Tempus Fugit
The Text
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! (Psalm 39:5b and Psalm 39:11b ESV)
Some Observations about the Text
Life is Short: So What? Wisdom literature, from Hippocrates, to Confucius, to any number of other thinkers and authors, often includes warnings about the shortness of life. Psychologists consider an orientation to short-term pleasure-seeking to be counter-productive in the quest for happiness. Many old clocks include the words Tempus Fugit on their faces.
However, the “So What?” question is seldom asked and almost never answered. (Hopefully the So What question is not fully answered by Caribou Coffee‘s marketing slogan, “Life is short. Stay awake for it”).
Biblical Warnings about the Brevity of Life. When the Bible address the matter of life’s transience, it usually does so in specific contexts. In other words, the “So What?” question is answered. You can see this by doing a word study of hebel, translated two out of three times in Psalm 39 as “breath” and once as “nothing” [ESV]. Blow some bubbles and watch them pop … hebel describes the resulting “nothingness” of a disappearing breath.
Here are some examples of contexts in which the Bible points to the transience of life:
- Life is short … so consider the sovereignty and eternal existence of our Creator. Psalm 90.
- Life is short … so call out to God, who is enthroned forever and who is remembered throughout all generations. Psalm 120.
- Life is short … so pay careful attention to God’s Word, which stands forever. Isaiah 40 (also quoted in 1 Peter 1:22-25).
- Life is short … so don’t bother boasting about your future plans. James 4.
- Life is short … so focus on laying up treasures according to God’s riches not earthly riches. Luke 12:13-21.
The Brevity of Life and Suffering. There are a couple of ways to think about the brevity of life as it relates to suffering. One way is fatalistic: life is short, so the suffering that we endure in life is, in the larger picture of things, short. Of course, no matter how long we life, if much of our life is spent in suffering, we can end up with a frustrating and negative view of life. Or we can adopt the view favored by some Eastern religions, that is, that karmic fatalism ought to simply be accepted and not questioned.
Another way to think about the brevity of life as it relates to suffering, is to focus on the reduction of pain and the maximization of comfort and pleasure. Life is short; make the best of it and leave it at that. This hedonistic view of life does not provide any understanding of or engagement with suffering; it simply seeks to avoid it. There is no meaning or purpose in life except to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
If you think that suffering and evil are human experiences that lead you to ask questions about God and the possibility of creation, you are right. They should. Especially in view of the brevity and transience of life.
The problem that people often have when they consider suffering and evil in light of the possibility of God-as-Creator, is that they superimpose their own rational matrix, their own set of naturalist presuppositions, over the question. They tend to define suffering as evil, for example, when suffering is not necessarily evil (ask any athlete in training). And they tend to define evil by their own terms as well … often without giving due consideration to how the “evil” question could possibly look from an enlarged perspective of time (as in, eternity past and future) and space (as in, the relative size of this tiny dot in the universe call earth). In other words, they attempt to resolve the question of evil-in-view-of-God, from a human/humanist view that does not and cannot take into account God-as-Creator. They loop themselves into a syllogistic lasso that makes it impossible for a rational, reasonable or even intelligible answer to emerge.
Gospel Apologetics
Eternal Life and Not-Suffering. The words of Jesus Christ, and indeed, the words and ideas found throughout the Bible, make sense, in part because they are not time-limited. They presume time and space beyond this earth. If God is, and if God is Creator, the universe itself would not contain God (2 Chronicles 6:18). And yet only a God who created all of heaven and earth, could fill heaven and earth … so much so that we could never actually hide from Him (Jeremiah 23:24). The “natural” phenomena of time and space only make sense if we understand that they have a super-natural origin, that is, a spiritual origin. Otherwise known as God (John 4:24).
The Bible also recognizes that we have “eternal” yearnings. The brief, transient human life expectancy leaves us wanting and frustrated. The Bible observes that we are actually wired for this frustration. God — the Creator of time itself — put eternity in the hearts of humans for a reason (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This frustration points us toward God, which is why the great majority of all people who have ever lived, and the great majority of all people who are alive today, gravitate toward some religious or spiritual expression or endeavor. We even hire specialists, called priests in most religions, to work on the project of connecting humans to God.
But there’s only one specialist, one priest, who lives forever. That priest is Jesus Christ, who has a permanent priesthood (Hebrews 7:24). He is the living One who was dead and is alive, and holds the keys to heaven and hell (Revelation 1:18). Having been raised from the dead, Jesus Christ dies no more (Romans 6:9). And He invites us to participate in His eternal life (1 John 5:11-12) by turning to Him in faith (Galatians 3:26-27).
Listen to an Audio MP3 Discussion of this post here.
Brokenhearted
The Text
11the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love! (Psalm 147:11 ESV)
3He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
Numbering of the Psalms. The first eleven verses of Psalm 147 are numbered as Psalm 146 in the Septuagint-based Biblical numbering system used by Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions (and the remaining verses of Psalm 147 are designated as Psalm 147 in the Orthodox/Catholic traditions). In the Masoretic-Text based numbering system used in most Protestant translations, all twenty verses are designated Psalm 147. The numbering does not really matter: the numbering of the Psalms is somewhat arbitrary, and in both the Protestant tradition and the Catholic/Orthodox traditions the entire Psalter is present. It’s just the numbering that is different, not the Word of God in the original Hebrew.
Chiasm. The literary structure of the Psalm is chiastic, that is, the first half builds to a climactic center-point, and the second half follows on from that climactic center-point. As part of the center-point, the Psalm acknowledges at verse 11 that God takes pleasure in those who fear Him and in those who hope in His steadfast love.
What Motivates our Praise of God? Gratitude for grace, including answered, prayer are certainly two reasons that we praise God. Spurgeon calls praise of God a duty that is the ultimatum of our faith: “Excuse me that I continue to say to you, ‘Praise ye the Lord,’ for, often as I say it, you will not praise him too much; and we need to have our hearts stirred up to this duty of praising God, which is so much neglected. After all, it is the praise of God that is the ultimatum of our religion. Prayer does but sow; praise is the harvest. Praying is the end of preaching, and praising is the end of praying. May we bring to God much of the very essence of true religion, and that will be the inward praise of the heart!”
Fear. Why does God take pleasure in our fear? Because fear of the Lord is the beginning point for a proper posture toward an awesome and almighty God-the-Creator (Proverbs 1:7). It is fear that makes it possible for us set aside everything in life in order to learn about and appreciate the Gospel, and God’s love and hope (in a sense this is a “pedagogical” fear) (Psalm 25:11-15). Only fear prepares our heart to follow God, enables (relationship with God) and leads to hope (2 Corinthians 7:1). This requires a sincere sense of helplessness before God, something that the Bible calls “fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). It helps us understand that we are not in a position to “negotiate” with a holy and fearsome God; instead, we are left to trust entirely in Jesus Christ.
In other words, once we have a proper fear of the Lord, it becomes possible for us to read and listen properly to His Word (i.e. a pedagogical fear) and to be in friendship with Him (Psalm 25:11-15). As we do, we can grow in love and fellowship with Him … all the while retaining at least some ongoing (slightly fearful) sense of His holiness and greatness (2 Corinthians 7:1).
Being Brokenhearted. “Brokenhearted” as we use the term can have a fairly broad application. We usually use the term in reference to a loss of relationship, or of dreams, or of hope, or of promise. Sometimes we experience deep loss when we are victimized by crime, or by the devastation of a storm or flood or fire.
The two words that make up the term broken-hearted (shabar leb) are used in the Bible less casually than we tend to use the term, and more narrowly. In the Bible, being brokenhearted means that our heart, our soul, and our very being is smashed and crushed and demolished. It means that we are dust, that we are completely undone.
Psalm 69:16-20 uses the term “brokenhearted” in connection with being ashamed. Shame, as used in the Bible, has to do with seeking to hide from the eyes of God (just as Adam and Eve were ashamed of their sign tried to hide from God, Genesis 3:7-8). Brokenhearted includes a senses of spiritual, not just emotional, devastation. Biblical broken
Similarly, Psalm 51:17 speaks of a broken-and-contrite heart, that is, a heart that is properly sorrowful about offending God. This condition is the same as described at Isaiah 57:15 and Psalm 34:17-18, except that these two verses point more directly to the spiritual aspects. A broken heart includes a sense of spiritual need as well as emotional need. This holistic need can only addressed, assuaged and satisfied by the good news of the Gospel, as observed at Isaiah 61:1.
Gospel Apologetics
Philosophical naturalism is a particular form of atheism or agnosticism that denies that there is a spiritual reality outside of the material reality that can be accessed and verified through the scientific method. There is no spiritual dimension, no soul, no God, no miracles and no paranormal. When two people fall in love and declare that they are “soul mates,” this is nonsense to the philosophical naturalist. When someone suffers a serious loss in their life and uses terms like “spiritual crisis” or “crisis of faith,” again, nonsense. This type of language is seen by the naturalist as merely describing emotions, which they view as physiological only. No eternal soul, no spirit, only physical chemistry and body fluids. That’s it.
Philosophical naturalism makes for interesting intellectual discussions, but it’s not what most people experience. We experience love and shame and loneliness and dread from the depths of our being. From our soul. And when we are truly brokenhearted, it’s not just an emotional swing. It’s spiritual. We know that … from the depths of our soul.
He heals the brokenhearted. He binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3.
Part One of the Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
Part Two of the Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
Down, Discouraged, Dispirited, Depressed, Disheartened. And Very Lonely.
The Text
1With my voice I cry out to the Lord; with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord. 2I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him. 3When my spirit faints within me, you know my way! (Psalm 147:1-3a ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
Hiding in the Cave. Life can be miserable. Sometimes we find ourselves down. Or worse, discouraged or dispirited. Even worse, depressed. Or worst of all, disheartened. Along the way, we often feel more and more lonely, even when other people are nearby.
When David wrote this Psalm, he was hiding in a cave, as disheartened as any human being has ever been. He had lost everything. He lost is job in the royal court with King Saul, as well as the respect and acceptance of the king. He lost his best friend, Jonathan. He lost his spiritual mentor (Samuel). He lost his wife (Michal). He fled from his own kingdom, into enemy territory (Gath) to avoid being killed by King Saul … where he was mocked for being a so-called former military conqueror. He had to pretend to be insane to save his own life, and so he had lost any sense of respect (including self-respect). When he writes this Psalm, he is mindful of complete and total loss.
David was in a literal cave, but in his heart he felt as if he were in a prison (verse 7). The actual cave was symbolic of the emotional and spiritual hole that he was stuck in. In this Psalm, David starts crying out to God in a time of complete desperation. As he prays through the Psalm, he begins to look upward to God, and by the time he gets to the fifth verse he has rediscovered and remembered that God is his refuge (machaceh) and his portion (cheleq). He transitions from desperation to reaffirmation of who God is, to a restatement of his faith that in the end God’s righteousness and perfect justice will prevail. He is praying to God, but as he does so, he is preaching to himself, reminding himself of God’s presence and power and providence.
Some Observations about the Text
Being Discouraged. Any number of things can trigger discouragement in our lives. Job loss. Failing health. Loss of a loved one. Rejection by family, friends, current or prospective employer, and others. Envy. Chronic, habitual sin. Roof leaks; worn out shoes; broken eyeglasses; breakdowns of cars, home appliances, etc. Being financially broke. Hurtful relationships. Failures of any and all kinds. Isolation.
Even success, including “spiritual success” and “mountaintop experiences” can be followed periods of depression. This often happens to pastors who experience “blue Mondays” after doing the Lord’s work on Sunday. This is what happened to Elijah: within a day or two after he brought down fire in a spectacular show of God’s favor and power (1 Kings 18), he found himself running for his life, terrified, lonely and depressed (1 Kings 19:3-4). This is also what happened to David, as went from the high of 1 Samuel 17 (with people dancing in the street and singing David’s praises) to the low of 1 Samuel 22 where he is being hunted by (former) friend and longtime foe alike.
Crying Out and Complaining Loudly. In the cave, in his time of desperation, David cries out to God. Loudly. The Hebrew word for “crying out” (za`aq) actually means “crying out, very loudly.” Enough to be heard in the next county (Isaiah 15:4). As when soldiers cry out so loudly that their voices are heard above the din of battle (1 Chronicles 5:20). Or as when someone who is grieving so much that they are wailing loudly (Esther 4:1). Or as when a ruler shouts commands (Ecclesiastes 9:17).
David’s cry to God was not a simple whelp of temporary frustration or an emotional spike. He identifies his own prayer as a complaint (siyach), but it is not a simple gripe about this our that. It is a complete list and description of his desperation, and it is not simply set forth or stated impassionately. It is poured out (shaphak). And once it is poured out, there is nothing and no one left to deal with David’s plight except God Himself.
The Perception is the Reality. Even though David had 400 men with him, he felt completely alone. And so his loneliness was as real as if nobody else was in the cave with him. One reason that he felt alone, was that he was the person being hunted, not them. He had fallen from national hero to fake lunatic, not them. And he had lost family, friends, fame and potential fortune. Not them. He was indeed alone in many ways.
When David did consider the 400 men that he did actually have with him, he was not encouraged. After all, they were a bunch of losers: they were bankrupt malcontents and misfits whose track records reeked of failure (1 Samuel 22:1-2). And even though God would eventually use these same men to achieve great victories — so much so that they would become known as David’s “mighty men” of valor (1 Chronicles 11:10-47) — that’s not what David saw as he looked around in the cave.
The Memory is the Reality. David’s reality did not match his perception. He was not as alone, and his circumstances were not as desperate ,as he felt. One of the reasons that his emotional state was unrealistically down, was that for at least some period of time he had allowed himself to forget how God could and did use David in desperate times like this. This was a memory problem for David. In the cave David did not have the “memory device” of Goliath’s armor, which he had kept in his tent back home as a reminder of God’s faithfulness (1 Samuel 17:54). He had forgotten that God was his refuge and strength, and this Psalm serves as David’s reminder to himself.
Gospel Apologetics
Few circumstances are as reliable at triggering depression and loneliness as social exclusion. We are social creatures, and we crave acceptance and respect from others. When we don’t get it, and especially when we suffer a sudden loss of credibility and respectability, we tend to experience social anxiety, jealousy, loneliness, depression, and low self-esteem. It’s how we are wired.
Nothing is more common to the human experience than loss. We all suffer loss. We lose our jobs. We lose friends. Some of us have lost spouses and even children. There have been times in each of our lives when we have suffered reputational loss, loss of credibility, loss of respectability.
The question is not whether or even when we will experience these types of losses. They will occur, and for most of us, one or more of these types of losses will occur at some level sometime soon. It’s just the way life unrolls for us.
The question is to whom do we turn when these things happen. For those who do not have faith in God, they can only turn to others around them. People are unreliable, though. Therapists are expensive and seldom provide the emotional satisfaction that we seek. Hobbies, material things, vacation spots, cruises, sports, gambling, drugs and alcohol and other efforts to distract ourselves from our own discouragement or dull our pain don’t work. We remain discouraged, and we are still lonely.
Followers of Christ have a different paradigm. We understand that Jesus Christ endured the greatest social exclusion of all: he suffered the abandonment of God his Father as he hung on the cross and accepted the weight and responsibility of the sins of the world. The previous night Jesus had prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me (Luke 22:42).” And as he experienced the pain of rejection from his Father while on the cross he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Mark 15:34)?”
Followers of Christ also recognize that because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, no matter how often and how vilely we have sinned and have rejected God, he does not reject those who fear Him and have put their trust in Him. We are assured that “that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).” We are told by God, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me? (Hebrews 13:5-6).”
This is good news at any time of the day or night. At any location. But it is especially good news when we are, like David, in the cave.
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
It’s How Christ-Followers Roll
The Text
3Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. 4Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.. (Psalm 37:3-5 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
Don’t Fret it. This is much more than simply “don’t sweat it.” Psalm 37 begins with the words “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.” In the original Hebrew, the word “fret” (charah, H2734) refers to a seething burning with anger. In this Psalm David reminds us that we aren’t wearing God’s wristwatch. In due time … in God’s time … even the most “successful” evildoers will fade away like the grass clippings of a recently mowed lawn. We are following Jesus Christ, and we need not trouble ourselves about what we see as injustice in a world where many of the wealthiest are actually world-class criminals.
Trust. The Psalmist instructs us in the next verse to “Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3-4). Here the word “trust” (batach, H982) speaks to an active and bold confidence-that-enables, not a passive reliance that results in inaction or laziness. Our trust in the Lord points us in the direction of actively dwelling in the land, actively befriending faithfulness, and actively doing good.
Delight. Next we are told to “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” This is not merely a promise; it is a command. Our delight (`anag, H6062) flows from and flows out of our trust. When we trust God, our universe is in order, and we can flourish in ways that would never be available to us if we did not trust God. There is an exquisite, if sublime, gladness, a peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7), with which we are graced as a result of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. David command us to pay attention to this exquisite gladness.
Commit. The next command is to “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” The word “commit” (galal, H1556) is a Hebrew word that literally means “roll.” To commit our way to the LORD as used here literally means to “Roll with God.” Our journey is God’s journey, and we “roll” with Him.
Rest. Finally, we are instructed to “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.” Being still (damam, H1826) has as much to do with our thoughts and our speech as it has to do with our body. Daman means to be quite or mute. In the progression of commands, David invites us to trust in God, delight in Him, be committed to him … and then be silent before him. Allow Him, through His Word and His Holy Spirit, to inspire our thinking and to direct our path.
Some Observations about the Text
Trust. What does it actually mean to trust God? “In God we Trust” is on many of our coins and on much of our currency. We like to say, “In God we Trust,” and then, as if that were not quite enough, we like to add, “United We Stand.” This certainly makes for great patriotism, but questionable theology. We either trust God or we don’t. If we do trust God, we don’t have to “override” Him by: rushing into action without first seeking His will in prayer and in His word; borrowing money to make purchases that He has not seen fit to put within our financial reach; cheating or stealing or lying or finding ways to earn a living or support ourselves when those means of support do not glorify Him (in fact, quite the opposite); or permitting ourselves to be dishonest, immoral, impure, disobedient, or sinful in some way because we some “have no choice” even though we claim to trust Him. We can “under-trust” God by acting in self-serving ways that do not glorify Him; we can also “over-trust” God by taking unwise risks, ignoring our responsibilities, being lazy, or otherwise expecting God to solve problems that He has allowed us to face and to take on in ways that would honor Him and reflect our relationship with Him.
Commit. The interesting use of the word “roll” to express the idea of “commit” reminds me of the Myth of Sisyphus, a Greek myth that was made famous in the mid-1950′s by the atheist existentialist Albert Camus. For Camus (and the early Greek storytellers), life amounts to nothing more than pushing a rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down. But the Gospel is the good news that life does indeed have meaning, and to “roll with God” means to trust Jesus Christ to be in charge of rock-rolling. It might not even be too trivial to declare, “I roll with God; He rocks!” Or something like that. Sorry.
Gospel Apologetics
It is impossible to get through life without trusting something. To purchase a loaf of bread at the grocery store, is to trust an entire agro-economy of farming, harvesting, processing, distribution, and retailing … all the while trusting that the loaf of bread is “probably” not contaminated or toxic. To have any relationship with any other person is to trust; and the betrayal of that trust by a friend or loved one hurts deeply. We call people who can’t trust anyone under any circumstances, who are hyper-skeptical of everyone and everything, paranoid. Or insane. They might as well be insane, because their life is non-functional without a certain degree of trust.
People who do not have faith in God, actually do place their faith somewhere else. To a large extent, such folks’ faith is often in rationalism and their own ability to reason. Of course, we all make enough mistakes in life that we ought to realize that our own ability to reason is helpful but ultimately flawed to some degree.
Others place their faith in science (thank you, weapons of mass destruction). Or education (is it necessary to comment on this one?). Or evolution (which means that our lives necessarily have no meaning because we are here by random chance). Or money (tell me again about the world class criminals). Or family (which is great until they separate from us, disappoint us, annoy us, or die …). Or government (now THAT’s a good plan … not).
People seem to instinctively know that they need to trust something or someone. This is a real need. Clifford Williams calls it an existential need.
And so when the Psalmist instructs his reader to “Trust in the LORD,” he’s not suggesting that we trust God because we aren’t trusting anyone or anything else. He’s suggesting that we trust God instead of everyone and everything else. Only when we we do, will we find exquisite, sublime delight.
Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). To trust God, is to take Jesus Christ up on his Word.
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
I’m Sorry.
The Text
17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:17 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
We are all sinners. God’s Word tells us that if we claim to be without sin we are deceiving and deluding ourselves about ourselves (1 John 1:8). We all sin, and we do so consistently and religiously. That’s what the Bible tells us. The Bible also tells us that if we deny this, we are calling God a liar (1 John 1:10).
So the question is not whether we sin, and not even how much or how greatly we sent, but what do we do about it.
King David sinned when he allowed his eyes to rest upon Bathsheba while she was bathing, and he sinned in multiple ways after he allowed his lust to override his love for God and God’s law. Psalm 51 is his prayer of confession and repentance.
David does not pray, “Have mercy on me because you’re a good God and I’m a pretty good guy.” He knows better. God not just “good.” God is perfect and holy and just, and so God can only provide forgiveness according to His steadfast love and according to His abundant mercy (Psalm 51:1). And David is not “pretty good.” He cannot escape his sin. He is constantly aware of it (Psalm 51:3), and he can do nothing to fix his sin problem. Only God can blot out his transgressions (Psalm 51:1). Only God can wash them thoroughly from his iniquity and cleanse him from his sin (Psalm 51:2).
When David considers his recent sins involving Bathsheba (including, as narrated at 2 Samuel 11, his adultery with her and his murder of her husband), he realizes that those sins are only the most recent evidences of his depravity. His entire life is characterized by and tainted with his ongoing rebellion in his heart against the same God whom he loves. This is not just a sporadic pattern of behavior; it is who David is and who he has been from the moment of his birth. It is part of his identity. It is his identity. His sinfulness is so chronic and so thorough that it must have been genetic (Psalm 51:5).
Only God can forgive our sins. David’s plight is not hopeless though. He knows that God is fully capable of purging him from his sin, cleansing him, and washing him so that his heart is as pure as a fresh snowfall (Psalm 51:7). In fact God can create in him a clean heart and can renew his spiritual condition (Psalm 51:10). A fresh start, with a clean heart, would make it possible for David to be restored to the joy of his salvation (Psalm 51:12). It would make it possible for David to once again sing about, and even joyfully teach about, God’s ways and God’s law (Psalm 51:13-15).
Some Observations about the Text
I’m sorry. What does it mean to be sorry for our sins? Must we be sorry in order to have our sins forgiven? What if we don’t “feel” sorry at a given time about a particular sin?
A beautiful prayer within the Catholic tradition, known as the Act of Contrition, reads in part as follows: “Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all of my sins because of thy just punishment but most of all because they offend thee my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love.” This prayer picks up much of the content and many of the sentiments of Psalm 51, and includes the notion of being “heartily” sorry. That is, there is an element of an honest emotion of contrition that is included as part of the penitent’s acknowledgment of his or her sinfulness in the presence of a holy and perfect God.
Is contrition a requirement, though, for forgiveness, or is contrition a blessing that accompanies forgiveness? Must I be “heartily sorry” in order to be forgiven? There are two biblical reasons why I believe that contrition is more of a gift than a requirement:
First, the prerequisites to forgiveness of sin never include an emotional outpouring of sorrow. One of the most succinct passages about forgiveness is sandwiched between the two verses from 1 John 1 referred to above: 1 John 1:9 tells us that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The “He” referred to is Jesus Christ. The essential prerequisites of forgiveness of sin, then, is faith in Christ plus confession.
Second, the pattern and flow of Psalm 51 shows contrition as more of a consequence of forgiveness than a requirement. David clearly acknowledges that forgiveness of sin cannot be earned or secured by anything David can do, say or feel. Only at the end of the Psalm, when David considers the joy of redemption and forgiveness, does he mention contrition. In fact, he mentions contrition along with teaching, singing, and declaring God’s praise. A forgiven heart and a renewed spirit expresses itself in song and praise and the joyful declaration of God’s love and mercy … along with humility and contrition. If anything, humility and contrition are gifts from God that help David to stay “on program” with God and, in the closing words of the Act of Contrition, “avoid the near occasion of sin.”
Gospel Apologetics
Forgiveness. Jesus the Messiah (Jesus the Christ, or Jesus Christ, or, in the Hebrew transliteration, Yeshua Ha-Mashiach), declared that “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The good news (Gospel) assures us that salvation is possible through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:9) and only through Jesus Christ (John 14:6). This is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Unfortunately, when you consider folks who claim to be Christians, you can’t always tell whether they are true followers of Christ. We do have some helpful signals. We do know that the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). A sense of gratitude is also a helpful signal (Colossians 3:12-17). As is a deep and evident sorrow for sin (Psalm 51:17).
So for the follower of Christ, contrition, like humility and the gifts of the Spirit, reflects a change of heart granted by God.
What about the person who is not a follower of Christ? Many nonbelievers do have remorse about wrongdoing, but most nonbelievers whom I have met seem more inclined to deny that sin exists than to acknowledge sin or have remorse. In fact, many nonbelievers would bristle at the notion that specific behaviors identified in the Bible as sin (such as the list at Revelation 21:8 and the list at Galatians 5:19-21) are actually morally wrong. They often prefer to pick and choose which behaviors they would consider wrong (such as, perhaps, murder) and which behaviors they would consider morally neutral if not laudable (such as, as is often the case, homosexuality or sexual intimacy outside of marriage).
It takes, well, God’s intervention to change the heart of a non-believer so completely that Psalm 51 actually makes perfect sense. This is called repentance. And for the non-believer, contrition is actually an element of repentance. In order to change from a life of unforgiven sin, to a life of following Christ (the only pathway to forgiveness), there must be contrition-that-leads-to-salvation. As explained at 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, there is a godly grief, a grief-unto-repentance, that is spiritually efficacious and that accompanies the turning of the heart toward God and away from self.
Not quite sorry enough. By contrast, there is contrition-that-leads-to-human-resolve. This is sorrow for sin that involves our stolid determination to do a better job of avoiding sin, on our own and through our own self-discipline. No matter how emotional or heartfelt this contrition might be, it doesn’t impress God. God knows, and the Bible lets us know, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22-24). Contrition that leads to human resolve is worthless contrition. It is worldly grief that actually produces death (2 Corinthians 7:10) even if it is really, really, really heartfelt.
It is only by way of the forgiveness that comes through trust in Jesus Christ that we can have a broken and contrite heart that is not despised by God.
Good thing, or I might be really, really sorry for my sins … but not be quite sorry enough.
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
Knit or Split?
The Text
13For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them… (Psalm 139:13-16 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
This passage tells us not only that God has created us, but that he has done so directly and in a hands-on manner. He is intimately involved in our very formation as human beings. Not only that, but he has left behind his fingerprints, that is, he has left behind evidence of his design. Not only do the heavens declare the glory of God, not only does the sky above proclaim his handiwork (Psalm 19:1-6), but, the intricacy, complexity, and finally tuned manner with which we have been created points us to his immeasurable intelligence (omniscience). A rigorous and serious study of human anatomy, and in particular a careful study of human embryonic development, plainly reveals God’s invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature (Romans 1:18-23).
In this Psalm, as David acknowledges that he owes his very existence to his Creator, he uses the term “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The idea of being fearfully made does not refer to God’s fear, but it refers to the fear of God. When we realize how wonderfully we are made, we are properly in awe even to the point of having a proper and respectful fear of the Almighty God who created us. This progression from study (of the human being) to amazement to God-consciousness to fear of God is sometimes called general revelation. It is impossible to travel halfway down the path to such revelation, deny God, and somehow turned back to seek another way. God reveals himself in nature. As David observes, “my soul knows it very well. In the words of Alexander Tsiaras in this amazing video, it is either “magic” or “divinity.”
Some Observations about the Text
Personhood Begins at Conception. Although the Bible does not directly address therapeutic (voluntary) abortion, it does identify the pre-born child as a human being specifically and specially made by God (Genesis 2:7). In Jeremiah 1:5, for example, God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Job refers to his pre-born state as himself (not as some sort of pre-human or sub-human bio-mass) (Job 3:11). In the sixth month of her pregnancy, Elizabeth’s pre-born child is referred to as a “son,” not as something less than human (Luke 1:36). Even in the Law of the Old Testament there was protection of the unborn in the form of sanctions against those who would cause an early delivery or abortion (Exodus 21:22). A body “apart from the spirit is dead,” just as faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Life, according to the Bible, is within the domain and jurisdiction of God, not of human beings.
Knit or Split. We usually think of embryonic development in terms of cells splitting. Which is correct. We know that the fertilized egg begins a process of splitting into more and more cells, as illustrated in the Alexander Tsiaras video, (above). And so when we see the word “knitted” in verse 13, it seems a little odd. Some commentators have concluded that the idea of God “knitting” us in the womb was simply a literary device, and had no literal meaning. Early translators, such as those who brought us the King James version, chose to translate the Hebrew word cakak as “covered,” perhaps in part because the word knitted seemed somehow inappropriate. All of the more recent scholarly translations of the Hebrew text, however, use the more literal “knitted” or “wove” because those words are more faithful translations of the Hebrew word cakak.
When you view the Alexander Tsiaras video, however, the word knitted suddenly seems to faithfully describe the intricate phenomenon of human embryonic development. There are two types of “knitting” that are depicted in that video. First, collagen is described in terms of a complex of woven strands, and every human cell is comprised at least in part of collagen. (Notice the red background “weave” of the “Knit or Split” graphic above; it’s actually not a rendering or drawing as such, it is a microscopic photograph of collagen.) Second, the illustration of the development of the human heart starts out with two strands; those strands then appear to be woven and folded continually until a functioning human heart emerges.
The knitting does not stop there. Although Alexander Tsiaras expresses amazement about the “magic” of cell reproduction, geneticists and molecular biologists don’t consider the process to be magic at all. Instead, they marvel at the intricate and highly complex engine of cell reproduction as illustrated in this second, and even more amazing, video. Indeed, cellular reproduction, which takes place trillions of times a minute in real time in each of our bodies, appears to be a knitting process once it is properly illustrated based on DNA research. What’s more, cellular reproduction relies entirely upon a linguistic-style coding system that Francis Collins (one of the lead scientists in the human genome project) has dubbed The Language of God.
Gospel Apologetics
Romans 1:19-20 is one of the most blunt passages in the entire Bible. It announces that God’s creative handiwork, discoverable throughout nature and time, leaves no excuses for atheists. No excuses. None. Period. End of discussion.
One of the most highly respected and intelligent atheists in our time, if not in all of history, took an honest look at the scientific data and was converted. Anthony Flew was a British philosopher who taught at Oxford and elsewhere. He argued against the existence of God in many debates, including a debate with William Lane Craig. His well-known essay, The Presumption of Atheism, continues to be relied upon today by would-be atheists. Flew, an honest intellectual if there ever was one, argued during most of his career that one should presuppose atheism until evidence of a God surfaces.
Evidence of God did surface for Anthony Flew. In 2004, at the conclusion of a series of discussions and dialogues with Gary Habermas, Flew announced that after studying DNA and DNA replication he had become a theist. He acknowledged that in the face of the intricate, finely tuned, miraculous workings of cell replication, life itself and the universe proper, he was, in essence, “without excuse.”
- At the 2004 symposium ‘Has Science Discovered God’, organized by the Institute for Metascientific Research, Professor Flew said: “What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. It’s the enormous complexity of the number of elements and the enormous subtlety of the ways they work together. The meeting of these two parts at the right time by chance is simply minute. It is all a matter of the enormous complexity by which the results were achieved, which looked to me like the work of intelligence.”
- Flew concluded that naturalistic efforts have never succeeded in producing ‘a plausible conjecture as to how any of these complex molecules might have evolved from simple entities.’ Flew observed: ‘I think that the most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries. . . I think the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it.’
- Flew criticized “new atheist” Richard Dawkins by observing: “It now seems to me that the finding of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.”
- Flew concluded ‘There does seem to be a reason for a First Cause’, which implies ‘creation “in the beginning”’, although Flew was ‘not at all sure how much we have to explain here.’
Even though there is no hard evidence that Anthony Flew became a follower of Christ as such by the time he died in April 2010, he nevertheless made it clear in his book, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (and in correspondence and appearances after the publication of his book), that he had indeed arrived at the conclusion that atheism is an untenable belief system.
There are two facts that, once accepted, require a belief in the life, death, and deity of Jesus Christ. Those two facts are creation, and the resurrection. Both facts are not only plausible, they are undeniable. Nature proves the intelligent design of a Creator. And the historical record proves the reality of the resurrection.
Once those two facts are acknowledged, the truth and the reliability of the Bible cannot be denied or discarded. And once the Bible is seen as the credible record of God’s purposeful creation of, involvement in, and love for, humankind, there is not only no excuse for doubting God as Creator, but, there is also no excuse for doubting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
The Gaze
The Text
1O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 2You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. (Psalm 139:1-2 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
It is difficult to imagine the idea of God without acknowledging that, if God exists and is truly our Creator, He must necessarily be so grand, so vast, as to understand even how and what we think. Anything less than this idea of God could not be all that God must necessarily be.
Here in Psalm 139, David finds comfort at the idea of an omnipresent and omniscient God. In his cyclical spiritual journey as recorded in this Psalm, David starts out in the first two strophes with an enthusiastic recognition of God’s all-knowing (verses 1-6) and all-present (verses 7-12) limitlessness. In view of this fresh appreciation for (if not discovery or re-discovery of) God’s character and qualities, David expresses joy in surrendering himself to his Creator (verses 13-18). He then tries to leverage his relationship with God into victory over his enemies, asking God to administer His justice against David’s enemies (verses 19-22). Just as he does so, David seems to realize that his righteous anger toward his (and, be believes, God’s) enemies is most likely tainted by self-righteousness. So he finishes his thoughts about his enemies by asking God in the final two verses to reveal to him anything wicked in his heart (including wayward thoughts). This prayer places David back into the project of gaining a better and clearer understanding of God’s character … which sends him back to the first verse of the Psalm.
The pattern Psalm 139 is typical of followers of Christ: seeking Him, acknowledging Him, depending on Him, serving Him, confessing to Him, and then seeking Him anew. As Gene Rice observes in his article, “Psalm 139: A Diary of the Inward Odyssey” (Journal of Religious Thought, 1980/81, p. 67), “Here the Psalmist recognizes that his surrender and commitment to God do not set him apart and give him the right to feel superior to others. He has not yet completed his spiritual odyssey. The spiritual life requires God’s continual searching, knowing, trying, seeing, and leading.”
Some Observations about the Text
Acknowledging that God is Both Out There and Also Right Here. David observes that God transcends night and day, observing from the heavens (verses 11-12). But God is also nearby (verse 5). God is both far away, and also at hand, and cannot be escaped. These observations are echoed in Jeremiah 23: “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:23-24).
Acknowledging that God is Both Incomprehensible but Knowable. God would not be God if He were comprehensible. And yet God delights in revealing Himself to us: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
Being Known, and Being Free. There is a certain freedom in acknowledging that God is there, and that He sees us. It’s a reality check. If we are not following and serving our King, Jesus Christ, then our fealty is to something or someone else. As Paul writes, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?” (Galatians 4:8-9)
Who’s Deluded? It’s not uncommon for those who oppose Biblical Christianity to claim that Christians are naive, like little children. In a sense, we are: “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4:4-6) We aren’t deluded, though. Quite the opposite: “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20)
Who’s Seeking Whom? There is a terror, or at least an angst, that we sometimes experience when we are truly alone. If you were to be stranded on a country road, miles from any other human … at night … what would you experience? How would you feel? How would you react? For the believer, prayer would be a natural reflex. For a nonbeliever, being completely isolated without anyone, including God, tends to result in anxiety. The sound of a rustling leaf would be enough to frighten them (Leviticus 26:36).
Gospel Apologetics
Denying that God is Out There and Also Right Here. Atheists find the idea of an all-knowing God to be troubling. There is a psychological impact if God is there and is watching us. It’s the same psychological impact that is evoked by the seasonal warning to children that “Santa is watching you.” For atheists, this is a threatening prospect. As Christopher Hitchens writes in his introduction to the Portable Atheist (De Capo Press, p. xxii) “who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis; and how grateful we should be to those of our predecessors who repudiated this utter negation of human freedom.”
Jean-Paul Sartre, similarly, resented the idea that God could be watching. In Being and Nothingness (Citadel, 2001), Sartre imagines kneeling down in a stairwell and peering through a keyhole in a door. He then thinks that he hears footsteps behind him, and suddenly feels shame. He realizes that his shame comes from the idea of being watched by someone else when he does not want to be watched. Sartre extends this thought experiment to the notion of God watching at all times, thereby “objectifying” him by making him the object of God’s gaze. Sartre does not want to be an object; he wants to be the subject, that is, the person doing the gazing rather than the person being gazed upon. He resents being watched. So much so, that at the conclusion of his play, No Exit (Samuel French, Inc., 1958), Sartre concludes that “hell is other people” because for him it is hellish to be watched by others (or, an Other).
To be an atheist, is to deny God, including His omniscience and omnipresence. Only by denying God in this way, can an atheist deny accountability to God. If, on the other hand, God exists, the atheist’s resistance to accountability is both understandable and misplaced. Because “no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:13)
David, on the other hand, finds comfort rather than dread in the idea of God’s omnipresence. David never experienced the loneliness of atheism.
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
Be Hatin’ (Part Two)
The Text
27Add to them punishment upon punishment;
may they have no acquittal from you.
28Let them be blotted out of the book of the living;
let them not be enrolled among the righteous. (Psalm 69:27-28 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
What can be more “un-Christian,” than to pray for the eternal damnation of someone? If ever there was a proof text for the notion that the Old Testament reflects a faith, and perhaps a God, that is harsh, unforgiving, and even heartless, this imprecatory Psalm seems to do the job.
But this Psalm isn’t just an Old Testament anachronism. Other than Psalm 22, Psalm 69 is the most often-quoted Psalm in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the “book of the living” has more to do with being “among the righteous” (whom God blesses with life) than the Book of Life referred to in the Revelation. And yet this Psalm does point to and does anticipate God’s ultimate justice and judgment as described in the Revelation.
In some ways this passage can be paraphrased, “God, I have been attacked and unfairly accused. You are just. Please do what you in your justice must do. Now, please.”
Some Observations about the Text
Uncensored Prayer. Have you every prayed for something, only to realize that your request did not, upon further reflection, glorify God? Have you ever prayed for something, such as a promotion, a high score on an exam (in a course of study that is graded on a curve), a sale of a product or service, or some other outcome that involved your success at the expense of someone else? Your victory sometimes — not always, but sometimes — necessitates a defeat or failure on the part of someone else. And here’s the ultimate question: have you ever found yourself asking God’s forgiveness for the pride or selfishness that informed and motivated a past prayer?
If you have experienced some anxiety — or what we sometimes call conviction, or a “check in the spirit” — about a past prayer, um, pray about it. But also allow yourself to gain some assurance from these imprecatory prayers. One of the lessons we learn from them, is that God doesn’t demand perfect prayers. Unlike a rigorous English professor, He doesn’t reject your paper because your words were poorly constructed or not politically (or prayer-tically) correct.
In His love and mercy, God invites to share are hearts with him. And sometimes when we do, the prayer can be, well, a little ugly. A little whiny. And often, very desperate.
In Be Hatin’ Part One, we observed that the imprecations or maledictions found in imprecatory psalms were always mapped to God’s plans and purposes. Never are curse-like invectives issued in the Psalms solely expressed as personal vindication. Hatred of sin and evil (Psalm 139:17-24) are necessary ingredients for any imprecation in the Psalms.
Here, we can observe that imprecations are never uttered casually or lightly. Instead, they are always in the context of deep and desperate conflict. Usually the conflict is war. Only those who have fought in a war, or who have lived in a war zone, can truly appreciate the depth and the desperation. It’s the stuff that History Channel war documentaries are made of: death and pain and blood and merciless killing and maiming and rape and mutilation. Conditions and circumstances that lead even the most faithful to call out, “Where are you, God?”
God doesn’t censor our prayers. If we feel the need to call out, “Where are you, God?” then we need to call out to him right then and there and without hesitation. He is there, but in this sin-cursed world where free will is sometimes expressed as free kill, He invites us to turn to Him. To rely upon Him. To share our deepest terrors with Him. He is God and He is there.
If you find yourself in that place of deep desperation, Psalm 69 makes a good read. It’s the perfect desperate-prayer guide. The psalmist cries out, “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.” (Psalm 69:1-4). If this resonates with you right now, stop reading this blog and turn to Psalm 69 and read it from top to bottom … several times. It will bless you
Life is often about being under attack. In Psalm 69:8-29, as in Psalm 35:11-15, David describes the experience of being hunted and hated. Which of course he was. But we all are. The enemy that seeks to hunt us down and defeat us might not be Saul. The waters threaten to come up to our neck. We feel ourselves sinking in deep mire, where there is no foothold. It might not be actual water, or an actual army. Or even people. But we can sometimes feel the same level of imminent defeat that David expresses. Our enemy might be the job market (or lack thereof). Or our own unwise spending habits, eating-and-exercising failings, social inadequacies, career or school failure, family turmoil, parenting dysfunction, or addiction to anything from lust to love, from being high to living high. Usually when we pray against that-which-takes-us-down, we are exactly where we need to be in our calling-out to God. We are at the first verse of Psalm 69. He is pleased to hear and respond to our prayers, without first editing them down to sterile smarminess.
The imprecatory Psalms are not an invitation to invective, and they do not provide permission to gratuitously curse others. But they are an invitation from God to trust God to resolve our tribulations to His glory. We know in faith that He is just. Sometimes, as in today’s verses (Psalm 69:27-28) we find ourselves praying that God will accelerate His justice. Once we make such a request, we can follow David’s lead and move on to the next prayer topic. We can can say, “But I am afflicted and in pain; let your salvation, O God, set me on high!” (Psalm 69:29) and then thank and praise Him for doing so (the rest of Psalm 69, i.e., verses 30-36).
Old Testament Wrath / New Testament Grace? Was God somehow more stern, more focused on justice, or more full of wrath in the Old Testament as opposed to the New Testament? Some people seem to think so. After all, to the extent that the Old Testament spotlights the fall of Adam and Eve and the consequences of sin, the New Testament offers a solution. The Old Testament is about the fall, and the New Testament is about redemption.
But the character of God does not change; it is immutable (Malachi 3:6). Jesus, the merciful Redeemer and Savior, was more than willing to very personally and very directly condemn the Pharisees in strongest of language … essentially sending them to hell (Matthew 23:29-36). Jesus’ description of the fate of those who cause sin (Matthew 13:41-43) or choose sin (Mark 9:47-49) were similarly blunt. It was not out of character for Jesus Christ to echo the imprecations of Psalm 69 when he criticized the unbelieving cities of Capernaum Chorazin and Bethsaida (Matthew 11:20-24). Nor when he differentiated between a disciple’s true love for God, and, by comparison, a person’s natural affection for parents and family and life itself, as being necessarily equivalent to love and hate, respectively (Luke 14: 25-32). Jesus spoke with severe judgment against the Pharisees (Luke 3:7-9), against Peter (Matthew 16:23), against Judas (Mark 14:21), and against the wicked (Matthew 25:41). In fact there are many very strong and serious declarations made throughout the New Testament, such as the pronouncement of the unpardonable sin (Mark 3:22-30); Paul’s recognition of the consequence of not loving the Lord (1 Corinthians 16:22); Paul’s condemnation of heretics (Galatians 1:8-9), Elymas (Acts 13:10-11), Ananias (Acts 23:3), and Alexander (2 Timothy 4:14); Peter’s castigation of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:9) and Simon the magician (Acts 8:20); James’ comment about gold and silver (James 5:3); and the prayer of the martyrs at Revelation 6:10.
As we noted earlier, God hates sin (Psalm 5:6). A follower of Christ, who understands that God is so high and holy that only through Christ can we ever expect to survive His perfect justice, also hates sin. The Christian disciple doesn’t want anyone to perish, but does want everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). As Christians grow in faith their hatred of and toward sin increases. As their love for Christ becomes more genuine, they come to hold more securely to that which is good, while abhorring (hating) evil (Romans 12:9). In other words, there cannot be genuine love without hatred of sin and evil (Psalm 139:17-24).
Love (and Hate): Midpoint Between Rationalism and Sentimentalism. When we speak of love and hate, we are usually talking about passions. Emotions. Zeal. The heart, as much as or more than the mind. Love and hate point to variability, to swings of passion, to tempests and storms and heartfelt engagement with life.
When we speak of rationalism, in contrast, we usually refer to a way of thinking that is not cluttered and thrown off course by emotions. Rationalism is steady, if not stern. Rationalism does not in theory vary with love, hate, or any other emotions. We sometimes point to contemporary economic theory, which is based on the assumption that individual human beings are “rational agents,” capable of consistently acting in their own self-interest by assessing costs and benefits and reliably making optimal choices. This might be a good economic theory (which is debatable), but it makes for a terrible observation of human nature in action.
People don’t act as rational agents (even when we think we are making rational choices). So much so, that human irrationality defies the very tenets of evolutionary theory. We drive all over town to save three cents per gallon on gas. We buy diet soft drinks to go with our chicken wings and french fries. We will miss a payment on our rent or utilities before getting rid of the three dogs and two cats that are costing us $150 per month. We eat too much, drink to much, watch too much TV, take too many medications and exercise too little. We go on strike and miss months and months of paychecks, threatening the very survival of our employer, over a couple of dollars an hour … only to settle for a few cents per hour. And when we are traumatized by life, we take stock in ourselves by reference to close family and dear friends, not in terms of wise economic decisions well made over time.
Most people would agree that the life well lived is a life characterized by both love and reasonableness. Not mindless sentimentality. Neither heartless rationalism. But a wise and virtuous midpoint between these two vices.
Here’s the catch: love is not lived out without being jealously guarded. Most observers would agree that husband does not love his wife unless he is willing to protect her, that is, to hate that which threatens her. Similarly, the mother does not really love a child unless she is willing to fight against, and hate, that which would destroy her child. To love is to be loyal. Passionate (as opposed to passionless) loyalty calls for a little bit of hatred from time to time.
God loves those who respond to His Gospel with faith in and love for Jesus Christ. In the interest of His kingdom and His glory and the integrity of His righteousness and holiness, God hates those who reject faith in Jesus Christ.
This is true of God as narrated in the Old Testament. It is true of Jesus Christ as we read how He responds to evil in the New Testament. And it is true for followers of Jesus Christ … those who love what He loves and hates what He hates.
Abhor. We don’t use the word “abhor” very much any more, as in “Abhor what is evil” (Romans 12:9). Instead we use words like “loathe” or “hate.” Paul’s verb apostygeō is a very harsh word, loaded with loathing and disgust. Although “abhor” is a correct technical translation, it is also properly translated “hate” in the NIV and NLT. It is a word that has passion and intensity. We are commanded not simply to choose good over evil; we are to embrace the good, and passionately hate evil with disgust and loathing.
Gospel Apologetics
One of the most familiar Bible texts of the Bible is John 3:16. Buried within that verse is the ultimate expression of the law of non-contradiction: those do not believe, perish. They are doomed. Their fate is not just eternal separation from God; it is eternal wrath. There is no middle ground. The proposition is digital: one or zero. Life or death. Not very pleasant stuff, in the eyes of many, but there it is. And two verses later in that same chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus explains that those who perish are condemned. “Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18). Still a few paragraphs later in that same chapter is further clarification: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).
For God, and for us, life’s choices boil down to a very digital, one or zero type of decision. Belief or rejection. Life or death. Love or hate.
To be a follower of Jesus Christ requires both faith and love. But part of loving God, is hating sin and evil (Romans 12:9). You can’t be loving God without hating evil. So, go ahead. Be hatin’!
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
Be Hatin’ (Part One)
The Text
9Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! (Psalm 137:9 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
What a monstrous thing to say. What a heartless curse. And yet there it is, in the Bible, an imprecatory Psalm that seems to offer easy pickings for any Bible critic (or “new atheist”).
Lex Talionis. Of course, it is a little too easy to pick out a sentence or two without taking into account the context. Psalm 137 as a whole is a lament about how the Hebrews, who were in captivity, wanted to “sing the LORD‘s song” as a song of praise. Instead they were forced to sign for entertainment of, and taunting by, their captors. The lament ends with the observation that God will have His vengeance, and those who fulfill this prophecy — this administration of God’s justice — will be blessed. Eventually the Babylonians and Edomites would be repaid for what they had done to the Hebrews. They who violently killed little ones — even as they destroyed the temple in Jerusalem — could expect the same (2 Thessalonians 1:6).
God’s Vengeance. Notice that the vengeance described in Psalm 137 is God’s, not the Hebrew captives’. David, who wrote most of the imprecations contained in the Psalms, had a high view God’s justice. This is obvious even from some of David’s last words: When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. 2 Samuel 23:3b-4. And God’s perfect justice requires His perfect vengeance (Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:19; Hebrews 10:30).
The administration of God’s justice, including God’s vengeance, is honorable. Blessed be he or she who, like David, is called into such service.
Some Observations about the Text
The Holiness Gap. Some people have a “little” idea of God. They superimpose their own template over what they want from God, or what they want God to be.
People who have these little gods usually self-identify. They usually start out their theological explications with such words as, “my god would never…” or “my god is a loving God who would…” The little gods described by these folks are the creations of little minds, and are not referential. That is, the definitions and descriptions of these little gods did not refer to any external reality or truth. They are mere imaginations.
This is very convenient because little gods need only have a little holiness.
The Bible of course does not describe a little God. The Bible describes a huge God. An awesome God. A God so large that He is able to create a universe, and it is a universal truth that the universe is huge! If, as the scientists claim today, the universe started with the Big Bang then we can think of God as the Big Banger. He is not little; neither is his holiness.
The Intolerance Gap. A small god with small holiness would have a small problem with sin and rebellion. The Bible, however, does not waste our time with small gods and puny righteousness. Instead the Bible presents us with a God whose righteousness has zero tolerance for sin and wickedness. This is a God that makes sense, one that has His own perfect template for righteousness. As far as the God of the Bible is concerned, the wicked are like the chaff that is blown away by the wind (Psalm 1:4). Those who rebel against God deserve nothing less than to be struck on the jaw, and to have their teeth broken (Psalm 3:7). Those who would rise up against the God of the Bible can expect to be completely destroyed, and can also expect their posterity to be cut off (Psalm 37:38). God cannot tolerate evil, and in the end evil will be crushed (Revelation 19:11-21).
So the language of Psalm 137:9 is not personal or puny. But it is entirely consistent with the high view of justice that characterizes a high and holy God.
A high and holy God hates sin (Psalm 5:6). A follower of Christ, who understands that God is so high and holy that only through Christ can we ever expect to survive His perfect justice, also hates sin. The Christian disciple doesn’t want anyone to perish, but does want everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). As Christians grow in faith their hatred of and toward sin increases. As their love for Christ becomes more genuine, they come to hold more securely to that which is good, while abhorring (hating) evil (Romans 12:9). In other words, there cannot be genuine love without hatred of sin and evil (Psalm 139:17-24).
So … don’t … be hatin’!
Gospel Apologetics
When Richard Dawkins offers his litany of shortcomings of the Old Testament God in The God Delusion , he presumes that he was somehow able to superimpose his own template over God and thereby declare God to be “jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” (2006, p.31). Fair enough … assuming that Dawkins is in the position to judge God. But what would God say of Richard Dawkins (or me, for that matter)? If God superimposed His template (and let’s say for argument sake that His template is the Bible), how would Dawkins (or I) fare? (The answer to this question has already been described above.)
By the way, Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Baker, 2011) is a thoughtful, articulate and Biblically-based response to Dawkins’ characterization of Yahweh.
Meanwhile, the real question is not whether God is just. The real question is, who is God? And is He big or little?
If He is big (indeed, if He is the Creator), the Bible makes perfect sense. Faith and the condemnation of those who reject faith in Jesus Christ also make perfect sense (Mark 16:16). And hating sin — truly hating sin, not just disliking it a little — makes perfect sense.
If God is not big and holy and righteous and just, then why are we even having this discussion?
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
God’s Economics
The Text
14Yet it was kind of you to share my
trouble. 15And you Philippians yourselves know that in the
beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into
partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. 16Even
in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. 17Not
that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your
credit. 18I have received full payment, and more. I am well
supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a
fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. 19And
my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory
in Christ Jesus. 20To our God and Father be glory forever
and ever. Amen.
(Philippians 4:14-20 ESV)
A Closer Look at the Text
Paul’s Economics. Paul was well supplied, and he saw his
supplies coming from God by way of the Philippians. It’s necessary to
understand the first word of verse 19 (“and”) in order to fully
understand the rest of that verse. Is it “and also” or “and so” or “and
by the same token”? In other words, does verse 19 serve as an
independent observation alongside verse 18 (God supplies me, God
supplies you)? Or, does verse 19 have some dependency on verse 18 (God
supplies me, and so you can expect that God will supply you)? The fact
that verse 18 is in the present tense (I am well supplied) and verse 19
is in the future tense (God will supply) seems to point to the latter
interpretation.
Either way, we can look at Paul and ask how God has supplied
all of his needs. What were his needs? As a prisoner under house
arrest, with a Roman guard nearby (perhaps chained to him), Paul’s
needs were probably fairly basic: food, water, writing materials. After
all, in Philippians 4:11 Paul had observed that he had learned that he was to be
content in all situations. If economics are based mostly on discontent
with unmet needs and wants, Paul’s economics were minimal.
“It is Better to Give than to Receive” is a worn-out cliché. But at Verse 17 Paul
is not promising that generosity is rewarded with some sort of a mushy
psycho-bliss. When Paul says “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the
fruit that increases to your credit,” he’s acknowledging that when the
Philippians send support to Paul out of love for him and for Christ
(and out of obedience) the greatest blessing accrues to the
Philippians. Their blessings are, in Paul’s economics, greater than
Paul’s, even though Paul is the recipient.
Some Observations about the Text
God’s Economics. Economics – the dismal
science – is a strange pseudo-science. As a predictor of human
behavior, it fails. People (and corporations and governments) do
strange things. Have you ever seen a member of community organization
take a day off from work (where he earns, say, about $10 per hour) in
order to panhandle on street corners on behalf of his organization
(where he earned $2.35 per hour)? That makes about as much sense as
governments that spend $666 billion on economic “stimulus,” or, $278,000 per job “created
or saved.” I have seen people risk prison sentences by cheating on
their taxes (in order to save $812.00). “Rational choice“
might make for a recognized economic or legal theory, but it’s not how
humans actually behave.
Witness Lee wrote a commentary on 1 Timothy 1:3-7 called The
Economy of God. He pointed out that “economy” is the anglicized
form of the Greek word oikonomia, which occurs throughout the New Testament (1
Timothy 1:4; Ephesians 1:10; 3:2; 3:9; 1 Corinthians 9:17; Colossians
1:25). Oikonomia is a compound of two nouns: oikos,
which means house, and nomos, which means law. Witness Lee
thought of God as an immensely wealthy householder who dispenses His
unsearchable riches (Ephesians 3:8) to His people, the members of His household. He does so based
on his priorities. What are His priorities? His glory, His kingdom, his
love. Nothing is dispensed by God outside of God’s priorities.
I am not entirely sure about Witness Lee’s theology (I haven’t
really studied it), but he’s right about one thing: God’s economy is
certainly not the same as any human economy. God’s economy operates
from His riches and His grace and His wisdom, not from human struggle
or from a cursed earth. For example, in my own experience I saw that He
was willing to allow a recovery ministry to run hard for two and a half
years (absorbing a tremendous amount of time and money and emotion and
energy), prayerfully interacting with hundreds of people. As a result
of that effort, one or two people turned to Him. He loves those one or
two people enough to invest (even to the point of burn-out) the lives
of those who zealously invested in and worked that recovery ministry. I
know that in God’s economy things work this way. God’s measure of
cost-benefit goes beyond anything we can imagine. Think about the
“cost-benefit analysis” of John 3:16. Or of Matthew 16:26 / Mark 8:36. And pretty much the rest of the Bible, starting with creation by God (Genesis
1:1) and concluding with creation by God (Revelation
21:1). I also know that no ministry can be accurately measured by
nose counts in God’s economy because many times a ministry cultivates
and plants and nurtures but does not harvest (Matthew
13:1-9; Mark 4:1-9; and Luke 8:4-8). In all cases, God actually
causes the germination and the growth (1 Corinthians 3:5-9).
Gospel Apologetics
Nonbelievers will often offer this pithy objection to faith in
Christ: “I don’t understand how God could _______________ ….” (fill
in the blank). Sometimes nonbelievers say this in a tone of voice
that seems to imply that God’s actions or decisions are not legitimate
unless they fully understand them. They seem to believe that it makes
sense for them to assume that their reasoning supersedes God’s. It
would be rude and unkind and a poor witness to simply respond, “Of
course you don’t.” But actually that’s an accurate response. The
nonbeliever does not understand for two reasons.
First, he or she is not God, and no human understands the mind of God.
Second, nonbelievers minds are darkened, so they walk in the
futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in
them, due to their hardness of heart. When it comes to God’s law and
holiness (and the common revelation of their conscience) they have
often become callous. (Ephesians
4:17-24) So of course they would not understand how God could
_____________ (fill in the blank). They no
longer want to. They aren’t seeking His ways.
Some believers are more obvious about this than others. Some are
obviously in full rebellion and are running hard away from him. For
example, when it comes to social issues, they are moving quickly through the Overton
window so that their “acceptance level” of cultural moral decline
is often in the process of moving from unthinkable to radical to
acceptable to sensible to popular. Eventually, just about any loosening
of moral strictures will make complete sense to them. On the other
hand, any effort to move in the direction of God’s law not only does
not make sense, but it is often offensive to them.
There are lots of things that can be said about how to witness to
nonbelievers who are obviously in full rebellion. But one of the most
effective weapons in our arsenal is described in Philippians 4:
Contentment. A follower of Christ can learn to be content, just as Paul
learned that he ought to be content, no matter what. True contentment
is, for most people, elusive if not outright unattainable. And yet we
have it. We have the peace that surpasses all understanding. As long as
we reflect that peace, that hope, no matter what come our way, we will
never run out of opportunities to have conversations about the gospel
with those who do not.
Audio MP3 Discussion of this post is available here.
