Humility

How long has it been since you heard someone say, “My goal in life is to be humble?” We encourage our young people to be athletic, popular, smart, assertive and sexy, but not humble. Not only is humility seldom sought; it has sometimes even been spurned. The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, despised humility as a form of weakness.

Yet in Christian teaching, humility is prized as one of the highest virtues because it is opposed to pride, one of the seven deadly sins. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:3-5).

Why is humility so important for the Christian?

1) Humility fosters community. While there is a proper pride in doing our work well, egotistical self-assertion leads to competitiveness that undermines our relationships. So Scripture says, “Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:2-4).

2) God is great and we are small. The God who spoke the universe into being is infinite in power and wisdom. It is only common sense to echo the wonder of the psalmist: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him” (Psalm 8:3-4)?

3) God is holy and we are sinful. God’s indictment of ancient Israel applies to each one of us. “Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away from Him” (Isaiah 1:4). It is folly to pretend that we will be able to hold our heads up in pride before Him who “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16) and “from whose presence earth and heaven fled away” (Revelation 20:11).

4) Humility is necessary to receive divine forgiveness. God will not forgive people who refuse humbly to acknowledge their sins. As long as we hold on to our supposed goodness and worthiness, our hands are too full to accept the gift of mercy and grace God wants to give us. “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time (1 Peter 5:5-6).

What kind of humility pleases God? We must—

·         Acknowledge to Him that we have sinned and that we cannot save ourselves (Luke 18:10-14).

·         Trust in Jesus Christ who died for sinners and rose again to lift them up to God (Romans 4:22-5:2).

·         Forgive others “just as God in Christ also has forgiven” us (Ephesians 4:32).

·         Reject envy and be glad for the success or good fortune of others (James 4:1-2, 7-10; Romans 12:15-16; 1 Corinthians 12:26).

·         Serve others rather than demanding that they serve us (Mark 10:42-45).

This is the kind of life that is truly beautiful. May God grant us humble hearts.

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)

Holes in Secularism?

An atheist says atheism has holes religion can fill

Alain de Botton:Atheism 2 (A TED presentation)

This video was sent to me by a good friend who asked me to comment on it. Here is what I replied to her.

The talk was very interesting (and entertaining). The Roman orator Cicero noticed that every nation has its gods. He took the consent of all peoples to be a fact or truth of nature: that some deity must exist. Romans 1:18-23; 2:12-16 indicates that the human heart has a knowledge of God and His law--a knowledge that men may suppress, distort and deny. So if secularism is admitted to be full of holes, and if religion provides material to plug those holes, what does that suggest? Here's a word picture for what I think is happening. Secularism has tried to put a hard brass dome over our heads, a dome that is designed to keep anything immaterial or supernatural out of our lives and thinking. However, the dome has holes and something from outside keeps poking through. Not only that, but the thing that keeps poking through turns out to be just what we need to be fully human. Why, therefore, should one assume that secularism presents a complete picture of reality and of human life? Is it not reasonable to ask if there is something more; something outside the brass dome of matter and energy; something that not only can, but must break through that dome? (I have used "secularism" instead of "atheism" because many secular people are practical atheists, even if they would not describe themselves that way.) 

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 (2)

(For part 1 of this essay, go to the blog below this one. I have a couple of odds and ends to add to the subject--perhaps this next week.)

3.      When do human beings bear the image of God?

Our two previous questions naturally focused on the origin of our individual souls and our personhood. I think it is helpful to view the image of God from a Christ-centered perspective because Christ is the original image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15). Human beings are images of God only in a secondary sense (1 Corinthians 11:7). More frequently, human beings are said to be in the image of God or according to the image of God. So, perhaps it is best to call us God’s image bearers rather than God’s images. At any rate, we bear the image of God as we are “conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). We are images of the Image. When is that true of us?

A.     God’s children will bear God’s image fully and finally at the resurrection.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul wraps up his lengthy discussion of Christ’s resurrection and ours by saying,

The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. ⁴⁹ And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (vv. 47-49).

Similarly, the apostle John says,

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is (1 John 3:2).

This full and final imaging is what God was aiming at when He created Adam and Eve.

B.     Adam and Eve bore God’s image partially, yet truly at creation.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:26-27).

When God made our first parents, He pronounced them, along with the rest of creation very good (v. 31). They were very good, but not finished because they did not bear the image of God as completely as redeemed men and women will.

C.      Human beings now bear God’s image brokenly and progressively.

After the flood, God said to Noah, “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:6). This would make no sense if the image of God had been completely lost at the fall.

The likeness to God, which was damaged at the fall, is being progressively renewed in those who have become God’s children through faith in Jesus Christ.

Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, ¹⁰ and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him (Colossians 3:9-10).

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).

So all human beings bear God’s image in some measure; the image is being renewed (perhaps think of polishing a silver or brass metal mirror) by the work of the Holy Spirit in God’s born-again children.

4.      What aspects of our humanity does the image of God encompass?

If we had confined our meditation on the image of God to creation and to our progressive renewal by the Spirit, we might have concluded that our likeness to God only included the spiritual aspect of our humanity. After all, the invisible God does not have a body. Starting with Christ and the resurrection, however, leads us to a different conclusion. Not only our souls, but also our bodies will conformed to the image of Christ.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; ²¹ who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself (Philippians 3:20-21).

On the one hand, Scripture teaches that the Son of God took on flesh and blood so that He could die for people who have bodies (Hebrews 2:14-16). On the other hand, it is equally true that God made human beings with the kind of bodies we have because the Son of God was going to take on that kind of body. The bodies God gave us are the right sort of thing to be transformed and glorified. These bodies, not some other kind, are fit to reflect the image of God, who is Jesus Christ.

You may still ask, “Well, what is the image of God?” The answer is…. I don’t know. But being image bearers enables us to know and love God, to know and love people, to create new things, to rule over the animal kingdom and ultimately to reflect the glory of God.

Being in the image of God does not mean that we do all of those things all the time or even that we do them very well. It means that we have the capacity to develop those characteristics, but their development is always imperfect and defective in this life. I have written that we have the capacity to develop these characteristics, but it would be truer to say that God is developing them. We are His workmanship.

From the womb to the tomb, God is at work fashioning His people into unique image bearers. The infant who dies before it breathes will gleam in glory with a different hue than the aged martyr or the forty-five year old retarded believer who stumbles and falls beneath the wheels of a truck. Yet all will shine. Since His children are God’s work, it is God’s prerogative to say when the earthly part of His fashioning is complete.

From this perspective, an elect Down’s syndrome infant and a believing, end-stage Alzheimer’s patient are moving toward conformity to Christ; a strong, attractive, intelligent hater of God is not.

5.      When does human life have value to God?

God values the lives of His children, from conception to the grave and beyond into glory because He is looking forward to completing glorious images of His eternal Image. If we ask when the individual human being has a soul, and only grant value when that is the case, we are left without adequate moral guidance. At the beginning and at the end of life there are situations when we are not sure. If instead we look at God’s goal for human life and recognize that God is working toward that end, then every stage of life has value to God.

God also values the lives of those who reject Him because by their creation in His image they still reflect something of His power, wisdom and love. Therefore, they also must be objects of our compassion and care, just as they are for God (Matthew 5:43-48).

When the lost are raised for the final judgment, their bodies will, no doubt reflect what their souls have become. The God whom they have rejected will strip away all remaining vestiges of His image from their bodies and souls. Only then, will they be utterly cast off and thrown into the garbage pit of the universe, “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Luke 9:48).