your overabundance of being?

Surely, You have power over Your power.

If any being in the universe is capable of self-control,

without a doubt, it must be You.

Why then did You make us,

if You had no emptiness that we might fill,

if You were not bursting with unstoppable energy?

If You were not forced to create, then You simply chose to do so.

What is Your choice, but the action of Your will?

What is Your will, but the expression of Your desire?

What is Your desire, but the direction of Your love?

Therefore, You made us because of love.

Love at its best may give to the needy,

but it does not spring from the need of the Giver.

Creating love is an exercise of Your will,

not an overflow of Your substance.

But who or what was loved

in that time before time began,

and why?

Does God Change?

This is a response to some friends whose Mormon neighbors say that their new revelations are a result of God's changing His mind.

We need to distinguish from Scripture what changes and what does not change in reference to God.

1)     God’s nature does not change. His knowledge, holiness and power neither increase, nor decrease over time.

God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Numbers 23:19)

Of old You founded the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not come to an end. (Psalm 102:25-27)

For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6)

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

This is contradictory to the Mormon conception of God. They believe that God was once as we are, but he has progressed or evolved to become a god. We also may progress to become gods (Doctrine & Covenants 132:19-20 [D & C is one of the Mormon authorities alongside The Book of Mormon]). See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cosmology#cite_note-14

2)     Because God’s nature is unchanging, His plans and purposes do not change.

Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, “My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.” (Isaiah 46:9-10)

The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart from generation to generation. (Psalm 33:11)

In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, ¹⁸ so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. (Hebrews 6:17-18; see vv. 13-20 for context)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:3-6 – God’s purpose in election was formed before the foundation of the world)

3)     When God is said to repent or to grieve, Scripture is describing the emotional reaction of God to human sin; it is not saying that God has changed His eternal plans and purposes: The LORD was sorry [nacham] that He had made man on the earth (Genesis 6:6). The Hebrew word (nacham) can refer to an emotional response or to a change in mind as we see in an interesting set of verses in 1 Samuel 15.

I regret [nacham] that I have made Saul king (v. 11).

Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind [nacham]; for He is not a man that He should change His mind [nacham]. (1 Samuel 15:29)

Verse 11 is parallel to Genesis 6:6.

4)     Although God does not change, and His eternal plan does not change, He works out His plan for the world in a succession of steps. After the fall, and again after the flood, the human race rapidly deteriorated so that it became like a group of 2-year-olds all throwing temper tantrums at the same time. God began the moral re-education of the race and the spiritual preparation of the world for Christ by making a covenant with Abraham. Later He put a hedge around the nation of Israel and separated it from the surrounding culture by giving the covenant of the Law to Moses. All of this was leading up to Christ (Galatians 3:15-25). God’s final revelation to the world is summed up in Christ (Hebrews 1:1-4—indeed the whole book of Hebrews is about the finality and supremacy of Christ).

The apostles and prophets of the New Testament explained the meaning of Christ’s life, death, resurrection and return. They were instructed by the Holy Spirit to enable them to do this (John 16:12-15; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). God revealed truth to the apostles; they spoke and wrote it in Spirit guided words; the Christian has the Holy Spirit to help him understand what the apostles wrote. With the passing of that generation of apostles and prophets, new revelation for the whole church ceased. (Of course, God still gives individual guidance, though seldom with any special signs.)

The last Old Testament prophet predicted the arrival of the next prophet, who turned out to be John the Baptist (Malachi 4:5-6; Luke 1:13-17; Matthew 11:7-15). Similarly, the last New Testament prophecy predicted the arrival of the next prophets who will prophesy in the days immediately before Christ’s return (Revelation 11:3-12). So until people see two men who can do the amazing miracles given to these men, they ought not be bamboozled by prophetic claims.

5)     Both Muhammad and Joseph Smith claimed to receive revelations from angelic figures. Their revelations are not consistent with the gospel. This is how Scripture evaluates them.

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-9)

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)

6)     Regarding the Mormon claims that there are many gods:

Scripture sometimes refers to other gods, but these are either empty nothings (Psalm 95:6; 115:4-7) or demons (Deuteronomy 32:17). The gods of the nations are “by nature are no gods” (Galatians 4:8). Scripture is very clear that there is no other god who is worthy of the name.

“You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, In order that you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me.” (Isaiah 43:10)

Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me. (Isaiah 44:6)

Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none. (Isaiah 44:8)

I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me. (Isaiah 45:5)

The Value of Human Life (part 4)

(For the first 6 sections of this essay read the three previous posts, beginning in December 2011.)

7.      Two Final, Unrelated questions

Two questions were raised as a result of the preceding study. Here are brief responses.

A.          Euthanasia

If we owe respect and kindness to every human being, wouldn’t it be respectful and kind to administer a fatal drug to someone who is enduring intense suffering from a terminal illness? Why should I treat my suffering dog with more compassion than I treat a suffering human being?

The answer is simple. God has given us the right to take an animal’s life for food (Genesis 9:3). Therefore, while animals are important to God (Proverbs 12:10), their lives are not sacred.

However, God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the length of our days.

Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man (Genesis 9:5-6)

See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; it is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand (Deuteronomy 32:39).

Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with You; and his limits You have set so that he cannot pass (Job 14:5).

Therefore, the issue is greater than our opinion of the most compassionate way of helping a suffering person. We are obligated to obey God and to leave in His hands the lives of His image bearers. God has not chosen to end our lives before we suffer, and while this may seem unkind or cruel to us, we trust His goodness and His wisdom. The obvious exception to leaving death in God’s hands is when the state executes a murderer in obedience to God’s command. (See also Romans 12:17-13:4.)

B.      How can we be images of God if God forbids images of Himself?

This question would not occur to people in most churches today because the meaning of the second commandment has been largely forgotten.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me (Exodus 20:4-5 ESV).

Many people mistakenly think that the commandment only refers to images of false gods. Moses clarifies this misconception in a sermon to the Israelites as they were about to enter the Promised Land.

So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female (Deuteronomy 4:15-16).

The golden calf Israel made in the wilderness was not an image of a false God. It was an image of Yahweh because the calf was an image of the God who brought them out of Egypt, and when it was set up, the people celebrated a feast to Yahweh (Exodus 32:4-5). When Moses came down Mount Sinai and saw what they had done, he was so furious that he shattered the two tablets of the law that God had cut out of stone and engraved with His own hand.

Some argue that after God took on a human body and soul in the incarnation, it became legitimate to make images of Christ. However, the New Testament knows nothing of this, and the apostle Paul specifically condemned images made in the form of man (Romans 1:22-23). Why didn’t he write, “Put some clothes on that naked image of your god and call it Jesus”?

So if God is hostile to images of Himself, why did He make us in His own image and likeness? I don’t have an inclination to go into the all reasons for God’s rejection of images, but here is one that helps to answer the current question.

But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, The work of man's hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak; They have eyes, but they cannot see; They have ears, but they cannot hear; They have noses, but they cannot smell;⁷ They have hands, but they cannot feel; They have feet, but they cannot walk; They cannot make a sound with their throat (Psalm 115:3-7).

God cannot be represented by anything that is dead. He is so full of life and power that any non-living image makes a mockery of Him. When God made human beings in His image, He guarded against false worship by making all of us in His image. He did not set up one particularly fine specimen of humanity and say, “This one is in My likeness.” A poor, illiterate farmer in rags is no less a bearer of God’s image and no less worthy of honor than a wealthy, well-educated corporate executive. (Perhaps those of us who are tempted to worship our favorite movie stars, athletes or musicians ought to repent and kiss the feet of a few beggars.)

The Value of Human Life (part 3)

[For sections 1-5 in this essay, read the previous two posts in December 2011.]

6.      Does the body have value when nobody’s home?

From the foregoing considerations, the answer obviously is yes. The bodies of those who have died should be treated with respect and even a kind of reverence because at the shout of Christ (John 5:25-29) they shall be raised either to incorruptible glory or to inconceivable horror.

We see the importance of the body in God’s condemnation of the pagan nation Moab “Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom to lime” (Amos 2:1). This is not a blanket condemnation of cremation. Enemy soldiers disinterred the king’s bones and burned them to lime, which could then be used for plaster. Their offense was desecrating the body of the dead king.

Greek and Roman philosophy tended to disregard the body as the prison house of the soul, and cremation was common, especially among the Roman nobility. In this context, the church insisted on the burial of the dead as a testimony to the importance of the body and its future resurrection. However, the Bible does not forbid cremation, and the disintegration of the body by fire or by natural decomposition is no hindrance to the resurrection. The body is like a seed which must die in order to grow into a mature plant (1 Corinthians 15:35-43). If cremation is viewed as a means of disposing of an unwanted corpse, it may be an act of desecration (except perhaps during a plague or when large numbers of decomposing bodies threaten public health). Normally, however, people treat the cremated remains of their relatives with loving care. In such cases there is no Scriptural objection to cremation.

If a dead body is to be treated with respect, certainly the body of a comatose patient should receive considerate care. In my view, that care should continue as long as life endures, but the life of the body need not be maintained indefinitely when the brain functions necessary for consciousness have ceased and cannot be restored.   

When Does Human Life Have Value to God?

I have been teaching an adult Sunday School class on ethics, so I have been reading and reflecting on the question: When does human life have value to God? I think I have something fresh to add, but bowing to FaceBook pressure, I’ll split the essay into 2 or 3 parts. I hope you can stand the suspense.

There are, of course, some passages of Scripture that bear directly on the subject. We see God’s care for the unborn child in Job 10:8-13 and Psalm 139:13-16. Exodus 21 prescribes penalties for men who are fighting and incidentally strike a pregnant woman “so that her children come out” (v. 22). Whether this phrase describes a premature birth or a miscarriage, in either case there is a penalty. Not all instances of killing (fatal accidents, for example) received the death penalty in the Old Testament. Even the death of a slave a few days after a harsh beating was not punished because the slave was the master’s property (vv. 20-21), but the generally humane treatment required for slaves shows that God cared for them (vv. 26-27). Neither slaves nor the unborn child was regarded as sub-human.

However, abortion and end-of-life decisions are sometimes unhelpfully discussed in terms of two unanswerable questions: (1) When do we have souls? (2) When are we persons? Fortunately, there is a third question that sounds similar, but is actually quite different: When do human beings bear the image of God. This question has a clear scriptural answer, and it enables us to understand our true worth in God’s eyes.

1.      When do we have souls? There are three principle ways in which God may give us souls.

A.      Some suggest that God creates each soul directly since He is the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9) who gives us our spirits (Ecclesiastes 12:7). In this case, we still have the unanswered question of when God inserts our souls into our bodies. Also, the direct creation of souls leaves us wondering why our temperaments often resemble our parents so much.

B.      However, God is often does things by using intermediate agents or processes. (For example, He feeds the animals, but the carnivores still have to hunt Psalm 104:21, 27). So perhaps our souls are passed on from our parents, as Hebrews 7:9-10 may suggest. If that is the case, it seems possible that we inherit our souls at the time of conception. However, many fertilized eggs are expelled without ever being implanted in the uterus. If these all have souls and if they all go to heaven, they may constitute the majority of saved people. This is certainly possible, but it seems exceedingly strange.

C.      A third suggestion is that our souls may emerge from the physical development of our brains. At death, the soul could continue to exist apart from the body where it arose. Job says to God, “Your hands fashioned and made me,” and then he notes that he is clay or dust (Job 10:8-13; 33:4-6). Job does not say, “You made my body,” but “You made me,” apparently including the soul along with the body. If this is true, we still do not know when the developing baby has a soul.

The most we can say for certain (regardless of how God gives us souls) is that by the sixth month of pregnancy, the baby has a soul because by that time John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15, 41-44). We have even less revelation on when the soul leaves the body. Is the soul still present during the end stages of senile dementia or when an automobile accident leaves a twenty-year-old in a persistent vegetative state?

2.      When are we persons? This question may be answered in three ways, but none of them seems particularly helpful.

A.      We are persons when we have souls, but Scripture does not clearly indicate when we have souls.

B.      Perhaps we are persons when we have developed certain mental, emotional and volitional capacities. On this reckoning, the family dog has more claim to being a person than a newborn human being does.

C.      Perhaps we are persons when we have a unique, human genetic identity (in other words, at conception). If we accept this answer, then clearly we are valuable to God from that moment onward. However, to call a fertilized egg a person stretches the normal understanding of person almost beyond recognition. Another problem with this view is that genes were unknown in biblical days. Therefore, it is unlikely that the church needed to wait for modern genetics in order to comprehend our value to God. (It is helpful, however, in a modern context to insist that the developing fetus is not a blob of a woman’s tissue. He or she is a genetically unique individual.)

I have discussed souls and personhood mainly in order to show that Scripture does not give us enough information on these subjects to help us answer the question: When does human life have value to God? In my next post in a day or two, I’ll weigh in on a more fruitful approach: When do human beings bear the image of God? So stay tuned for the next exciting installment. J

I Like to Think of God As...

“I like to think of God as….” I cringe whenever I hear those words. Who cares how you like to think about God? The real question is whether your understanding of Him is true.

Unless your conception of God is determined by what God says about Himself, you have about as much chance of being right as frog would of understanding a man. In Scripture, God mocks fools who imagine that their religious observances will hide their wickedness: “You thought that I was just like you” He says (Psalm 50:21).

God’s forgiveness also goes beyond human comprehension. He urges us to turn from our sins, promises His pardon, and then adds, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

When God called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, He first identified Himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). Next Moses asked His name, and “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am’; and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “I am has sent me to you”’” (Exodus 3:14).

“I AM” signifies that God is eternal and unchangeable. He is who He is, not what we imagine Him to be. And what He is, is more strange and complex than our distorted ideas of Him.

The gods that people have made up for themselves are generally simple. There are gods of love and gods of war; gods of fertility and gods who protect travelers. Each god knows his job, and he sticks to it. There is a god who is defined by absolute unity and sovereignty; another god includes in his being all that is; a third loves America and approves of its crusade for democracy.

The God who has revealed Himself in the Bible is none of these. His complexity is overwhelming. He is high above us, yet all of Him is present in every place. He is as ferocious as a lion and as gentle as a lamb. He sends rebels into eternal torment, but sacrifices Himself to save sinners. He is both one and three (though His oneness and His three-ness refer to different aspects of who He is). Though He is complex, yet He is also simple because He cannot be divided into parts. He is beyond our comprehension, but since He has made us in His image, we can know Him. He is beyond the power of language to describe, but His descriptions of Himself are true, and they may be understood by ordinary people.

I began this essay with the way you think about God. Far more important is the way God thinks about Himself and how He has revealed Himself to us. Almost equally important is what God thinks about you and me.

Again the answer is rather complex. On the one hand, we are hated and abhorred because of our sins (Psalm 5:5-6). On the other, “The Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation” (Psalm 149:4).

Though we are ugly in ourselves, we become beautiful when God saves us. Though we are hateful in our sin, God takes pleasure in us when He makes us beautiful. Our beauty, however, is not truly ours, for it is the beauty of Christ who covers our ugliness with the glorious robes of His righteousness. This comes about only through personal faith in Christ (Philippians 3:9).

Do you know this God? Does He know you? “The firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are His’” (2 Timothy 2:19).

(Published in the Allentown Morning Call, November 12, 2011)