jzeeb.comhttps://jzeeb.com/2024-03-14T00:00:00+00:00Why Would Anyone Reject God?2024-03-14T00:00:00+00:002024-03-14T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2024-03-14:/article/why-would-anyone-reject-god/<p>As I argued in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">my theory of Christian inclusivism</a>, I believe that God must give people the ability to ultimately reject him. Those who do so will be thrown into the lake of fire and suffer the punishment of eternal destruction (i.e., <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a>).</p>
<p>In my previous post, I answered …</p><p>As I argued in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">my theory of Christian inclusivism</a>, I believe that God must give people the ability to ultimately reject him. Those who do so will be thrown into the lake of fire and suffer the punishment of eternal destruction (i.e., <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a>).</p>
<p>In my previous post, I answered the first of two main questions that critics might raise against this idea. There, I argued in more depth that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-god-lets-people-reject-him/">God must allow people to reject him</a>, so that for those who do accept Jesus as their Savior, their love for God would be genuine.</p>
<p>This is why God had to allow Adam and Eve the possibility of sinning, even if God knew their sin would lead to all the suffering that the world has experienced since then.</p>
<p>Similarly, I argue that in the end, God will ensure that every single person will be given a fair and free choice about whether to accept Jesus as his or her Savior to gain eternal life (John 3:16), or reject him. This choice is fundamentally the same as choosing whether to love God/Love or not, because God is Love (1 John 4:8, 4:16).</p>
<p>In the end, all who love God/Love will admit they have sinned and will respond positively to God's demonstration of love that was shown when he sent Jesus to die for their sins (1 John 4:10, John 15:13), and they will believe in Jesus as their Savior. Everyone who believes that Jesus Christ died for their sins will love God for this same reason.</p>
<p>Critics of my theory of inclusivism might say that, at that moment when someone is seeing God face to face and is then presented with the ultimate choice between eternal life or eternal destruction, no one in their right mind would choose to reject God's offer of salvation. If these critics were right, then the final judgment would lead to universalism, and everyone would end up loving God and having eternal life.</p>
<p>However, in this post I will argue that even when people are facing God at the final judgment, it must still be possible for them to choose to reject God. Otherwise, they would not truly have free will, and without free will, we're back to all the issues I discussed in my previous post.</p>
<p>And actually, the reason these people will choose to reject God's <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">free offer of eternal life</a> at the final judgment is basically the same reason why Adam and Eve chose to sin in the Garden of Eden.</p>
<p>To begin to understand why people might reject God, we must look at how free will works, and how God makes it possible that we can actually choose between multiple different courses of action.</p>
<h2>How Does Free Will Work?</h2>
<p>Free will is obviously a complex topic. A significant number of books and philosophical treatises have been written about different theories which explain how we have free will. Neuroscientists also try to investigate how the decision-making process occurs in people's minds from a biological point of view.</p>
<p>On one side, some philosophers say that we do not truly have free will, because they claim that all of our actions and thoughts are fully determined by pre-existing causes, such as our brain chemistry. This chemistry is influenced by various external factors that act on our bodies which are outside of our control. These factors were themselves caused by previous causes, and those causes were also caused by earlier causes, going back in an unbreakable chain of cause and effect to the very first cause of the existence of the universe. Or so they claim.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Although the Calvinistic theologian Jonathan Edwards didn't know about the more 'scientific' aspects of this explanation, it is effectively the same theory of free will that he argued for in his famous book <em>Freedom of the Will</em>. He thought that the movement of every tiny atom and molecule in the entire history of the universe can be traced back through the links of cause and effect back to God's initial creation of the universe.</p>
<p>So, to Edwards, nothing in the entire history of the universe could ever have been any different than it actually was, and is, and will be. Otherwise, he thought there would be no determining 'cause' behind why, for example, I chose to eat spaghetti for dinner tonight, rather than tacos. It would be an instance of an effect (a choice) that occurs without a cause that could fully explain why that particular effect/choice happened, rather than a different effect/choice. To Edwards, such a situation would be inconceivable.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>In contrast to this view of philosophical determinism, a libertarian view of free will means that our decisions are not completely determined by either internal or external factors. While our desires, instincts, habits, conscious and unconscious motivations, personality, brain chemistry, and mental state can influence our decisions, in order for us to have libertarian free will, none of these influences can be so overwhelming that we could not have chosen to do otherwise. If any of these influences do become so overwhelming that they force us to act in a particular way, then we would no longer have free will.</p>
<p>Even in extremely difficult decisions where each option we are considering has different and incomparable reasons behind why we might choose it, we do not usually choose randomly, but deliberately consider the pros and cons of each option. Then when we finally choose one option, we can say we chose it because of the reasons that justified our choosing it. Yet if our choice was free, our decision cannot have been determined by any of those reasons, and we must have always had the ability to choose otherwise.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>Or in other words, if a choice was made with libertarian free will, then theoretically, if we could go back in time, we could have chosen something different than what we actually chose, because nothing was forcing us to choose the way we did.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>And just for clarification, it is not necessary that every single action we do is a result of our free will. But unless a decision is made with libertarian free will, such that we could have chosen to do otherwise, we cannot be held morally accountable for that decision by God or by others, nor justly rewarded or punished accordingly.</p>
<p>Thus, when it comes to the 'ultimate' punishment of eternal destruction (2 Thessalonians 1:8-10), I believe that God must give everyone at least one free libertarian choice to accept or reject Jesus as their Savior, or God would be unjust to punish them with eternal death for their disbelief.</p>
<p>Hopefully this is clear enough, but there are also two other conditions that must be met in order for us to make a truly free choice.</p>
<h3>Condition 1: The Need For Multiple Options to Choose Between</h3>
<p>First of all, for a choice to be truly free, we must have multiple options to choose from. Otherwise, even if we have free will, it would not do us any good, because we would only have one option available to us.</p>
<p>For example, If I only have spaghetti sauce and pasta noodles in my cupboard, it doesn't matter how much I want to eat tacos instead. If I have no way of going to the grocery store to buy the supplies to make tacos, and no way of ordering tacos to be delivered, if I want to eat dinner, I would have to eat that spaghetti, or choose to go hungry. Even this example, though, I do still have an option to go hungry. If I truly had only <em>one</em> option, I would <em>have</em> to eat the spaghetti, and I couldn't even choose to not eat it.</p>
<p>This is why, if God gives people free will so that they can freely choose to love him, God must also give them the option of freely choosing to reject him.</p>
<p>This is why God created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. If God had not created that tree and not told Adam and Eve to not eat its fruit, then although Adam and Eve had free will, they would have had no way to choose to disobey/reject God. (And yes, disobeying God is the same as rejecting God, because God's nature as perfect Love (1 John 4:8) means that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">obeying him is the same as loving him</a>.)</p>
<p>Now, similarly, as I argued in my previous post, God must give each individual the same choice of whether to return God's love, or reject that love. For those who hear the gospel, our choice to love God is expressed as choosing to believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, who died for our sins on the cross (John 3:16, 6:28-29). This choice to love God or not will determine whether an individual experiences eternity in the New Heaven and New Earth, or is eternally destroyed.</p>
<p>But if God wants our love for him to be genuinely meaningful and valuable to him, he cannot force us to love him. That means that God must give us the option to reject him and be eternally destroyed, even though ideally, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">God wants everyone to be saved</a>.</p>
<p>So having at least two different options to choose between is the most basic requirement for free will to be possible, in addition to being able to make the choice without our choice being fully determined by unchosen influences. But there is a second requirement that is necessary in order for a free choice to be possible.</p>
<h3>Condition 2: The Need for A Motive To Choose Each Option</h3>
<p>No matter how many options are open to us to choose from, we cannot actually choose any of them unless we have a motive for selecting each of the possible options.</p>
<p>For example, let's say I open my cupboard, and I see that I have the supplies to make spaghetti for dinner. I also know that in my fridge, I have all the supplies I need to make tacos. However, on one shelf of my cupboard, I also spot a tin of sardines.</p>
<p>Now, I could eat those sardines, if I chose to. Nothing is physically preventing me from eating those sardines. I'm not allergic to them, and Batman will not break in to stop me from reaching for the sardines. I have the ability to lift my arm, grab the can, pry open the lid, and dig a fork right into those sardines.</p>
<p>The only thing that prevents me from doing so is that I currently have absolutely no motivation to eat those sardines.</p>
<p>Now, I could gain a motive to eat said sardines if they were the only thing I had left to eat and I was hungry enough, and I had no other way of obtaining better food. But until then, I would never willingly eat those sardines.</p>
<p>This is obviously a silly example, but the same principle is true for any choice, no matter how ethically consequential or inconsequential.</p>
<p>So, in order to truly have free will, we need two other things in addition to the faculty of free will. We need at least two different options to choose between, and at least one possible motive for choosing each option. If either of these conditions are lacking, then it would not be possible to make a free choice.</p>
<h2>But Why Would Anyone Reject God's Love When They Know The Consequences?</h2>
<p>This brings us to the question we asked in the introduction to this post: why <em>would</em> anyone intentionally choose to reject God's love, if they knew that doing so would certainly lead to their own eternal destruction?</p>
<p>The universalist Thomas Talbott argues that no one will continually choose to reject God's love, because, although people might choose sin and evil for a while, eventually, they would realize that their lives are more pleasant without sin and evil. So he claims:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">that is how God works with us as created rational agents. He permits us to choose in the ambiguous contexts in which we first emerge as self-aware beings, and he then requires us to learn from experience the hard lessons we sometimes need to learn. So in that way the consequences of our free choices, both the good choices and the bad ones, are a source of revelation; they sooner or later reveal—in the next life if not in this one—both the horror of separation from God and the bliss of union with him. And that is why the end is foreordained: all paths finally lead to the same destination, the end of reconciliation, though some are longer and a lot more painful than others.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>However, if it is guaranteed that eventually, everyone will realize that choosing to love God is in their best interest, then we have lost one of the conditions for making a free choice, which is the possibility of having a motive to make the choice to reject God. This lack of a motive to make the opposing choice would mean that these people's choice to love God would no longer be truly free.</p>
<p>Yet because I strongly believe that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-god-lets-people-reject-him/">love must be freely chosen</a> in order for it to truly be <em>love</em>, then if God ever removed the possibility for people to reject God, it would contradict the reason why God created people with free will in the first place—so that loving relationships between God and people could be possible.</p>
<p>Thus, even for people who will face God at the final judgment, after having their works judged by God to prove that they are sinners who are worthy of eternal destruction, and having been given one last chance to believe in Jesus as their Savior, it must still be possible for them to freely reject God.</p>
<p>To do so, these people would need to have a motive for their rejection of God. But what could that motive possibly be?</p>
<p>Some might say that at that point, only the most hardened, God-hating people would tell God to throw them into the lake of fire just out of spite, because they will think that if God loves them, then forcing God to destroy them instead will cause God to suffer, and they like the idea of causing God to suffer. Now, maybe some people will think this way, but I doubt this would be the motive for <em>everyone</em> who ends up being condemned to the lake of fire.</p>
<p>Instead, I think Jerry Walls has a more convincing answer to this question. Walls argues that the only way people could willingly choose sin, evil, and ultimately, eternal destruction, is because they have the ability to deceive themselves about what will actually make them the most happy.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Jerry Walls writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It seems to me that the ability to deceive ourselves may be an essential component of moral freedom.... If we cannot deceive ourselves, there can be no sustained motive to choose evil, and hence no freedom to so choose.<cite>7</cite></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Moral freedom requires both the ability to respond to God’s grace as well as the ability to resist it. And the latter requires the ability to deceive oneself, which entails the ability to avoid clear perception of God’s relation to happiness.<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>Basically, Walls is arguing that if we truly believe that God only wants what is best for us and that all of God's instructions are for our own good, then we would never sin. Similarly, it's definitely in our best interest to accept Jesus as our Savior, so that we can have an amazingly wonderful eternal future in the New Heaven and New Earth.</p>
<p>So the only way to convince ourselves that sinning and/or rejecting God will make us happier than following God's instructions is to deceive ourselves by persuading ourselves that God is wrong.</p>
<p>Yet God is never wrong, since God never lies (Titus 1:2). Therefore, to disagree with God is to believe a lie about reality. Or in other words, to disagree with God is to willingly deceive ourselves about reality.</p>
<p>Let's test Jerry Walls' claims by considering the example of Adam and Eve.</p>
<h3>The Example of Adam and Eve</h3>
<p>Before they sinned, Adam and Eve faced a conundrum. The serpent (Satan, as per Revelation 12:9) told them that God was lying to them, and that eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would actually greatly benefit them. It was this false idea that God was withholding something even better from them—that they could become like God—which tempted them to sin (Genesis 3:4-6)</p>
<p>This false idea opened up the possibility that Adam and Eve could make a free choice to disobey God, because until they had a potential motive to eat the forbidden fruit, they would never have considered doing so.</p>
<p>Yet, simply having a potential motive for such a choice was not enough to make Adam and Eve to choose as they did. They had to willingly and actively <em>choose</em> to believe that Satan was telling the truth, and simultaneously <em>choose</em> to believe that God was lying, although they had no evidence to support this conclusion.</p>
<p>Indeed, based on everything they had seen up to that point, Adam and Eve should have believed that God was good and that God wanted what was best for them, because God had provided everything they needed in the Garden of Eden. In contrast, Satan had done nothing for them that could have given them a reason to trust him.</p>
<p>Furthermore, they also had to <em>choose</em> to reject or ignore God's warning that to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would lead to their deaths (Genesis 2:16-17).</p>
<p>Thus, twice over, Adam and Eve convinced themselves that God was lying to them, and chose to believe that they could gain a greater benefit from sinning than from obeying God.</p>
<p>Similarly, whenever we choose to disobey God, we think that sinning will lead to greater benefit or happiness for us than if we choose to not sin. We also choose to ignore or deny that God has our best interests in mind when he told us not to sin.</p>
<p>In order to sin, therefore, we must pridefully tell ourselves that we know better than God does what is ultimately best for us. Simultaneously, we must also slander God's character by saying to ourselves that God is not perfectly wise, good, or loving, because he is trying to keep us from experiencing the happiness that we could gain from sinning.</p>
<p>Of course, sin might seem to make us happy temporarily, but sooner or later sin will always lead to misery, and ultimately, death (James 1:14-15). In this way, sin is fundamentally deceitful (Hebrews 3:13). This is why God instructs us to not sin. It's not because God wants to ruin our fun, but because God knows the full negative consequences of sin which we don't fully see or understand when we make a choice to sin.</p>
<p>This returns us to Talbott's earlier objection that through experience, people should learn that sooner or later, sin always leads to suffering. When they realize this, people should be motivated to give up their sins and turn back to God.</p>
<p>Walls agrees that if God allowed sinners to become progressively more miserable from their sins, eventually there would come a point that sinners would wake up to it and would be forced to change their minds about their sin. However, Walls says that the decision to turn away from sin and back toward God under these circumstances would not qualify as a free choice.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, even this connection between sin and misery must have limits, as Walls explains:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Of course, God is the only one who knows us well enough to know at what point our freedom is broken. Only God knows how much inducement through misery one can stand before his freedom is eliminated. But again, my claim is that there is a limit to what freedom can tolerate, and if a person resists to that point, then God cannot add more pressure without violating his [or her] freedom. To be sure, if God added such further pressure, the person would be forced to see that sin causes misery and would find it impossible not to submit to the pressure. But the choice to submit under these circumstances would not qualify as a free choice.<cite>10</cite></span></p>
<p>In other words, if God allowed sinners to become so miserable that they eventually had no other choice but to turn to God, then God would have taken away the sinner's free will to reject him.</p>
<p>So even when sinners start to discover that their sin is not actually making them happy, but is making them more miserable and ruining their lives, they can still deceive themselves into thinking that it is not that bad, or think that the alternative would be worse.</p>
<p>As an example that I believe supports Walls' point, let us consider one of the most confusing and debated details in the Old Testament, regarding how God interacted with Pharaoh during the ten plagues of Egypt.</p>
<h3>The Example of Pharaoh</h3>
<p>It can seem confusing why, if God said that he was sending Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt, that God also said he would 'harden' Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh would not agree to Moses' request (Exodus 4:21).</p>
<p>Talbott himself suggests that the purpose of this hardening was to keep Pharaoh from giving in to Moses' request too quickly.<cite>11</cite> So when it was necessary, God strengthened Pharaoh's own inner desire and determination to not let the Israelites leave Egypt, despite the awful consequences that God warned both Pharaoh and his people would suffer because of Pharaoh's repeated refusals.</p>
<p>One reason that God hardened Pharaoh's heart was so that God would be able to bring enough plagues on Egypt to properly judge both Pharaoh and the Egyptians for how they had mistreated the Israelites (Exodus 10:1-2). Another reason was so that the Egyptians would know that only God is God (Exodus 14:4, 9:14, 14:16-18).</p>
<p>Scholars often note how all the plagues that God sent on Egypt were targeted against various aspects of life that the Egyptians believed were controlled by their false gods.<cite>12</cite> When God demonstrated that he was more powerful than these false gods by negatively affecting things that the Egyptians believed these gods should have been in control of, it was a merciful form of evangelistic outreach to the people of Egypt who otherwise would never have had any interest in worshipping the one true God.</p>
<p>It seems this strategy was effective, as the Bible records that many people who were not Israelites also left Egypt with them (Exodus 12:38, NIV).</p>
<p>Furthermore, the details of these plagues and the parting of the Red Sea would also have been a sort of evangelism to the other pagan peoples in the region. The news of what happened to the Egyptians and to other hostile people the Israelites encountered in the wilderness made its way to the people in Canaan, such as Rahab. She wisely chose to side with the Israelites instead of her own people, which saved her life and her family members' lives when the Israelites conquered Jericho (Joshua 2:8-14).</p>
<p>Seeing God's power more fully demonstrated may also have humbled Pharaoh in a deeper way than if Pharaoh had given in after only one or two plagues: "In the case of Pharaoh, his God-given strength to disobey God's command no doubt revealed to him, in a way that perhaps nothing else could have revealed, the self-destructive and self-defeating character of his own self-exaltation."<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>Thus, the reason that God 'hardened' or 'strengthened' Pharaoh's prideful desire to not immediately give in to Moses' request was ultimately for Pharaoh's own good, and the good of his people. Without seeing the ten plagues, the Egyptians would never have questioned the power of their false deities. For Pharaoh, the death of his firstborn son showed him his own powerlessness, and his need for Moses' God who is the only one who has the ultimate power over life and death.</p>
<p>However, even then, in order for God to not override Pharaoh's free will to either believe in God or reject God, Pharaoh must still have had the ability to deceive himself about the cause of the plagues.</p>
<p>If Pharaoh did choose to deny the role of Israel's God in all the plagues, including the death of Pharaoh's son, and the dramatic escape of the Israelites through the Red Sea, how might he have done so?</p>
<p>He would have had to come up with some other 'reasonable' explanation for why all these things happened. Maybe he hadn't been devoted enough to his Egyptian gods? Maybe it was due to some unfavorable star alignment? Who knows what lie he might have told himself in order to avoid facing the truth.</p>
<p>And this brings us to the next section of this post, where we will examine the role that human reason plays in our choice to sin and reject God.</p>
<h2>The Role of Reason in Self-Deception</h2>
<p>In my previous blog post, I examined several questions posed by the 17th century author Pierre Bayle who wondered why God didn't prevent Adam and Eve from sinning, given that God knew all the negative consequences that their sin would have on the world.</p>
<p>One of Bayle's final questions regarding this situation was: why couldn't God have made Adam and Eve more intelligent or 'reasonable', so that they wouldn't have sinned?</p>
<p>John Feinberg is a modern theologian who asked a similar question. Feinberg's only answer was that to do so would have meant that God would have had to make humans morally and intellectually superior to the way we are now, in order to give us the ability to discern which desires and actions would lead to evil, and God would also have had to give us the moral fortitude to overcome those desires. Yet then, we would no longer be the way that God desired to make us.<cite>14</cite> I find this to be a rather unsatisfactory answer.</p>
<p>So I haven't yet seen someone provide a solid answer to the question of why God did not give humans greater reasoning abilities, to enable us to avoid freely choosing to sin, or at least, to enable us to choose far less sin and less serious sin than we currently choose.</p>
<p>Ironically, I think the question can be answered when we consider Bayle's own comments about the nature of human reason, along with the other principles we've seen so far in this post.</p>
<p>Bayle said that "human reason … is a principle of destruction and not of edification. It is only proper for raising doubts, and for turning things on all sides in order to make disputes endless".<cite>15</cite></p>
<p>For example, Bayle argued that many critical truths that are revealed to us in Scripture do not make sense to our supposedly 'reasonable' minds, and so we must accept them only on the basis of faith.</p>
<p>He referred to the doctrine of the Trinity, which early Christians realized they needed to affirm in order to try to explain how, despite there being only one God, in the Bible we see Jesus and the Holy Spirit also acting in ways that show they are equally divine. There is also the mystery of how Jesus could be <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-jesus-must-be-fully-divine/">fully God and fully human</a> at the same time. Instead of making sense of these mysteries, our 'reason' is only able to raise objections to these doctrines.<cite>16</cite></p>
<p>Bayle also explained how, when it comes to the question of why there is evil in the world, our minds can invent many different explanations that could seem equally plausible and reasonable, which may or may not match up with divine revelation in Scripture.<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>So in summary, Bayle believed that human reason cannot lead us to the truth, but it is very good at raising objections or doubts about the truth, especially when it comes to supernatural truths which are above reason. If we put too much trust in our reason, it will lead us astray and into endless unsolvable debates and confusion, because we can come up with convincing reasons for believing many different ideas.</p>
<p>This means that I believe it is our faculty of reason that is actually a critical part of human free will. It is our 'reason' that lets us consider multiple different courses of action, and extrapolate the possible consequences of those actions. It is also our 'reason' that can then come up with various reasons why we should or should not act in any particular way.</p>
<p>For example, it is only if Adam and Eve were able to raise 'reasonable' doubts about God's warnings to them regarding eating the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that they would have been able to actually consider eating from it.</p>
<p>It is also only if Adam and Eve could have persuaded themselves that it was 'reasonable' to believe that Satan was telling the truth and that God had lied to them that they could have convinced themselves to follow through on their temptation and decide to eat the forbidden fruit.</p>
<p>Yet because their choice was truly free, they must still have had the ability to reason either for or against eating the fruit. Only then could they be properly held accountable for their choice by God. If one motive became so overwhelming that it forced them to act in that way, they would no longer have had free will.<cite>18</cite></p>
<p>Thus, God could not have created Adam and Eve with such intelligence and rationality that they would always choose what is wisest and best, or they would have had no ability to even consider sinning, and they would not truly have had free will, unless they chose to act completely irrationally. But it is highly unlikely that such rational beings would choose to act irrationally.</p>
<p>So we can say that Augustine was correct when he suggested that humans were originally created in a “middle transitional state between wisdom and folly which allows man to be seduced without the blame falling on God."<cite>19</cite></p>
<p>Thus, this answers the question of <em>how</em> people can reject God. Our malleable and finite 'reason' allows us to justify multiple different courses of action to ourselves, even if some of those actions are ultimately not good for us.</p>
<p>However, we still need to look at <em>why</em> people might choose to reject God.</p>
<h2>Why People Reject God</h2>
<p>Universalists like Thomas Talbott argue that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">insofar as God remains hidden from us and we do not fully understand the true nature of God or the consequences of separating ourselves from him, we are in no position to reject the true God at all. We may reject a caricature of God, as frequently happens in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and misperception; but we are in no position to reject the <em>true</em> God until our ignorance has been removed and our misjudgments have been corrected.<cite>20</cite></span></p>
<p>However, if our ignorance were removed and our misjudgments were corrected, it is basically the same as saying that God should override our free will and force us to see reality correctly, so that we have no choice but to make the correct and 'reasonable' decision to love God and trust Jesus as our Savior.</p>
<p>But as I argued in my previous post, although God does want everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 33:11), God cannot force people to love him, because love inherently cannot be forced but must be freely chosen.</p>
<p>Talbott also seems to presume that the main problem regarding why people reject God is only due to a lack of knowledge about God, rather than a fundamental problem in people's hearts.</p>
<p>I think I agree more with John Piper, who suggests that the ultimate reason why people refuse to believe in Jesus once they hear the gospel is "owing most deeply not to the mind's problems with history, science, logic, or ethics, but to the heart's overpowering desire for something that does not fit with Christian faith."<cite>21</cite></p>
<p>If someone wants to believe in Jesus, there is a lot of historical, scientific, and logical analysis that has been done that shows that believing that Jesus truly lived and taught the things he did, died on the cross, and came back to life three days later is completely reasonable.</p>
<p>There is an entire category of theology called 'apologetics' that focuses on explaining all the reasons why we can trust that Christianity is true, how we can know that God created the universe, and so forth. The popular Christian author Lee Strobel is one notable example of someone who became a Christian after he set out to investigate the evidence for Christianity for himself.</p>
<p>However, people can also come up with all sorts of 'reasonable' objections as to why they do not want to believe that God exists, or why they think they do not need to believe in Jesus as their Savior. They then attempt to explain the evidence of the world around us in ways that fit with their chosen beliefs.</p>
<p>For example, Richard Dawkins famously said, “Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."<cite>22</cite> So it was not necessarily Darwin's theory of evolution which led to atheism, but atheists appreciated Darwin's theory because it allowed them to feel intellectually fulfilled while holding onto their prior choice to be an atheist.</p>
<p>Some atheists honestly admit that they simply do not want there to be a God.<cite>23</cite> It makes sense that such people would find great comfort in a human-made theory that claims to explain the existence of the universe and of humanity that does not require them to believe that there is a creator God who will hold them accountable for their actions.</p>
<p>This is just one example of how it is our faculty of human reason that makes disbelief in God possible, but disbelief must be a possibility in order for faith to also be a possibility.</p>
<p>Faith is "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Without faith in Jesus, we cannot please God (Hebrews 11:6).</p>
<p>After his resurrection, Jesus told his doubting disciple Thomas that "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).</p>
<p>These statements about faith only make sense if it is possible for people to not believe in God.</p>
<p>In the current dispensation of history, God is hidden enough that it is possible for people to believe that he does not exist, if they don't want to believe that he exists. This means that God cannot do anything that would overwhelmingly 'force' someone to believe in him. But for those who want to find God, he promises that if we seek him, we will find him (Luke 11:9).</p>
<p>So once again, I find C.S. Lewis very helpful when he wrote:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The Irresistible and Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His [God's] scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo.<cite>24</cite></span></p>
<p>Even in the case of Paul on the Damascus road, I agree with the assessment that this incident was not truly a 'conversion' in the sense of convincing Paul to believe in God. Paul was already a highly-educated Jewish Pharisee who clearly believed in God so much that he thought the early Christians were committing blasphemy by saying Jesus was God, and he set out to persecute them (Acts 22:3-5). So as William MacDonald writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It must be remembered that the dramatic conversion of the "chief of sinners" on the road to Damascus was not the overpowering of a God-hater, but the enlightenment of a badly mistaken man who up to that time had thought he was serving God and was doing so "in all good conscience"!<cite>25</cite></span></p>
<p>Yet Paul still had free will afterward, as Paul implies that he could have chosen to be disobedient to this vision of Jesus that he received on the Damascus road, although he did not do so (Acts 26:19-20).</p>
<p>So God gives people the freedom to not believe in him, because this is the condition that also makes faith a possibility. If God did anything that was so overwhelming that our minds were not able to come up with some alternative 'reasonable' excuse that would enable the possibility of disbelief, our free will to believe in God would be taken away.</p>
<p>And we have evidence that God can actually do quite a bit without removing our free will to not believe in him.</p>
<p>During the yet-future seven-year period of time called <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">the Tribulation</a>, which is described in the book of Revelation, God will send twenty-one severe divine judgments on the world. This will be in order to punish people for their sinful rejection of him (e.g., Isaiah 26:20-21), for their mistreatment of God's people (Revelation 6:10, 16:4-7), and for their division of the land of Israel (Joel 3:1-3).</p>
<p>The Bible says that despite how terribly the people who are living on Earth during the Tribulation will suffer, and even if on some level they recognize that they are facing God's judgment (Revelation 6:15-17), most of them will still refuse to turn to God and repent of their various sins (Revelation 9:20-21, 16:8-9, 16:10-11).</p>
<p>Before the Tribulation, all true Christians (and probably all children) will be suddenly taken to heaven in an event called <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> (John 14:1-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, 1 Corinthians 15:50-54). Hopefully, once that happens, many people who heard about the Rapture beforehand will finally realize their 'crazy' Christian friends and family members who warned them about it were telling the truth, and they will believe in Jesus.</p>
<p>However, many more people will not want to believe that the Rapture just happened, because they will not want to believe that the Christians were right. Instead, they will choose to believe whatever lie will be told in the mainstream media to explain away the Rapture. It has often been suggested that a mass alien abduction will be the go-to excuse, based on how well our society has been accustomed to the idea of aliens through science-fiction and news stories which claim that aliens and UFOs are real.<cite>26</cite></p>
<p>Thus, in this section we have seen how people's determination to not believe in God comes not just from a misunderstanding about God or a lack of information about God. Instead, it is actually a willful choice they make, based on something in their heart that does not want to acknowledge that God is their creator who holds them accountable for their sins.</p>
<p>They then willingly believe whatever alternative theories or ideas they can find, no matter how objectively irrational these theories are, in order for them to feel that they can 'rationally' reject the reality that the God of the Bible exists. In this way, they willingly deceive themselves.</p>
<p>In one sense, these people are 'blinded' to the truth of the gospel because of Satan's lies (2 Corinthians 4:4). But if it were true that they literally <em>could not</em> believe the gospel because Satan was interfering with their free choice, then I believe that God could not properly hold them accountable for their disbelief.</p>
<p>Instead, I believe these people are 'blinded' by their own choice to believe whatever 'lie' Satan presents to them (whether directly or indirectly), and they deceive themselves by coming up with reasons why it makes more sense for them to believe Satan's lie than to accept God's truth, just as Adam and Eve did. In this way, although Satan's lies do play a role in 'blinding' people to the gospel, the people themselves are still accountable for their decision to allow Satan to blind them.</p>
<p>So in summary, God gives all people free will and an opportunity to love him or reject him, because God wants our love for him to be genuine. Although it is in our eternal best interest to choose to love God in return and accept Jesus as our Savior, our minds are still able to justify making the opposite decision by coming up with reasons why we do not want to believe what God says about reality.</p>
<h2>Free Will at the Final Judgment</h2>
<p>All that has been said thus far in this post must also remain true even at the final judgment.</p>
<p>At this judgment, everyone who has not been resurrected earlier at either the Rapture (1 Corinthians 15:51-53) or after the Tribulation (Revelation 20:4) will be resurrected to have their lives personally judged by God (Revelation 20:11-15). Because the Bible says that God truly wants everyone to be saved, I believe that after this personal judgment of people's lives, God will explain the gospel to each person and allow them one last chance to believe in Jesus, in order to have their names written into the Book of Life (Revelation 20:15).</p>
<p>However, again, since God values our free will so that our love for him is genuine, God will ensure that nothing that these people will see or experience at this judgment will be so overwhelming or irrefutable that it forces them to repent, love God, and believe in Jesus as their Savior. Otherwise, they would lose their free will.</p>
<p>Presumably, even when they are face-to-face with God, some people will retain an inner desire to reject God. They will then use their faculty of reason to come up with some excuse that can justify their decision to not accept God's final offer of salvation, even though it means they will be eternally destroyed.</p>
<p>At that point, though, if people still reject God when seeing him face-to-face, after having been told that accepting Jesus as their Savior is the only way to avoid the second death, there will be nothing else that could possibly convince them to change their minds. They will have been hardened beyond all possibility of salvation, and there will be no place for them in the New Heaven or New Earth which will be full of righteousness (2 Peter 3:13), where God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).</p>
<p>Thus, as Walls says, “if God allows us to retain libertarian freedom, some illusions may endure forever.”<cite>27</cite> Whatever lies people will tell themselves to justify their final choice to reject God will never be corrected.</p>
<p>Although the Bible does say that in the end, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:9-11), I am convinced that this verse only refers to all the people who will ever believe in Jesus as their Savior. No one can say "Jesus is Lord" without having the Holy Spirit in them (1 Corinthians 12:3), and the Holy Spirit only indwells a person the moment they believe in Jesus (Ephesians 1:13-14).</p>
<p>One day, though, after everyone who rejected God is eternally destroyed in the Lake of Fire, then Philippians 2:9-11 will be fulfilled, and God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).</p>
<p>The purpose of God's gift of free will to humanity will have been fulfilled, and those who will have eternal life in the New Heaven and New Earth will never again need or even <em>want</em> the option of rejecting God. Then we will experience true freedom to do whatever we want to do, since none of our desires will be sinful once we have become just as perfectly righteous as Jesus himself is (1 John 3:2).</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So in the end, anyone who refuses to accept that God is telling us the truth about reality, and who refuses to admit that we are sinners who need to believe in Jesus as our Savior to have eternal life, is effectively claiming that God is a liar:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 John 5:10)</span></span></p>
<p>Why would they call God a liar? For the same reason that Adam and Eve did, when they chose to believe Satan's lie instead. They thought they knew better than God did what was true, and what was best for them. And that's called pride.</p>
<p>Pride is the source of the very first sin, when the angel Lucifer decided he wanted to be worshipped like God, instead of worshipping God as he was created to do, and so he became known as Satan (Ezekiel 28:17, Isaiah 14:12-14).</p>
<p>Pride is also what causes people to attempt to boast before God and claim that their good works should be enough for God to accept them, without needing to admit they are sinners in need of a Savior (e.g., Matthew 7:21-23, Ephesians 2:8-9).</p>
<p>In contrast, it takes humility to have faith and trust that God does know better than we do what is true, and what is best for us. It takes humility to admit that we are sinners who deserve eternal death (Romans 6:23) and that nothing we can do could ever earn eternal life (Titus 3:5, Galatians 2:16).</p>
<p>The difference in attitude is demonstrated well by the contrast between the tax collector and the Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14. The tax collector humbly admits he needs God's mercy for his sins, while the Pharisee is thinking of his good works and praises himself for being superior to other people who are sinners. If the Pharisee will not give up his prideful focus on his own works and realize that he also needs God's mercy for his sins, then God will ultimately say to him "I never knew you" (Matthew 7:21-23).</p>
<p>So everyone who chooses to ultimately reject God will do so by choosing to willingly deceive themselves. Their motive will be due to their prideful desire to refuse to admit that they are sinners who need Jesus to die for their sins so that they can have eternal life.</p>
<p>Using their reason, they will come up with whatever excuse they find convenient to allow them to reject the reality that they are created beings who are accountable to God for their sins, even though this choice will lead to their eternal destruction.</p>
<p>Yet such a choice is ultimately irrational, considering that eternal life in the New Heaven and New Earth will be better than anything anyone can imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9). We will have immortal, strong, beautiful bodies that will never get sick or be injured, and will live in a perfect society of love between God, angels, and all redeemed people from all of history.</p>
<p>Would you like to experience an eternity like this? It is completely free, and the moment you believe that Jesus died for your sins so you can have eternal life, you will be sealed with the Holy Spirit who guarantees your salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14). For more on this topic, check out my article on how you can have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">eternal life for free</a>.</p>
<p>This is the end of my series of posts on Christian inclusivism. I plan to make a summary post with links to each article, to provide a high-level overview of what I have argued in each post.</p>
<p>Hopefully this series has been able to offer hope to you if you worry about God's justice regarding people who never had a chance to hear the gospel, or if you worry about people you know who died before they personally accepted the gospel. This is my best understanding of how it might be possible for them to still be saved, backed up by Scripture and philosophical reasoning.</p>
<p>However it works out, the Bible is clear that God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly does want to save everyone</a>, and so somehow, God will ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to be eternally saved. Yet everyone who is saved will be saved only on the basis of Jesus' death for their sins.</p>
<p>Yet there are still good reasons why we should care about trusting in Jesus as our Savior right now.</p>
<p>Christians are blessed to know the gospel so that we can have hope for the future, and this gives us peace despite the trials we face.</p>
<p>We can live with a perspective which focuses on loving God and loving others, and serving God to earn <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-christians-need-to-talk-more-about-heaven/">heavenly rewards that last forever</a>, rather than wasting our efforts by trying to selfishly get as much temporary wealth or pleasure as possible before we die.</p>
<p>Christians also get to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit who gives us <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christians-are-superheros/">spiritual gifts</a>, along with many other blessings.</p>
<p>Even if others might still have a chance to be saved at the final judgment, these blessings that Christians experience in this life due to knowing Jesus as our Savior should motivate us to share the gospel with others right now, just as Jesus instructed us to (Matthew 28:18-20).</p>
<p>Given that it seems all the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">signs of the end times</a> are here, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> could happen practically any day. Let's have the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/have-courage-to-be-disliked/">courage to be disliked</a> and share the good news with others about how they can be eternally saved by putting their faith in Jesus.</p>
<p>Then, not only will the people we tell hopefully choose to believe in Jesus and have eternal life, but if they believe before the Rapture happens, they will also go with us to heaven in the Rapture, thereby escaping the terrible judgments of the Tribulation. </p>
<p>This will also save them from having to make the very hard choice to not take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> or worship the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>. Not doing so means they will possibly face martyrdom for their faith.</p>
<p>But even then, it's better than the alternative. Because the only exception to everything I've written in my theory of inclusivism is that if people take the Mark of the Beast, there will be no second chances for them at the final judgment, and they are guaranteed to face eternal punishment (Revelation 14:9).</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> For an example of this sort of philosophy, see Sam Harris, <em>Free Will</em> (New York, NY: Free Press, 2012).</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em> in The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 238, also 345, 414.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Randall S. Firestone, “An Argument for Libertarian Free Will: Hard Choices Based on Either Incomparable or Equally Persuasive Reasons,” <em>Open Journal of Philosophy 7</em> (2017): 64-93.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> T. J. Mawson, <em>Free Will: A Guide For The Perplexed</em> (New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), 17.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 258-260, quote from 259.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 129, 131.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 130.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 131.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992)Walls, 132.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992)Walls, 132.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 243-244.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> As a short summary of these typical arguments, you can read <a href="https://www.gotquestions.org/ten-plagues-Egypt.html">"What was the meaning and purpose of the ten plagues of Egypt?"</a>, GotQuestions.org</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 244.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> John S. Feinberg, <em>The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problem of Evil</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), 127, 133.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Manicheans," in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 151.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Second Clarification," in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 410-411.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Manicheans," in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 147-152.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Randall S. Firestone, “An Argument for Libertarian Free Will: Hard Choices Based on Either Incomparable or Equally Persuasive Reasons,” <em>Open Journal of Philosophy 7</em> (2017): 79, 87.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> Adam M. Willows, “Augustine, The Origin of Evil, and the Mystery of Free Will,” <em>Religious Studies 50</em> (2014): 260</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Response by Thomas B. Talbott," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 144. Obviously, he doesn't mean to imply that God is always completely hidden from us, because God did reveal himself to humanity in many ways, most importantly, by having the Son of God become incarnate as the human man Jesus. However, it is true that God doesn't come down and put on indisputable displays of his glory that would cause us all to fall on our faces and force us to admit that he exists. God leaves enough room for people to doubt his existence, power, and goodness if they want to, which is necessary to enable the possibility that people might choose to reject God.</li>
<li><strong>21.</strong> John Piper, <a href="https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/seventy-years-without-shipwreck">"Seventy Years Without Shipwreck: Five Reasons That Some Fall Away"</a>, DesiringGod.org, May 20, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>22.</strong> Jonathan Sarfati, <a href="https://creation.com/refuting-atheists-useful-dupes">"Refuting Atheists’ ‘Useful Dupes’"</a>, Creation.com, August 2022, citing Richard Dawkins, <em>The Blind Watchmaker</em> (W.W. Norton, 1987), 5-6.</li>
<li><strong>23.</strong> A notable atheist Thomas Nagel has admitted that he simply doesn't want to believe in God. He wrote: "I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that." Annie Holmquist, <a href="https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/atheist-explains-true-reason-religion-terrifies-him/">"An Atheist Explains the True Reason Religion Terrifies Him"</a>, Intellectual Takeout, June 14, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>24.</strong> C.S. Lewis. "The Screwtape Letters," in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), letter 8, 207.</li>
<li><strong>25.</strong> William G. MacDonald, "The Spirit of Grace" in <i>Grace Unlimited</i>, ed. Clark H. Pinnock (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship Inc, 1975), 86.</li>
<li><strong>26.</strong> For an article that goes into more detail on why they will likely explain away the Rapture by claiming it was a mass alien abduction, see Arden Kierce, <a href="https://www.raptureready.com/2023/06/20/was-it-aliens-or-was-it-the-rapture-by-arden-kierce/">"Was It Aliens, or Was It The Rapture?"</a>, RaptureReady.com, June 20, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>27.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 133.</li>
</ul>Why God Lets People Reject Him2024-01-08T00:00:00+00:002024-01-08T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2024-01-08:/article/why-god-lets-people-reject-him/<p>As I argued in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">my theory of Christian inclusivism</a>, I believe that God must give people the ability to ultimately reject him, and those who do so will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction (a.k.a, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a>).</p>
<p>However, the only people who will be eternally destroyed are those who …</p><p>As I argued in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">my theory of Christian inclusivism</a>, I believe that God must give people the ability to ultimately reject him, and those who do so will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction (a.k.a, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a>).</p>
<p>However, the only people who will be eternally destroyed are those who continually rejected the Holy Spirit's attempts at drawing them toward putting their faith in God, right to the very end. These people will continue to resist even after Jesus' final judgment of their works has proven that their sins deserve eternal death, and that their <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">good works are not enough to earn salvation</a>.</p>
<p>At that point, nothing else could possibly convince them to repent and believe in Jesus. They will only be fit to be thrown into the lake of fire and suffer the second death (Revelation 20:14-15).</p>
<p>Thus, I prefer to see <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">eternal salvation as opt-out</a>, rather than opt-in.</p>
<p>However, there are two questions that critics might raise about these claims:</p>
<ol>
<li>Why would a loving God allow some people to ultimately reject him if it means that they will be eternally destroyed?</li>
<li>Why would anyone choose to reject God's love?</li>
</ol>
<p>I believe there are plausible answers to both of these questions which will give us insights into the nature of sin, why a good God allows people to sin, why people willingly choose to sin, and ultimately, why some people will still reject God's offer of salvation, even at the final judgment.</p>
<p>The first question will be the subject of this post, and the second question will be answered in my next post.</p>
<h2>Why Wouldn't God Prevent People From Ultimately Rejecting Him?</h2>
<p>I believe the Bible is quite clear that at least some people will actually experience eternal death (Revelation 20:15, Isaiah 66:24, Matthew 25:41-46, 7:21-23).</p>
<p>God's omnipotence means that nothing happens which God does not ultimately permit to happen. Therefore, it is clear that God must allow people to choose eternal destruction, even though God would have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">preferred for them to be eternally saved</a> (1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23).</p>
<p>So I believe that at least some people will choose to freely reject God to the bitter end, even if they face eternal death as a result.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, not everyone is happy with that idea.</p>
<p>For example, Thomas Talbott argues that God's love for people means that God should override people's free will in order to save them, because it is in each person’s best interest to be eternally saved. Talbott says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">When we humans confront the possibility of serious and irreparable harm — that is, harm that no mere human can repair or cancel out at some future time — we feel justified in interfering with someone's freedom to inflict such harm. We feel justified, first of all, in preventing one person from harming another irreparably; a loving father may thus report his own son to the police in an effort to prevent the son from committing murder. And we may feel justified, secondly, in preventing our loved ones from harming themselves irreparably as well; a loving father may thus physically overpower his teenage daughter in an effort to prevent her from committing suicide.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>Similarly, then, Talbott claims:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Just as loving parents are prepared to restrict the freedom of children they love, so a loving God would restrict the freedom of the children he loves, at least in the cases of truly irreparable harm.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>Eternal destruction in hell would certainly be an instance of irreparable harm. All other evils that people suffer in this life are temporary, and any harm they cause can be repaired (and/or compensated for) by God, either in this life, or the next.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>For example, God promises that in the New Heaven and New Earth, he will wipe away all tears, thus somehow compensating or comforting all eternally-saved people for our sufferings in this life (Revelation 21:4). The only people whose tears will not be wiped away are those people who are not saved. They will suffer an eternal, permanent, and irreparable loss.</p>
<p>So in Talbott's opinion, a loving God should prevent people from experiencing such a loss, even if it means that God has to override a person's free will to reject God.</p>
<p>As persuasive as this argument might appear, it is possible to refute Talbott's claims about what he thinks a loving God should do. Jerry Walls, for example, takes issue with Talbott's analogy, and says that there is a difference between a loving father overriding a daughter's ability to commit suicide, and God overriding a sinner's choice to be damned.</p>
<p>Walls argues that in the case where a father prevents a daughter from committing suicide, it is because the choice to attempt suicide usually occurs when an individual is not thinking clearly because they are in the grip of strong emotions. Afterward, the person who was saved is typically glad they are still alive.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>However, Walls says that if someone continually chooses evil, then they are not just under the influence of a temporary emotion or situation. Walls' commitment to libertarian freedom means that if he were convinced that some individuals truly wanted to end their lives, then he would not try to stop them. He argues that a strong commitment to libertarian freedom is a key component of justifying the traditional Christian doctrine of hell.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>Why this is so will be explained in the next section.</p>
<h2>God's Goodness Requires Human Free Will</h2>
<p>Without libertarian (i.e., non-compatibilistic) free will, there are terrible implications for God's character. These are illustrated in a disturbing analogy by Thomas McCall:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Imagine a parent who is able to control each and every action of his children, and furthermore, is able to do so by controlling their thoughts and inclinations. He is thus able to determine each and all actions taken by those children. He is also able to guarantee that they desire to do everything that they do, and this is exactly what he does.</span>
<br /><br />
<span class="blockquote">He puts them in a special playroom that contains not only toys but also gasoline and matches, and then gives them explicit instructions (with severe warnings) to avoid touching the gasoline and matches. Stepping out of sight, he determines that the children indeed begin to play with the matches. When the playroom is ablaze and the situation desperate, he rushes in to save them (well, some of them). He breaks through the wall, grabs three of the seven children, and carries them to safety. When the rescued children calm down, they ask about their four siblings. They want to know about the others trapped inside, awaiting their inevitable fate. More importantly, they want to know if he can do something to rescue them as well.</span>
<br /><br />
<span class="blockquote">When they ask about the situation, their father tells them that this tragic occurrence had been determined by him, and indeed, that it was a smashing success—it had worked out in exact accordance with his plan. He then reminds them of his instructions and warnings, and he reminds them further that they willingly violated his commands. They should be grateful for their rescue, and they should understand that the others got what they deserved. When they begin to sob, he weeps with them; he tells them that he too has compassion on the doomed children (indeed, the compassion of the children for their siblings only dimly reflects his own).</span>
<br /><br />
<span class="blockquote">The children are puzzled by this, and one wants to know why such a compassionate father does not rescue the others (when it is clearly within his power to do so). His answer is this: this has happened so that everyone could see how smart he is (for being able to know how to do all this), how powerful he is (for being able to control everything and then effectively rescue them), how merciful he is (for rescuing the children who broke his rules), and how just he is (for leaving the others to their fate in the burning playroom.) And, he says 'This is the righteous thing for me to do, because it allows me to look as good as I should look".<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>In this story, the supposedly 'loving' father is ultimately responsible for three negative things:</p>
<ol>
<li>Putting the matches and gasoline in the children's playroom.</li>
<li>Determining that the children will start a fire with the matches.</li>
<li>Only deciding to rescue some of the children, rather than all of the children.</li>
</ol>
<p>Similarly, if humans did not have libertarian free will, then God would be to blame for:</p>
<ol>
<li>Creating a world where sin is a possibility.</li>
<li>Determining that people would actually sin.</li>
<li>Choosing to eternally save only some people from facing eternal destruction in hell for their sins.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you have read my previous blog posts, you will recognize that these three points are actually exactly what Calvinism teaches about God.</p>
<p>Now, some Calvinists would object to this analogy, but after studying Jonathan Edwards's theology of predestination for <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-predestination/">my PhD dissertation</a>, I would agree that McCall's analogy is an accurate portrayal of how Calvinism depicts God.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>In Edwards' Calvinistic view of predestination, God actually <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">wants most people to be condemned to hell</a>, so that God can be maximally glorified to the small number of people that God chose to eternally save. If too many people were saved, Edwards seems to think that it would somehow actually make God appear <em>less</em> glorious, and cause the people who are chosen to be eternally saved to be <em>less</em> happy.</p>
<p>This conclusion is rather bizarre, and it causes a number of contradictions even within Edwards' own theology, as I argue in my dissertation.</p>
<p>Since Edwards is called the "the most formidable defender of Calvinism in the history of North America",<cite>8</cite> I believe his inability to create a system of theology that is both logically and biblically consistent that can justify his theory of predestination is clear evidence that Calvinism is not true.</p>
<p>For example, at the most basic level, predestination is simply not consistent with how the Bible is extremely clear that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">God truly does want to save everyone</a> (1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23).</p>
<p>Since God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18), and all of Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16), we know that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/">every word in the Bible is true</a>.</p>
<p>The Bible is also what teaches us that God is fully good, and completely all-powerful and all-knowing.</p>
<p>Therefore, we can confidently say that:</p>
<ol>
<li>If it were only up to God, because God wants everyone to be saved, and because God's omnipotence means that no one else can thwart God's desires, then in this case, everyone would be saved.</li>
<li>The Bible is clear that not everyone will be eternally saved (Revelation 20:15, Isaiah 66:24, Matthew 25:41-46, 7:21-23).</li>
</ol>
<p>Thus, the only answer to why some people will not ultimately be saved is to say that it is because these people used their own free will to reject God's offer of eternal salvation.</p>
<p>God would not allow another person's misuse of his or her free will (or the influence of Satan or demons) to eternally condemn someone who otherwise might have heard the gospel and freely chosen to be saved. It must be up to each individual — and each individual alone — to make the final decision about whether he or she wants to be eternally saved, or not.</p>
<p>Thus, as I argue in my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">theory of Christian inclusivism</a>, each person must be given their own personal, free choice in the matter of their eternal salvation. This is regardless of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">how old they were when they died</a>, or where they lived during their lives, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">what religion they followed</a>, and even whether they <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/are-there-divine-truths-in-nature-or-other-religions/">heard the gospel or not</a>.</p>
<p>This is the only explanation for why some individuals will not be eternally saved which is compatible with God's perfect goodness and his desire to truly save <em>everyone</em>, despite how not everyone will end up being eternally saved.</p>
<p>However, it might seem that God would still be guilty of:</p>
<ol>
<li>Creating a world where sin is a possibility.</li>
<li>Allowing people to misuse their free will to sin.</li>
</ol>
<p>If God is good, and God wants everyone to be saved, then why would he allow people to sin in the first place, which then opened up the possibility that some people would be eternally destroyed? Don't wise parents prevent their children from hurting themselves, rather than just rescuing the child after the child has already gotten themselves into trouble?</p>
<p>Preventing people from sinning would also saved Jesus from the hassle of having to become a human and die on the cross for everyone's sins. Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane is evidence that he clearly did not want to go to the cross unless it was an absolutely necessary part of God's plan to save sinners (Matthew 26:38-39, Mark 14:34-36).</p>
<p>So why did God put himself through that, and also subject everyone else in history to the misery and suffering that that results from sin and from God's punishment of sin (Genesis 3:16-19, James 1:13-15, Romans 1:28-32)?</p>
<h2>Why God Allows People To Sin</h2>
<p>This question takes us all the way back to the very first two people ever created: Adam and Eve. God put them in the Garden of Eden which was a paradise, and God told them they could enjoy eating fruit from all the trees that God had planted there. There were also two other trees: the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.</p>
<p>God gave Adam and Eve only one rule: do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they did, God warned that they would die (Genesis 2:15-17).</p>
<p>It seems like a simple rule, right? How hard can it be to avoid eating fruit from one very specific tree?</p>
<p>But even though Adam and Eve did not yet have a sinful nature, and although they knew God's warning, they still sinned when they chose to eat fruit from the forbidden tree (Genesis 3:1-6).</p>
<p>For thousands of years, Christians and skeptics alike have wondered about this event. What went wrong? Why did Adam and Eve make such a bad decision? Why didn't God stop them? Or at least, why didn't God make them smart enough to not sin? Why did God have to put that tree there, anyway? Did God actually <em>want</em> them to sin? Is it all God's fault?</p>
<p>In the 17th century, an author named Pierre Bayle wrestled with these questions, and he argued that all of the Christian explanations are unsatisfactory.<cite>9</cite> I will briefly examine these explanations and summarize Bayle's objections to them, as we work our way toward what I think is the most plausible answer to the question of why God allows people to reject him and be eternally destroyed.</p>
<h3>The Calvinist Answer</h3>
<p>Christians who identify as Calvinists appear to have a straightforward answer to why God allowed Adam and Eve to sin. Their case can be summarized by referring to only two major Bible verses:</p>
<ul>
<li>And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).</li>
<li>For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18).</li>
</ul>
<p>For example, Jonathan Edwards repeatedly argued that redeeming humanity from sin would bring more glory to God and more happiness to the small fraction of humanity who will be eternally saved than if Adam and Eve had never sinned.<cite>10</cite> However, Edwards struggled when he tried to explain how sin could happen in a way that doesn't imply that God is ultimately to blame for it.<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>In fact, Edwards did at one point outright admit that God is the 'author of sin',</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">if, by "the author of sin," is meant the permitter, or not a hinderer of sin; and at the same time, a disposer of the state of events, in such a manner, for wise, holy and most excellent ends and purposes, that sin, if it be permitted or not hindered, will most certainly and infallibly follow; I say, if this be all that is meant, by being the author of sin, I don't deny that God is the author of sin.<cite>12</cite></span></p>
<p>Of course, I believe that Edwards is inconsistent to even use the term 'permit', because in Edwards' deterministic worldview, God controls everything that happens,<cite>13</cite> exactly like the father who determines that his children will 'freely' play with matches in McCall's analogy. For God to truly 'permit' people to do something without God being the ultimate cause of it, people would need libertarian free will. Edwards, though, argued that libertarian free will could not exist.<cite>14</cite></p>
<p>However, let's ignore that for now, and give Edwards the benefit of the doubt when he says that God only 'permits' sin, for the purpose of maximizing God's glory and the ultimate happiness of everyone who is finally saved.</p>
<p>Although he lived before Edwards did, Bayle had some apt criticisms of this typical Calvinist explanation for why God allows people to sin:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If you say that God has permitted sin in order to manifest his wisdom, which shines forth more in the midst of the disorders that man's wickedness produces every day than it would in a state of innocence, you will be answered that this is to compare God either to a father who allows his children to break their legs so that he can show everyone his great skill in mending their broken bones, or to a king who allows seditions and disorders to develop through his kingdom so that he can gain glory by overcoming them. The conduct of this father and this monarch is so contrary to the clear and distinct ideas by which we judge goodness and wisdom and in general all the duties of a father and a king, that our reason cannot conceive how God could act in this way.<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>So Bayle and I both agree that Calvinism is not the best explanation for why God would allow people to sin, even though the verses cited at the start of this section are still very much true, and are a great encouragement for Christians when we experience suffering.</p>
<p>However, the main theological alternatives to Calvinism also have problems when it comes to answering Bayle's question.</p>
<h3>The Arminian Answer</h3>
<p>The major theological alternative to Calvinism is called Arminianism, named after the theologian Jacob/James Arminius. In the 16th century, Arminius became famous for rejecting Calvinism and emphasizing that individuals' own genuinely-free will is the ultimate reason these people will not be eternally saved.</p>
<p>Arminians argue that free will is why Satan and a third of the angels rebelled against God (Revelation 12:3-4). Adam and Eve's free will was also the cause of the first sin, and the sinful nature everyone inherited from them is what now causes each person to be a natural-born sinner (Romans 5:12-14).</p>
<p>As a result, God was not directly involved with any of this sin. God simply chose to let people and fallen angels act in ways that God did not approve of.</p>
<p>This argument that God is still good and loving despite the existence of evil and sin is known more broadly in theology as the 'free will defence'. However, it is not flawless. As Bayle said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Those who say that God permitted sin because he could not have prevented it without destroying the free will that he had given to man, and which was the best present he made to him, expose themselves greatly. The reason they give is lovely. It has a je ne sais quoi, an undefinable something, that is dazzling. It has a grandeur. But in the end, it can be opposed by arguments more easily understood by all men, and based more on common sense and the ideas of order.<cite>16</cite></span></p>
<p>The main problem with Arminianism when it comes to the question of sin and God's goodness is due to Arminianism's reliance on the idea of God's perfect foreknowledge.</p>
<p>Specifically, if God foreknew that Adam and Eve would freely choose to sin, thus, making both themselves and all of their descendants become sinners who are worthy of eternal death, then why didn't God stop Adam and Eve from doing this?</p>
<p>Bayle argued that if God foreknew how Adam and Eve would misuse their free will to sin, but God allowed them to sin anyway, then God is like a mother who allowed her daughter to go to a party where the mother knew for sure that the daughter would lose her virginity. In this case, Bayle says the mother clearly doesn't love either her daughter nor the virtue of chastity.<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>So Bayle is implying that because God didn't stop Adam and Eve from sinning when God definitely knew that they would, and God foreknew all the negative effects that sin would cause in the world throughout all history, it shows that God did not truly love Adam and Eve (or their descendants), and God doesn't truly love holiness, either.</p>
<p>However, there is a convincing response to this objection. But before getting there, we must briefly address another flaw with the Arminian answer to this question.</p>
<p>The problem comes from how the traditional Arminian view of God's foreknowledge means that God perfectly knew from all eternity past that certain individuals he planned to create would definitely use their free will to ultimately reject him.</p>
<p>If God did have this foreknowledge, then simply by going ahead and creating these people, God is effectively predestining them to eternal destruction. For more on this line of reasoning, see my post where I critique <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">William Lane Craig's theory of predestination</a> that appeals to God's middle knowledge.</p>
<p>So Arminianism does not actually solve the problem of predestination. It is also open to Bayle's critique that it seems that God is not perfectly good or loving, because of how God allowed Adam and Eve to freely choose to sin when he perfectly foreknew that they would do so.</p>
<p>But what if God <em>doesn't</em> have perfect foreknowledge of what people will do? Would this lack of foreknowledge mean that God is less blameworthy for allowing Adam and Eve to sin? This brings us to the third (and much less common) Christian answer to this question.</p>
<h3>The Open Theist Answer</h3>
<p>Open theists say that while God is still omnipotent and omniscient, not even God can know for sure what someone will freely choose to do until the person does it. This means that while God can foreknow everything that does not depend on someone's free will, it is philosophically impossible for anyone—even God— to perfectly foreknow what someone with libertarian free will freely do.<cite>18</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, when God made Adam and Eve, he knew that because he created them with free will, there was a chance that they might use it to sin. Maybe even a very high chance. But because God did not foreknow their choice, it was not guaranteed that they would sin. In the open theist perspective, God genuinely did not know for sure what Adam and Eve would choose to do if they were tempted.</p>
<p>Yet Bayle argued that the open theist option isn't any more convincing. Even if God didn't perfectly foreknow that Adam and Eve would sin, but God still allowed them to sin, then Bayle says the first sin is still God's fault, because God's omniscience means that God knew exactly what Adam and Eve were doing and thinking as they were being tempted to sin.</p>
<p>In this case, it would be like a mother who follows her daughter to the questionable party, and peeks through a window where she sees her daughter being cornered by a would-be-lover. Bayle said that in this situation, the mother should barge into the party and prevent the daughter from giving in to her potential lover, or again, the mother doesn't love either her daughter nor the virtue of chastity.<cite>19</cite></p>
<p>So Bayle believed that God should have intervened and prevented Adam and Eve from sinning, even if it came down to God having to physically restrain them.<cite>20</cite></p>
<p>Yet if God did that, then obviously, Adam and Eve would not have had the freedom to either obey or disobey God. If God would have intervened and always prevented them from sinning, then Adam and Eve would not actually have had free will. Regardless of what they wanted to do, God's intervention would have prevented them from doing anything different than what God wanted them to do.</p>
<p>Thus, theologians who support the idea of libertarian free will accept that God cannot give people free will while preventing them from using it in ways that God does not desire.<cite>21</cite> As Richard Rice puts it:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God must respect the consequences to which our actions lead. For actions to have real integrity, they must have real results. After all, freedom is more than making a decision, it also involves making a difference.<cite>22</cite></span></p>
<p>Furthermore, if God did intervene in some way to stop Adam and Eve from sinning, then I believe that Adam and Eve would have been able to argue that God did not give them a truly fair test.</p>
<p>For example, in Bayle's analogy, if the mother had burst in and dragged her daughter out from the party when she believed her daughter was about to give in to her lover, the daughter could always complain that if the mother had waited just one more second, the daughter would have declined her lover's suggestions and left the party of her own free will.</p>
<p>Similarly, even a fraction of a second before Adam and Eve actually sinned, there was still a chance they could have decided not to sin. For God to let them make a truly free choice, God had to let them go all the way to the point of actually sinning if they so chose, even though such a choice would lead to great misery and eternal death for both them and all their biological descendants.</p>
<p>So then, we might ask, why did God even bother giving Adam and Eve free will, if God knew (or if God even suspected) that it might lead to sin, a world full of suffering, and that in the end, many people might freely choose to reject God and be eternally destroyed?</p>
<h2>Why Human Free Will Is Important to God</h2>
<p>Let us now answer Bayle's objection that a God who allowed Adam and Eve to sin is not a perfectly good or loving God.</p>
<p>We must remember that it was God's own idea to put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. If God did not want it to be possible for Adam and Eve to sin, he could have simply avoided creating that tree. They could happily have eaten fruit from all the other trees that God also created, and gone on to have kids, and humanity could have lived in the garden forever.</p>
<p>However, by putting the tree in the garden, and giving the rule to Adam and Eve to not eat from it, God opened up the possibility that Adam and Eve might choose to disobey him and sin. Without the tree and God's one rule, Adam and Eve would have had no way to make a choice, and thus no free will to obey or disobey God.</p>
<p>But why is God so hung up on obedience and disobedience? And why did he care so much if Adam and Eve disobeyed him?</p>
<p>I think our confusion comes because for most humans, disobeying an instruction is not inherently the same as choosing to reject them as a person. In some cases it might be true, but it is not true by default. For example, just because we ignore our parents' instructions to not eat the cookies in the cookie jar does not mean that we no longer love our parents, or that we don't want them to be our parents anymore.</p>
<p>But for God, it's different. Because God inherently <em>is</em> love (1 John 4:8, 4:16), all of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">God's commandments, laws, and rules are expressions of God's perfect love</a>. This is why all of God's commandments are summarized as loving God and loving others (Matthew 22:37-40, Romans 13:8-10).</p>
<p>Thus, to choose to disobey God is the same as choosing to act in an unloving way. Yet since God is love, when we choose to act in an unloving way, it is choosing to reject God himself, since God is Love.</p>
<p>Furthermore, we can see that what Adam and Eve were doing when they sinned was not just the equivalent of a child eating a cookie from the jar when the parent had told them it was forbidden. When the serpent (i.e., Satan—Revelation 12:9) tempted them to eat the forbidden fruit, he suggested to them that if they did so, they would be like God, and they would know good and evil for themselves (Genesis 3:5).</p>
<p>By acting on Satan's suggestion that if they sinned they would become like God, which would make them able to make their own rules about what is right and wrong, Adam and Eve revealed that in their hearts, they wanted to be their own gods, rather than having God be their god.</p>
<p>Therefore, in at least two different ways, Adam and Eve rejected God when they sinned.</p>
<p>By rejecting God, who is Love, and who is also the source of all existence and goodness (James 1:17), Adam and Eve chose the opposite of God, which is misery and death (Genesis 2:16-17, James 1:14-16, Romans 1:28-32). Thus, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christianity-is-not-a-feel-good-religion/">sin is always contrary to human happiness and wellbeing</a>.</p>
<p>This basic test regarding the forbidden fruit, then, was the way that God offered Adam and Eve the choice between loving/obeying God and disobeying/rejecting God. Free will, after all, requires that we have at least one choice with at least two options to choose between.</p>
<p>Therefore, God could not override or take away Adam and Eve's free will or their ability to reject him without also making it impossible for them to truly love God.</p>
<p>Likewise, if God created people in order to love them, and for them to love him in return, there was no other way for God to achieve this goal without giving humanity free will.</p>
<h3>Examples of How Free Will is Necessary For Love</h3>
<p>To illustrate this fact, let us return to an analogy I have used in an earlier post:</p>
<p>Let's imagine that a scientist were able to covertly insert a microchip into the brain of a man who she had a crush on, which allowed the scientist to make the man act in a loving way towards the scientist. Even if the microchip made the man feel like he was voluntarily loving the scientist, he would not actually be doing so, for he is fully controlled by the scientist. In effect, the scientist would simply be loving herself by manipulating the man like a puppet, and the man's love for the scientist would not be genuine.<cite>23</cite></p>
<p>This example shows our innate understanding that it is only if someone has a truly free choice about whether or not to love someone that his or her love becomes genuinely valuable and meaningful to the person whom he or she loves.</p>
<p>Critics might respond that this claim is false. They may argue that parents automatically love their children, and children automatically love their parents. God is like humanity's parent because he created us. Parents do not feel less loved by their children just because their child did not freely choose to be born to their parents. So likewise, critics say, our love for God can still be valuable to God even if we never make a free choice to love God.</p>
<p>In response, I would say that such a critic has made several errors in this argument.</p>
<p>First of all, people are only reborn as "children of God" once we put our faith in Jesus as our Savior and the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts (John 1:12, 3:3-8, 3:16-18, Romans 8:15-17). By definition, then, all of God's children have freely responded to God's love that he showed to us through Christ (1 John 5:1). Universalists are not correct when they claim that everyone who has ever been created by God is automatically a child of God.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in this fallen world, some parents do not always love their children, and even worse, some parents actually do horrible things to their children.</p>
<p>Also, even though a child who has been well-loved by a parent will generally naturally respond with love for that parent, many loving parents know the sad reality that once their child grows up, their child's love for them is not guaranteed to continue.</p>
<p>In this way, then, the parent-child analogy is actually better for helping us understand why God might choose to create people who are not guaranteed to love him in return. Ideally, out of the union of their love, a husband and wife choose to create another person who they commit loving and caring for. They hope that their love will be returned, but they accept the risk that they may be heartbroken if their child grows up to reject them.</p>
<p>This is the same sort of risk that God took when he chose to create other beings with free will, in order to make it possible for God to participate in more loving relationships than just his own inner-Triune relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">the reason why I believe God created the world</a>.</p>
<p>God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit means that God is fundamentally a three-way loving relationship within himself, and so Love is what God actually <em>is</em>, and Love is what God loves most.<cite>24</cite> But again, in order for the love expressed by his created people to be the most valuable to God, that love must be freely given by his people. This is why God created us with free will, even though there was a risk that people would use our free will to reject God by sinning.</p>
<p>Bayle could object, though, that in the New Heaven and New Earth, all eternally-saved people will truly love God, although they will no longer have the freedom to reject God. So this fact might prove that freedom to reject love is not necessary in order for love to be valuable to God.<cite>25</cite></p>
<p>In response, we can appeal to the example of human marriage, which is the best analogy that the Bible uses to illustrate the love between God and God's people (Ephesians 5:22-33).</p>
<p>If a marriage between two people is based on love, it must be consensual, not forced.<cite>26</cite> Typically, a man freely proposes to a woman who he loves and desires to marry, and the woman then accepts or declines the man's offer. The man is prepared for both possibilities, and he knows the heartbreak that her rejection might cause him to feel, and how a rejection would likely be the end of his romantic relationship with the woman.</p>
<p>But if the woman freely accepts the man's proposal, they go on to exchange vows to love one another and to be loyal to one another for the rest of their lives. By doing this, they have freely given up the freedom to love or not love one another, and also given up the freedom to romantically interact with other people. In exchange, the married couple enjoy a higher sort of freedom to love one another in ways that God has reserved to be experienced only within the committed relationship of marriage.<cite>27</cite></p>
<p>So likewise, in the New Heaven and New Earth, people who have freely accepted Jesus as our Savior will no longer need (or even want) the freedom to sin or reject God. We will be as perfect and sinless as Jesus himself is (1 John 3:2). We will then be truly free to eternally experience the fullness of the love that God has for us, which we only experience a tiny foretaste of in this life.</p>
<p>Thus, human free will to sin or not sin is not something that God values in itself. Yet human free will is absolutely necessary in order for God to gain what he wants most: an eternity of mutually-loving and freely-chosen relationships with his people.</p>
<p>That meant that in some sense, God <em>had</em> to give humanity free will, if God wanted to enable the possibility of having eternally-loving relationships with some of his created people.</p>
<p>It also meant that God knew there would be the possibility that some people would reject him. There was no way to avoid this potential outcome if God also wanted the possibility of some people freely choosing to love him.</p>
<p>This is why from all eternity past, God had already decided that if humanity did sin, God would send his Son into the world to die for sinners, so that everyone can have their sins forgiven while also upholding God's perfect justice (which is an aspect of God's perfect love). Thus, from God's perspective, Jesus is the perfect sacrificial lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8, KJV) in order to atone for all of humanity's sins (1 John 2:2).</p>
<p>Anyone who believes in Jesus as our personal Savior (John 3:16) receives God's forgiveness for our sins that Jesus purchased for us. The moment we believe this, the Holy Spirit indwells and seals us as a guarantee of our eternal future with God (Ephesians 1:13-14).</p>
<p>Now, everyone effectively gets to make the same ultimate choice as Adam and Eve did, as to whether we will freely choose to love God and have eternal life with God, or reject God and be eternally destroyed.</p>
<p>This ultimate choice can be made in this life by those who are fortunate enough to hear and believe the gospel. If you would like to learn more about this, see my post about how you can have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">eternal life for free</a>.</p>
<p>For everyone else who never heard the gospel, I am convinced that their ultimate choice will happen at the final judgment. Then, God's judgment of their lives will show them that they are sinners who are worthy of eternal destruction, and whose <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">good works are not enough to earn heaven</a>.</p>
<p>But God still loves them and wants to forgive them and be with them forever, so I am convinced he will present the gospel to them and give them one final opportunity to believe in Jesus and be eternally saved. For more on this idea, see my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">theory of Christian inclusivism</a>.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Thus, to achieve God's purpose of enabling the possibility of participating in eternally-loving relationships with his created people, God must give each individual the choice as to whether to believe in Jesus and be saved, or reject God and suffer eternal destruction.</p>
<p>God cannot override anyone's free choice, but must allow them to follow through and actually reject him, even if the consequences are as severe as eternal destruction.</p>
<p>This is true even though such rejection and the eternal destruction of these individuals saddens God, and also saddens others who loved the individual during their earthly lives.<cite>28</cite> But being emotionally hurt and rejected is an unavoidable possibility when we love another person who has free will.</p>
<p>Therefore even if I were somehow given the power to cause everyone I love to believe in Jesus and be eternally saved by overriding their free will, I wouldn't want to. Even if I knew that otherwise, they would all reject God and face eternal death. Because I know that if their love for God is not freely chosen, it would not be valuable or meaningful to God. I would also have turned them from real people with free will into mere objects that I could manipulate to make myself happy, which does not respect how God created them to be.</p>
<p>For the same reason, God will not allow anyone else or anything to interfere with a person's ability to make this final, free choice to love God or reject him, even if the outcome is not what God had hoped it would be.</p>
<p>This is the answer that I give to those like Talbott who argue that God should not allow anyone to reject him. I'm not alone in this argument, as many other theologians have argued likewise.<cite>29</cite></p>
<p>However, someone might raise the second objection which was listed at the start of this post: if God can't outright prevent people from sinning, or completely eliminate the possibility that people might choose to sin, then it seems that God should at least have made people more intelligent or more reasonable, so that they would be less likely to misuse their free will to sin.<cite>30</cite></p>
<p>Furthermore, once anyone becomes aware of God's amazing offer of eternal life in a new universe that will be better than anything we can currently imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9, Psalm 16:11), and that the only alternative is eternal destruction, why would anyone still freely choose to reject God?</p>
<p>These questions will be addressed in my next post.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 256.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 256.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 256.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 135.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> "My assumption, however, that a person should ultimately have the right, if he so chooses, to do himself irreparable harm obviously involves a strong commitment to the value of libertarian freedom. This value judgement is surely one of the main pillars of the orthodox Christian doctrine of hell, and indeed, I think the doctrine would topple without it." Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 136.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Does God Love Everyone? The Heart of What is Wrong with Calvinism</em> (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 46-47, citing Thomas H. McCall, "We Believe in God's Sovereign Goodness: A Rejoinder to John Piper," <em>Trinity Journal 29.2</em> (2008), 241-242.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Does God Love Everyone? The Heart of What is Wrong with Calvinism</em> (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 47.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Mark A. Noll, "Edwards, Jonathan," in <em>The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought</em>, ed. Alister E. McGrath et al. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 145.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Paulicians" in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 175.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Original Sin</em>, WJE 3: 259–260, 336; Edwards, "Miscellanies," no. 156 in WJE 13: 304; Edwards, "Miscellanies," no. 348 in WJE 13: 419–420; Edwards, "End of Creation," in WJE 8: 509; Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em>, WJE 1: 407–408.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> See my dissertation, Janelle L. Zeeb, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/file/Zeeb_Janelle_L_202205_PhD_thesis.pdf">"An Examination of Jonathan Edwards’ Theological Method Concerning the Problem of Reprobation"</a>, PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto and Wycliffe College, 2022, section 3.4.4. Many commentators agree that Edwards' explanation of original sin is inconsistent, including Clyde Holbrook, Samuel Storms, John Gerstner, Sam Logan Jr., and others (John J. Bombaro, <em>Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate</em> (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 210, referring to John Kearney, "Jonathan Edwards' Account of Adam’s First Sin," <em>Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 15</em>, no. 2 [Autumn 1997]: 127–141).</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em>, Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 1, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 399.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> However, given Edwards’ philosophical occasionalism, the distinction between God's causation of an event and God's permission of an event is very small or even nonexistent. Oliver D. Crisp, <em>Jonathan Edwards and the Metaphysics of Sin</em> (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 64; Oliver D. Crisp, <em>Jonathan Edwards Among the Theologians</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 177.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> See my dissertation, Janelle L. Zeeb, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/file/Zeeb_Janelle_L_202205_PhD_thesis.pdf">"An Examination of Jonathan Edwards’ Theological Method Concerning the Problem of Reprobation"</a>, PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto and Wycliffe College, 2022, section 2.2.1.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Paulicians" in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 175-176.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Paulicians" in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 177.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Paulicians" in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 177-178. </li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> See my Master of Theological Studies thesis, Janelle Louise Zeeb, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/file/Janelle_Zeeb_MTS_Thesis.pdf">"An Analysis of Clark Pinnock's Open Theism as a Potential Solution to Theodicy"</a>, MTS Thesis, Tyndale Seminary, 2015, 44-46.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Paulicians" in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 181.</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Paulicians" in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 189-191.</li>
<li><strong>21.</strong> Clark Pinnock, "Systematic Theology," in <em>The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 115; Millard J. Erickson, <em>What Does God Know and When Does He Know It?: The Current Controversy over Divine Foreknowledge</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 194-195.</li>
<li><strong>22.</strong> Richard Rice, <em>Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain</em> (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2014), 100.</li>
<li><strong>23.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, "God Limits His Control," in <em>Four Views on Divine Providence</em>, eds. Stanley N.Gundry and Dennis W. Jowers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 188-189.</li>
<li><strong>24.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, "Discourse on the Trinity," in WJE 21: 113–114; Jonathan Edwards, "End of Creation," in WJE 8: 432-433, 437, 441–442, 455-456. See also WJE 8: 527–531.</li>
<li><strong>25.</strong> D. Antony Larivière and Thomas M. Lennon, "Bayle on the Moral Problem of Evil," in <em>The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy</em>, eds. Michael John Latzer and Elmar J. Kremer (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001), 105.</li>
<li><strong>26.</strong> Norman Geisler, "God Knows All Things," in <em>Predestination & Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty & Human Freedom</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1986), 69.</li>
<li><strong>27.</strong> Norman Geisler, <em>If God Why Evil? A New Way to Think About The Question</em> (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House Publishers, 2011), 62-63.</li>
<li><strong>28.</strong> Contra Talbott's assertion that if God truly loves someone, God must also love the other people that that person loves, and do what is best for them. His implication seems to be that if God loves Christians, then God should also eternally save all the people that Christians love, regardless of whether these other people themselves have freely chosen to love God or not, so that Christians will not be sad to eternally lose their loved ones. Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 215-218.</li>
<li><strong>29.</strong> C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity," in <em>The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 48; Norman L. Geisler, "God Knows All Things" in <em>Predestination & Free Will:Four Views of Divine Sovereignty & Human Freedom</em>, ed. David Basinger and Randall Basinger (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1986), 69; Gregory A. Boyd, "God Limits His Control" in <em>Four Views on Divine Providence</em>, ed. Stanley N. Gundry and Dennis W. Jowers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 188–189; Gregory A. Boyd, <em>Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), 381; Clark H. Pinnock, <em>Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 41–47; F. Leroy Forlines, <em>Classical Arminianism: A Theology of Salvation</em>, ed. J. Matthew Pinson (Nashville, TN: Randall House, 2011), 48–50; Fred Berthold, <em>God, Evil, and Human Learning: A Critique and Revision of the Free Will Defense in Theodicy</em> (Albany: State University of New York, 2004), 65–68.</li>
<li><strong>30.</strong> Pierre Bayle, "Paulicians" in <em>The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle,</em> Second edition, trans. P. Desmaizeaux (London: J.J. and P. Knapton et al., 1734-1738), 178-179.</li>
</ul>The Rapture Is Coming: Watch For The Seven-Year Covenant With 'Many' (Updated)2023-09-20T00:00:00+00:002023-09-20T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2023-09-20:/article/watch-for-the-seven-year-covenant-with-many/<p>I've recently come across something critical regarding a major end-times Bible prophecy that might be almost ready to be fulfilled. Therefore, I felt that a post about it would be worthwhile, in order to warn about how close the world might be to the Rapture and the start of the …</p><p>I've recently come across something critical regarding a major end-times Bible prophecy that might be almost ready to be fulfilled. Therefore, I felt that a post about it would be worthwhile, in order to warn about how close the world might be to the Rapture and the start of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>The last seven years before Jesus' second coming are called the Tribulation. Jesus said that this will be the worst period of time in the entire history of humanity (Matthew 24:21).</p>
<p>Therefore, Jesus' promise that he will return in the clouds at the Rapture to suddenly take all Christians to be with him in heaven sometime before the Tribulation begins is truly an encouragement, and is something for Christians to look forward to (Titus 2:13, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, John 14:1-3).</p>
<p>Although Christians will not know the exact day or hour of the Rapture (Matthew 24:36), the Bible says that if we are watching for it, we should be able to see that day approaching (Hebrews 10:25, 1 Thessalonians 5:2-5). I have already discussed some of the signs of the end times that we should look for in my posts <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">here</a> and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/expect-the-rapture-when-things-are-normal/">here</a>.</p>
<p>However, this post will suggest that we may now have enough information to know when the Tribulation itself will begin. What is even more important is that this information suggests the Tribulation may begin <em>very soon</em>.</p>
<p>If so, then the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">sudden disappearance of millions of Christians</a> and perhaps all/most of the world's children could be only days or weeks away. Therefore, all Christians should be very excited, and we should be extra watchful during this time (Matthew 24:42-44). We should also share the gospel with others while we still can.</p>
<p>Conversely, if you are not a Christian, I would highly recommend that you <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">seriously consider the gospel message</a> now, so that you can believe in Jesus and not only gain eternal life, but also be saved from going through the Tribulation.</p>
<p>This is a long post (yet not as long as it seems, due to the footnotes), but I am writing it in case the scenario discussed above comes to pass, in order to possibly provide information to those who will be desperately searching for answers after the Rapture. Whenever the Rapture happens, I won't be here afterward to give further information or clarification. So although some of what follows is speculative, I felt it was better to share my thoughts on this topic now, than to write nothing.</p>
<p>As of September 20, 2023, I've added several new paragraphs in a few sections below that are labelled with this date, and a larger update at the bottom of this post. In these sections I evaluate what has happened so far, and look at a few more interesting possibilities in September for high-watch periods for the Rapture.</p>
<h2>The Seven-Year Covenant Is The Start of the Tribulation</h2>
<p>During the Tribulation, the Bible says that a man called the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> will rule the world along with ten kings (Revelation 17:12). We do not yet know exactly who the Antichrist is, but there is a very significant clue that will make it possible to identify him once he appears on the world stage.</p>
<p>This clue comes from Daniel 9:27, which says that the Antichrist will "make a strong covenant with many for one week." In the context of this prophecy, one week means a period of seven years. If you want to know more about how we know that this prophecy of one week means seven years, check out my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">here</a>.</p>
<p>The revealing of the Antichrist is generally thought to be the very first judgment of the Tribulation (Revelation 6:1-2, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10, Daniel 7:19-22). Yet there are <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">many good reasons why</a> the Rapture must happen before the Tribulation begins.</p>
<p>Therefore, any talk of a particular day when a seven-year covenant might be made with 'many' becomes extremely relevant for identifying the possible beginning of the Tribulation.</p>
<h2>A Common Interpretation of the Seven-Year Covenant</h2>
<p>A common interpretation held by many Bible prophecy experts is that this covenant in Daniel 9:27 would be a peace treaty between Israel and several other countries. This peace treaty would be designed to last for seven years.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>There is good evidence for this interpretation based on 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.</span></p>
<p>Birth pains are a metaphor that Jesus used for the beginning of the Tribulation (Mark 13:8, Matthew 24:8). In addition, it is possible to argue that this peace deal would give Israel the illusion of being safe, but it would actually be a deal with death/Sheol for Israel, as is suggested in Isaiah 28:15.</p>
<p>It has been argued that if Israel were to ever agree to a two-state solution with the Palestinians on the basis of the borders that Israel had in 1967, it would basically be signing Israel's death certificate. This is because those borders are believed to make Israel too small to humanly defend if they were attacked.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>The Bible prophesies about how Israel will fight two more major wars that have not yet occurred in Israel's history (Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38), where Israel will be saved by God's miraculous intervention (Ezekiel 39:1-8). So it seemed that the seven-year covenant the Antichrist would make with 'many' would likely be a peace deal between Israel and the countries that will be affected by these wars.</p>
<p>For example, if Damascus were destroyed by a nuclear bomb during one of these wars (Isaiah 17), the surrounding countries and the rest of the world would certainly be crying out for peace.</p>
<p>Thus, Christians who study the end times pay close attention to whether Israel is currently being threatened by any major wars, and if there are any seven-year peace treaties being proposed that might claim to solve the Israel-Palestinian tensions, especially if said treaty might force Israel back to the indefensible 1967 borders.</p>
<p>An alternative possibility for a similar peace deal were the Abraham Accords that were signed over the past few years between Israel and several other countries. Prophecy experts imagined that these accords would be enlarged and confirmed by whoever will be the Antichrist.</p>
<p>The connection to peace and safety comes from how the major stated purpose behind the Abraham Accords is to bring some sort of regional peace to the Middle East by creating an alliance against Iran.<cite>3</cite> Saudi Arabia has hinted that they would join the Abraham Accords and normalize ties with Israel if the Israel-Palestinian issue could be solved.<cite>4</cite> (More on this will be discussed below).</p>
<p>Thus, an expansion or strengthening of the Abraham Accords by adding more countries to it in order to bring peace and stability to the Middle East also appeared like it had good potential to fit some of the criteria for the seven-year covenant in Daniel 9:27.</p>
<p>But normally, peace treaties are designed to be permanent, not temporary. It is always possible that some new agreement could be designed to have some sort of a seven-year transitional period toward achieving full peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians, but nothing like that has been mentioned yet in relation to the Abraham Accords or the so-called 'two-state solution'.</p>
<h2>A New Possibility for the Seven-Year Covenant</h2>
<p>However, new information that has come out recently suggests that this common interpretation of the covenant in Daniel 9:27 may not be accurate. After all, in Daniel 9:27, it <em>doesn't actually say</em> that this seven year covenant will be directly related to Israel's geopolitical situation, or that it will be a peace treaty.</p>
<p>Therefore, <em>any</em> sort of agreement that the Antichrist could make between 'many' could be a candidate to fulfill this prophecy.</p>
<p>Furthermore, a few words in the original Hebrew language mean that the phrase in Daniel 9:27 can be translated into English as "he will strengthen/confirm [Hebrew root verb <em>gabar</em>] a covenant/treaty [Hebrew noun <em>berit</em>] with many/a multitude [Hebrew plural noun of <em>rov</em>] for one week/period of seven [Hebrew noun <em>shavua</em>]".<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>It is notable that in Hebrew, the way to talk about making a new covenant is to "cut" a covenant, using the Hebrew verb <em>karat</em>.<cite>6</cite> This phrase comes from when back in the Old Testament, people would sacrifice animals as a way of establishing a covenant with each other (Genesis 21:27, 15:7-21). Yet the verb <em>karat</em> is not used in Daniel 9:27.</p>
<p>So the specific words used in Daniel 9:27 hint that whatever this covenant will be, it won't be a brand new agreement, but a pre-existing one that the Antichrist somehow <em>strengthens</em> or <em>confirms</em> which will have <em>many</em> participants or signatories.</p>
<p>Prophecy experts have been very curious about why this covenant would be prophesied to last for only seven years. But finally, we might have the answer to this detail.</p>
<h2>The September 2023 UN Summit</h2>
<p>Recently, among those who are watching for the signs of the end times, there has been a lot of attention given to a major United Nations meeting called the Sustainable Development Goals Summit which is scheduled for September 18-19, 2023.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Several aspects of what the UN has announced they want to achieve at this meeting fit surprisingly well with the description of the covenant in Daniel 9:27.</p>
<p>In an article published June 13, 2023, the UN says that their 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which they committed to in 2015 are at high risk of not being met by 2030. Therefore, they say:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The SDG Summit, in September 2023, must signal a genuine turning point. It must mobilize the political commitment and breakthroughs our world desperately needs. It must deliver a rescue plan for people and planet. At the center of this rescue plan, Heads of State and Government must recommit to seven years of accelerated, sustained, and transformative action, both nationally and internationally, to deliver on the promise of the SDGs. Leaders can show their resolve by adopting an ambitious and forward-looking political declaration at the SDG Summit and presenting global and national commitments for SDG transformation.<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>Notice how the UN says they must "recommit" to this vision, or in other words, <em>confirm</em> their earlier commitment to meet a deadline that is currently only <em>seven years</em> away.</p>
<p>They say something similar elsewhere, but with a few extra details:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But the [2030] Agenda is a promise, not a guarantee. At the halftime mark [2023], the promise is in deep peril. For the first time in decades, development progress is reversing under the combined impacts of climate disasters, conflict, economic downturn and lingering COVID-19 effects. The SDG Summit serves as a rallying cry to recharge momentum, for world leaders to come together, to reflect on where we stand and resolve to do more. It is a moment to recommit to a vision of the future that ensures no one is left behind. Fundamental shifts in commitment, solidarity, financing and action must put us back on track to end poverty, realize just societies and reset a balanced relationship with the natural world.<cite>9</cite></span></p>
<p>Notice their use of the term "promise," which is an English synonym for the term <em>covenant</em>.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>As the UN's 17th SDG goal, they say they want to "strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development."<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>So the leaders of <em>many</em> countries who make up the UN are going to be talking about <em>confirming/strengthening</em> a <em>seven-year promise/covenant</em> on September 18-19, 2023.</p>
<p>This should be enough for any Christians who are interested in the end times to perk up and pay close attention. If this turns out to be the covenant prophesied in Daniel 9:27, then the Rapture will have to happen sometime before then. I'll explain more about that near the end of this post.</p>
<p>Yet some further details about this upcoming Summit provide additional hints that this <em>really might be</em> the Daniel 9:27 covenant. If you've made it this far into my post, you might as well just keep reading.</p>
<h3>A Global Rescue Plan</h3>
<p>The UN is calling this upcoming summit a "rescue plan" for the world, and they list all the challenges and threats that the world supposedly needs rescuing from.<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>The rider on the white horse in Revelation 6:1-2 is usually interpreted as being the Antichrist. In our culture, someone who is being portrayed as a savior or rescuer often comes riding in on a white horse. This may have come from how in the Bible, Jesus will show up on a white horse at the end of the Tribulation to save the world from the Antichrist (Revelation 19:11-13).</p>
<p>Jesus warns that in the end times, many people will come and falsely claim to be the Christ/Messiah, and they will deceive many people (Matthew 24:4-5).</p>
<p>So I can't help but wonder if the Antichrist might portray himself to be the 'savior' or 'rescuer' of the world by having answers to all these apparent problems that the UN is concerned about. This portrayal would make sense, because I believe the Antichrist will want to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">impersonate Jesus</a>.</p>
<h3>No One Left Behind</h3>
<p>A mildly humorous detail (at least, to those who study Bible prophecy) is how the UN says that they want countries to "recommit to a vision of the future that ensures no one is left behind".<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>Christians who believe in the pretribulation Rapture often talk about how the people who aren't taken to heaven at the Rapture will be "left behind" on Earth to go through the Tribulation. The best-selling fictional book series about what life on Earth might be like after the Rapture is even titled <em>Left Behind</em>.</p>
<p>It could just be a coincidence that whoever wrote this above paragraph for the UN's summit used those words, but it is still interesting given the other details discussed above.</p>
<p>More menacingly, leaving no one behind could imply that no one will be able to opt out from participating in the UN's 2030 goals.</p>
<p>If you look at the UN's Sustainable Development Goals at the bottom of the webpage cited here,<cite>14</cite> you may notice that these goals touch on almost all aspects of our daily lives.</p>
<p>Although the goals sound positive, the concern is that in order to achieve these goals, governments all around the world will have to have strong enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that <em>everyone</em> acts in accordance with these goals, because after all, that's the only way to 'save the planet.'</p>
<p>During the Tribulation, the Antichrist will be given total power over the entire world (Revelation 13:7-8). Those who refuse to obey the Antichrist by worshiping his idol/image that will be able to speak, or by taking his <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> in/on their right hands or foreheads will be denied the ability to buy or sell (Revelation 13:15-18). Eventually, if these refusers are caught, they will be beheaded (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<p>So people will be able to opt out of the Antichrist's system, but not without severe consequences.</p>
<p>Thus, any sort of global agreement that requires <em>everyone</em> to participate is important to pay attention to, because even if the goals sound positive, it could quickly turn negative if absolute power is given to the authorities to enforce it.</p>
<h3>A New Global Financial System</h3>
<p>It turns out that the UN has also said that at their upcoming summit,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">At the global level, a once-in-a-generation commitment is needed to overhaul the international financial and economic system so that it responds to today’s challenges, not those of the 1940s.<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>In 2022, Pope Francis had also called for changes to the world's economy.<cite>16</cite> In June 2023, Emmanuel Macron (the president of France) also said the world needs to re-imagine its financial system in order to address poverty and climate change.<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>The fact that the UN and several influential world leaders are currently focused on transforming the world's economy is extremely relevant to Bible prophecy, given that, as mentioned earlier, during the Tribulation, the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> will be implemented to control all buying and selling (Revelation 13:16-18).</p>
<p>Such a system would require the elimination of physical cash, because cash cannot be centrally controlled. Cash would have to be replaced by a purely digital form of money, and some computer would need to track and specify exactly how this money can be used by every individual person. Interestingly, these very things are now being proposed at the highest levels of global government and finance.</p>
<p>The UN wants to create "a digital identification system linked to banking and mobile payment platforms".<cite>18</cite> They say that such a system of digital ID would help reach people who currently fall through the cracks in terms of social services, or who lack access to the "digital economy".<cite>19</cite></p>
<p>The World Health Organization also wants a global digital ID system as part of its 2024 Pandemic Treaty.<cite>20</cite></p>
<p>Around the world, many countries are already working on their own version of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Some have already begun using them.<cite>21</cite> A few private companies are also attempting to build a system that could support global digital ID and a digital currency system.<cite>22</cite></p>
<p>Of course, for a truly global system, these different national or private CBDCs would have to be exchangeable with one another. Thus, it's not surprising that "the IMF wants central banks to agree on a common regulatory framework for digital currencies that will allow global interoperability".<cite>23</cite></p>
<p>Yet, once banking is fully digital and your bank account is linked to your personal digital ID number—which may also be used to limit your ability to travel or your access to certain locations and services like vaccine passports did—it would be very easy for a totalitarian government to control people by threatening to turn off individuals' ability to use this system if these people do not obey all the government's rules.<cite>24</cite></p>
<p>If this scenario seems outlandish, the ability and willingness of a democratic Western government to freeze the bank accounts of certain individuals was already demonstrated during major protests in Canada during the Covid pandemic.<cite>25</cite></p>
<p>So we are not that far away from having the technology and global systems that could be easily turned into the Mark of the Beast system, since major institutions around the world are working hard at developing and implementing these systems right now.</p>
<p>Technically, the Mark of the Beast only needs to be fully operational by the mid-point of the Tribulation. Therefore, after the Tribulation begins, there would be some period of time where the Antichrist, False Prophet, and ten kings would be able to refine and finalize this global digital financial system.</p>
<p>However, some preliminary version of this system could be rolled out during the earlier parts of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>For example, issuing a brand new global digital ID might be a good way for governments to figure out exactly who was raptured, and who was left behind.</p>
<p>Linking this ID to a bank account that offers a new form of money, or to direct access to government benefits and subsidies, might then also be a way for leaders to respond to how food prices will skyrocket due to famine and/or hyperinflation relatively early on during the Tribulation (Revelation 6:5-6).</p>
<h2>Recap Number 1</h2>
<p>So thus far, at the UN's upcoming SDG Summit this September 2023, <em>many</em> leaders of countries will <em>strengthen/confirm</em> their <em>promise/covenant</em> to meet the SDG goals in <em>seven years</em>. Therefore, it seems that such an international agreement could perfectly fit the requirements of the covenant in Daniel 9:27.</p>
<p>Some details of the UN's goals also foreshadow a global digital financial system that will be a prerequisite for controlling all buying and selling for all people, as the Bible predicts the Antichrist will do via the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>.</p>
<p>Therefore, if this upcoming UN agreement actually <em>is</em> the prophesied Daniel 9:27 covenant, then it will be the start of the Tribulation, and the main individual who leads the world's leaders to confirm it will be the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>.</p>
<h2>Why 2030?</h2>
<p>However, we might ask why the UN is so focused on meeting their 2030 deadline.</p>
<p>Since they admit that they are currently not on track to meet their own deadline, the easiest thing to do would be to simply change the deadline, right? Yet they say, "giving up on the SDGs or extending the deadline to meet them is not an option."<cite>26</cite></p>
<p>But why not?</p>
<p>Even if <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/climate-change-and-the-end-times/">climate change</a> is actually happening, it is a gradual natural process, not one that cares about political deadlines. For example, the world is not going to suddenly end the second that King Charles' climate clock runs out.<cite>27</cite></p>
<p>Today, even with the help of radar and computerized global weather simulations, meteorologists often can't get their predictions right. More than once, I've looked at the weather app on my phone, and found that it doesn't even accurately tell me what the <em>current</em> weather is! And unlike speculative models about the future climate, the current weather is something that can be actually measured in real-time.</p>
<p>So I wonder if there is actually some <em>other</em> reason why 2030 is such an important deadline for the world's leaders.</p>
<p>There is a Bible prophecy that says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Hosea 6:2)</span></span></p>
<p>This is referring to the people of Israel during Jesus' Millennial Kingdom. During this period of a thousand years after the Tribulation, the survivors in Israel will finally recognize Jesus as their Messiah (Zechariah 12:10-14, 13:8-9, Matthew 23:39), and Israel will finally possess all the land that God originally promised to Abraham (Genesis 15:18-20).</p>
<p>When this prophecy in Hosea 6:2 is combined with the biblical idea that to God, one 'day' can be as long as a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8), it suggests that Jesus will return after about two thousand years to set up his Millennial Kingdom.</p>
<p>Most Bible scholars believe that Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection occurred at Passover on one of the years between 30-33 AD. Two thousand years later would thus be 2030-2033, which could hint that Jesus' second coming might occur sometime during these years.</p>
<p>A recent documentary titled <em>Messiah 2030</em> presents many interesting hints from Scripture that this interpretation may be correct, and the documentary's creators opt for the earlier 2030 date.<cite>28</cite> Alternatively, the next most likely year is 2033.<cite>29</cite></p>
<p>2030 would be more mathematically satisfying, considering that Israel's second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, which would be exactly 40 years after Jesus' death, if Jesus died in 30 AD.</p>
<p>God previously used a period of 40 years as judgment for Israel when they rejected his offer to enter the promised land (Numbers 14:34). So, another forty-year period to give Israel a chance to change their mind about Jesus before God allowed the Romans to besiege Jerusalem, destroy the Temple, and scatter the Jewish people out of their land as a punishment for rejecting Jesus would perhaps make sense (e.g., Matthew 27:22-25, 24:1-2, 23:37-39).</p>
<p>The <em>Messiah 2030</em> documentary supports its choice of 2030 by citing some Jewish sources which claim that during the 40 years from 30 to 70 AD, there were several unusual supernatural signs that may have indicated that God was no longer pleased with the Jewish sacrificial system. I will look at this evidence in more detail in the Appendix at the bottom of this blog post.</p>
<p>But if this documentary's analysis is correct, then it is extremely interesting that the UN is pushing for 2030 as the non-negotiable year by which they are determined to achieve their global sustainability goals.</p>
<p>Satan is currently the ruler of this world, and he has the power to give all authority in the world to whoever he wants, such as those who promise to worship him (Luke 4:5-8).</p>
<p>Satan was obviously around at the time when Jesus was crucified (Luke 22:3), so he would know the exact year that Jesus died. Satan also knows there will be no way for him to delay Jesus' second coming, because Satan is far less powerful than God is. So, given all this, it seems Satan could find ways to ensure that certain powerful world leaders also prioritize this same year, even if they do not appear to do so for the same reason.</p>
<p>Because it is prophesied that the Antichrist will confirm a seven-year covenant with many at the start of the Tribulation, and the Antichrist is defeated by Jesus at his second coming at the end of the Tribulation (Revelation 19:19-20), then if Jesus' second coming will be in 2030, there really isn't much time left in 2023 before the Antichrist must be revealed in order to confirm the seven-year covenant.</p>
<h2>Does September have any prophetic significance?</h2>
<p>Another interesting detail is how the UN's upcoming SDG summit is planned to occur on September 18-19. This year, the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) occurs on September 15th to 17th.</p>
<p>This is especially interesting because Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection fulfilled three Old Testament spring feasts to the exact day during his first coming (Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits).<cite>30</cite> You can see all these feasts described in Leviticus chapter 23.</p>
<p>The Holy Spirit was also given in a special way to Jesus' followers on the exact day of the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). Because of these precedents, it is often expected that Jesus will also fulfill the three remaining autumn feasts to the exact day with events that will be related to his second coming.</p>
<p>In particular, prophecy experts sometimes believe that the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) may be related to the Rapture.</p>
<p>The Feast of Trumpets is the celebration of the Jewish new year. As the name suggests, the ceremony involved blowing several trumpets. Two major descriptions of the Rapture say it will occur along with the sounding of the "trumpet of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18) which may also be called the "last trumpet" (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).</p>
<p>In the Old Testament, trumpets were blown to announce a call for people to assemble together, a command for people to move out from their current position, a call to go to war, for people to prepare to hear an announcement, to warn people about judgment, or to call people to come celebrate and worship God.<cite>31</cite></p>
<p>Several of these meanings could correspond well with how the Rapture will be a call for Christians to come assemble together with Jesus in the clouds, to move out from this world, and to announce the celebration and worship that will occur in heaven afterward. To those left behind, it would be a warning of the coming Tribulation judgment, and also God's declaration of war against Satan and his demons (Revelation 12:7-8).</p>
<p>Jesus also mentioned that no one would know the day or the hour of his next coming (Matthew 24:36), which will come at a time when life is generally <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/expect-the-rapture-when-things-are-normal/">going on like normal</a>.</p>
<p>So when Jesus said no one will know the day or hour, Jesus must have been referring to the Rapture, because once the seven-year covenant is agreed to, it should be possible to calculate the exact day of Jesus' second coming. The Tribulation is exactly 2520 days long, split into two halves of 1260 days each (Revelation 11:3, 12:6), and it ends with Jesus' second coming (Revelation 19:11-21).</p>
<p>Some commentators also think Jesus was indirectly alluding to the Feast of Trumpets when he said no one would know the day or hour of his coming.</p>
<p>Supposedly, the Feast of Trumpets would only start once the bright sliver at the edge of a new moon was spotted in Israel by two witnesses who would report it to the religious leaders in Jerusalem. The official start of the feast would then be announced by blowing a trumpet. So the exact day and hour that the Feast of Trumpets began depended on the weather (since clouds would keep witnesses from seeing the moon), and a few other unpredictable factors.</p>
<p>There may also be some connection between Jesus' phrase in Matthew 24:36 and a Jewish wedding, which would only occur when the groom's father gave the approval to go ahead with the celebration. Therefore, no one besides him could be 100% sure when it would start.<cite>32</cite></p>
<p>However, although the Feast of Trumpets may seem to be connected to both the Rapture and the start of the Tribulation, some prophecy experts do not think the Rapture has to literally occur on this day. Instead, the Rapture could happen anytime, and it would still fulfill the biblical symbolism of this feast.</p>
<p>Yet if the Rapture <em>were</em> to happen on the exact day of an Old-Testament feast, the Feast of Trumpets would be a good candidate.</p>
<p>So the fact that the UN's summit occurs just after the Feast of Trumpets this upcoming September is very interesting, because it could correspond to the official start of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>However, the timing of this summit might not prove anything regarding the day of the Rapture, other than the Rapture would have to happen sometime before the seven-year covenant is officially confirmed by the Antichrist and 'many'.</p>
<h2>Alternative Potential 'Rapture' Days Are Coming Very Soon</h2>
<p>As an alternative potential 'rapture' day to the Feast of Trumpets, I have recently come across persuasive arguments made by a few end-times watchers who say the Feast of Pentecost did not occur fifty days after Passover, as Christians traditionally believe it does.</p>
<p>Instead, these end-times watchers argue that Pentecost happened later, at the Feast of New Wine. This feast supposedly occurred in midsummer, at the time when the wheat harvest was over and the first grapes were available to produce said 'new wine'.<cite>33</cite></p>
<p>This claim seems to have biblical support because of how a bystander at Pentecost accused the early Christians of being drunk on "new wine," which would have only been available around that time of year (Acts 2:13-15). This new wine was also supposedly not to be consumed by the general public until the high priest had performed a drink offering in the Temple, interestingly, at the exact same hour as when the Holy Spirit descended on the early church: the third hour of the day—9:00 AM (Acts 2:15).</p>
<p>Also, using biblical typology, the Book of Ruth tells the story of Ruth (a gentile woman, representing the mostly non-Jewish Church) who married Boaz (a man representing Israel's redeemer—Jesus). Supposedly, their wedding took place shortly after this Feast of New Wine (e.g. Ruth 2:23, Ephesians 5:25-33).</p>
<p>If this alternative perspective is correct, then this year, the Feast of Pentecost would actually be on July 26, 2023, and it is immediately followed by the 9th of Av on July 27.</p>
<p>The 9th of Av is the infamously tragic day of the Hebrew calendar on which both of Israel's temples were destroyed, despite these events occurring several hundred years apart. A number of other tragedies have occurred in relation to the Jewish people also on this same calendar day (just Google it).</p>
<p>Yet the Church, made of all true Christians, is now the true Temple of God because of how the Holy Spirit comes to live inside each Christian the moment we first believe in Jesus (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19, Ephesians 1:13-14, 4:30, Acts 2:1-4, 2:14-21).</p>
<p>So if the Church were to be raptured on the 9th of Av (this year, July 27), it would fit perfectly with the historical precedent for the 9th of Av as being a day when God previously removed the physical dwelling place of his Holy Spirit from this world.</p>
<p>The Rapture would certainly be a tragedy for Israel. Evangelical Christians are often strong supporters of Israel, and the USA (which has many Christians in it and is a strong military ally of Israel) would likely be one of the most crippled countries after the Rapture. Thus, after the Rapture, it may be difficult or even impossible for the USA to come to Israel's aid, if, for example, Israel suddenly found themselves fighting the Psalm 83 war.</p>
<p>So as we have seen in this section, the biblical symbolism and historical precedents could suggest that the Rapture could also occur around one of these upcoming dates (July 26 or 27, 2023), which would leave a gap of several weeks before the Feast of Trumpets in September. This possibility will be analyzed more later on in this post.</p>
<h2>But What About Peace and Security?</h2>
<p>However, how would this upcoming UN summit fit with how the Bible says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 Thessalonians 5:3)</span></span></p>
<p>As discussed at the start of this post, this verse is believed to be talking about the start of the Tribulation period.</p>
<p>So isn't it interesting that the UN's International Day of Peace is being held this upcoming September 21, 2023. This is just a day or two after the UN's SDG summit. The close scheduling means that the UN even says that "the 2023 observance of the International Day of Peace coincides with the SDG summit (18-19 September)".<cite>34</cite></p>
<p>The UN says that the International Day of Peace</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">is a call to action that recognizes our individual and collective responsibility to foster peace. Fostering peace contributes to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will create a culture of peace for all.<cite>35</cite></span></p>
<p>Furthermore,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Peace is needed today more than ever. War and conflict are unleashing devastation, poverty, and hunger, and driving tens of millions of people from their homes. Climate chaos is all around. And even peaceful countries are gripped by gaping inequalities and political polarization.<cite>36</cite></span></p>
<p>So the UN's International Day of Peace does seem to qualify as a time when people will be calling for "peace and safety." So what would be the "sudden destruction" that is supposed to happen right after this?</p>
<p>After the Antichrist has been revealed (Revelation 6:1-2), the very next divine judgment is an outbreak of worldwide violence (Revelation 6:3-4). This in line with how Jesus warned that after the false Christ appears there will be many wars and rumors of wars involving conflicts between kingdoms/nations, and also between various ethnic people groups (Matthew 24:6-7).</p>
<p>Given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, some Russian officials are warning that it could turn into World War III.<cite>37</cite>Alternatively, there are several other hot spots around the world that could also turn into World War III.<cite>38</cite> That list doesn't even include the tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas that could turn into the Psalm 83 war practically anytime.</p>
<p>How ironic would it be if World War III or the Psalm 83 war were to begin on a day when the world is calling for international peace?</p>
<h2>Recap Number 2</h2>
<p>Thus, within the span of only a few days during this upcoming September, we will have the biblical Feast of Trumpets which might signify the start of the Tribulation, and then a covenant will likely be confirmed by many world leaders for a period of seven years (Daniel 9:27).</p>
<p>The world will then proceed to call for "peace and safety," even as there is a risk that some significant war could suddenly begin almost anytime (1 Thessalonians 5:3, Revelation 6:3-4).</p>
<p>If this is what will happen in September, it all fits amazingly well with Bible prophecy — perhaps a little <em>too</em> well for it to all be dismissed as just a coincidence. If the Rapture happens sometime between now and September 18-19, it would pretty much guarantee that these other end-times Bible prophecies are about to be fulfilled.</p>
<h2>But What About Israel?</h2>
<p>For those who are concerned that Israel is not involved enough in all of the things being discussed so far (despite Israel being on board with the UN's SDG goals,<cite>39</cite>) do not worry: Israel is still a major concern for many world leaders.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, the UN Secretary General gave a speech in which he talked about the SDG goals. Yet he also</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">outlined core elements of the proposed New Agenda for Peace, in line with the UN Charter, international law, and human rights, with prevention at the heart. He said "[w]e must work harder for peace everywhere" — in Ukraine, Palestine and Israel, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Haiti, the Sahel, and other parts of the world where two billion people are affected by conflict and humanitarian crises.<cite>40</cite></span></p>
<p>So peace between Israel and the Palestinians is still one of the UN's goals.</p>
<p>Some UN experts noted earlier this year that it has been 75 years since Israel became a nation and supposedly caused a tragedy that displaced the Palestinian people. These experts criticize Israel for how they have treated the Palestinian people all this time.<cite>41</cite></p>
<p>In July 2023, both the UN Secretary General and Pope Francis called on Israel to return to negotiating a two-state solution with the Palestinians.<cite>42</cite> Even China is unhappy with Israel's 'encroachment' on Palestinian land, and supports the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.<cite>43</cite></p>
<p>So although the Daniel 9:27 covenant with 'many' does not specify it will be a peace treaty that involves Israel, there is certainly a lot of pressure being put on Israel by the UN and other world leaders to make peace with the Palestinians. Who knows how this may escalate after the Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38 wars, and what the Antichrist might do about it once he comes to power?</p>
<p>Regardless, the basic conditions for the prophecies of Daniel 9:27 and 1 Thessalonians 5:3 do not necessarily require a direct connection to Israel. Given that both of these prophecies could be fulfilled within the same few days in September is extremely interesting.</p>
<h3>September 20, 2023 Update</h3>
<p>Over the last few weeks, the interest in achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians has increased significantly.</p>
<p>Just last week, it was announced that Saudi Arabia would be hosting an event on September 18, 2023 on the sidelines of the UN SDG Summit to discuss Israel-Palestinian peace.<cite>44</cite></p>
<p>The outcome of that meeting is that the EU and and Saudi Arabia have committed to jump-starting the Israel-Palestinian peace process by planning a series of meetings over the next year about what sort of 'incentives' that Israel and the Palestinians must be given in order to convince them to agree to a Palestinian state. They insist that "there is not a viable other solution" to the Israel-Palestinian tensions than creating an official Palestinian state.<cite>45</cite></p>
<p>I wonder if perhaps offering Israel the chance to rebuild its temple on the Temple Mount might be part of such a package that could convince Israel to sign a treaty that is otherwise not in its favor?</p>
<p>Also at this UN SDG summit, the United States announced they want to work toward normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and creating a Palestinian state.<cite>46</cite></p>
<p>So all of this is extremely interesting given that it is occurring right at the same time as the UN's SDG summit.</p>
<p>But there is yet another detail about Bible prophecy that could be fulfilled shortly before this upcoming UN SDG summit that could add further support for the possibility of September 2023 being the start of the Tribulation.</p>
<h2>A New (And Potentially Better) Group of Ten Kings</h2>
<p>The Bible prophesies that during the Tribulation, the last major empire that will dominate the world will be composed of ten "kings" (Daniel 7:23-24). These ten kings will only come to power for a short time along with the Antichrist (Revelation 17:12).</p>
<p>But the exact relationship between these kings and the Antichrist is complicated.</p>
<p>Daniel also says that near the beginning of the Antichrist's career, when the Antichrist is represented as just a 'little' horn, this man will take the place of three of these ten kings (Daniel 7:24-27). Yet it seems the three leaders will not be completely gone, as later on in the Tribulation, all ten kings will give their power to the Antichrist (Revelation 17:12-13).</p>
<p>Because of these prophecies, end-times watchers have been paying close attention to any international alliances of countries that could become powerful enough to dominate the whole world, and which would involve exactly ten members.</p>
<p>The EU received a lot of attention in the past for being a potential candidate to fulfill these criteria. This is because the Antichrist will come from the same people who destroyed the second Jewish temple in 70 AD, who were the Romans (Daniel 9:26-27). The Roman Empire was based primarily in Europe, although it included the areas now found in Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and North Africa.</p>
<p>However, it wasn't clear to prophecy experts how the EU would end up with only ten members during the Tribulation, if the EU was supposed to fulfill the prophecy of the ten kings.</p>
<p>The D-10 is a group of the world's ten leading democracies who also seemed to have some potential to fulfill the prophecy of the ten kings.<cite>47</cite></p>
<p>However, there is now potentially a new group of ten countries that is worth paying close attention to.</p>
<p>In August 2023, the group of countries known by the acronym BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are planning their own summit in which there are rumors they will admit up to five new countries into their alliance, to make ten countries total.<cite>48</cite> There are many countries that want to join BRICS, and so the leaders of BRICS simply have to choose who they want to accept.<cite>49</cite></p>
<p>The BRICS countries have also been talking about launching their own currency, which could threaten the strength and value of the US dollar for international trade.<cite>50</cite></p>
<p>This final world empire with ten kings is also prophesied to be like trying to mix iron and clay (Daniel 2:40-45). That is, it will be partly strong and partly fragile, and it won't bind together very well.</p>
<p>This description had appeared to be true for the EU over the last decade or so as it underwent Brexit, and also faced various internal tensions between major members on a number of important issues. Yet several foreign policy analysts note that the BRICS group of countries also fit such a description:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Analysts in the Western press largely described the [BRICS] outfit as nonsensical and predicted its imminent demise. In 2011, the Financial Times’ Philip Stevens announced it was "time to bid farewell" to the "BRICS without mortar." A year later, another columnist at the paper, Martin Wolf, asserted that BRICS was "not a group" and that its members had "nothing in common whatsoever." BRICS has also been described as a "motley crew," "odd grouping," "random bunch," and "disparate quartet"... BRICS member countries have numerous differences and disagreements... And yet, despite their differences, not one BRICS leader has ever missed the group’s annual summits.<cite>51</cite></span></p>
<p>The fact that the EU currently has more than ten members and there are no rumors of them cutting it down to ten anytime soon, while the BRICS might just be on the verge of adding five more to make a total of ten countries, all just a month or so before the UN's SDG summit, is very interesting.</p>
<p>It might mean that this group of ten BRICS+ countries will be the ones to dominate the world during the Tribulation, in a sort of an alternative 'New World Order' to Western countries,<cite>52</cite> even if the Antichrist is still prophesied to have connections to Europe.</p>
<p>Such a scenario might make a lot of sense.</p>
<p>Since it is clear that the Rapture will happen before the Tribulation (see my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">here</a>), many Western countries who have larger numbers of Christians will likely lose a larger percentage of their adult populations at the Rapture than the countries who make up the BRICS+ will. This might naturally give the BRICS+ a sudden boost of political and economic influence during the Tribulation, and make them a desirable partner for the Antichrist.</p>
<p>And if you're wondering, in just the past few days, the BRICS have "called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital".<cite>53</cite> So that's still very relevant for Bible prophecy, as discussed earlier in this post.</p>
<h3>September 20, 2023 Update</h3>
<p>The BRICS had their summit in August, and they made offers to six additional countries to join their group. These countries were Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates. If their leaders accept this offer, these countries would officially join BRICS on January 1, 2024.<cite>54</cite></p>
<p>However, there have been news stories that say that Argentina's current president is not interested in joining BRICS,<cite>55</cite> and neither are any of the other presidential candidates.<cite>56</cite></p>
<p>So it is possible that if Argentina declines the invitation, there will be five new members officially added to BRICS this upcoming January, to make a total of ten BRICS members who may fit perfectly with the ten kings in Revelation 17:12 and Daniel 7:23-24.</p>
<h2>Implications for the Rapture: Two Possibilities</h2>
<p>So given all the very interesting potential correspondences between upcoming events and end-times Bible prophecy as discussed above, there are two possibilities we must consider:</p>
<h3>Possibility 1: This Is NOT The Covenant With Many</h3>
<p>Let us imagine that it turns out that the UN's upcoming summit to confirm their 2030 Sustainable Development Goals <em>is not</em> the prophesied covenant of Daniel 9:27. The day comes and goes without the Rapture happening, and life continues on like normal.</p>
<p>Given how well the UN's 2030 agreement matches the description of the Daniel 9:27 covenant, goes along with a global call for international peace (1 Thessalonians 5:3), and may come just after the formation of a new ten-country alliance that doesn't bind together very well (Daniel 2:40-45, 7:24-27, Revelation 17:12-13), then all these interesting correlations with Bible prophecy would have to be an amazing coincidence.</p>
<p>However, all the other signs of the end times are currently present and are increasing like birth pains, even while society somehow continues to hang on <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/expect-the-rapture-when-things-are-normal/">the very edge of 'normal'</a>, despite several looming issues that could disrupt this 'normal' in the near future, and while rapid progress is being made toward the systems that would be necessary to create the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>.</p>
<p>What are the chances that all of this is lining up just as the Bible said it would, exactly seven years before what might be Jesus' second coming, and it has absolutely <em>nothing</em> to do with Bible prophecy?</p>
<p>Due to all of this, we must seriously consider the second possibility:</p>
<h3>Possibility 2: This IS The Covenant With Many</h3>
<p>Let us imagine that The UN's upcoming reconfirmation of their 2030 Sustainable Development Goals <em>is</em> the prophesied covenant of Daniel 9:27.</p>
<p>If so, whoever leads the world in confirming this covenant will be the Antichrist, and the Rapture will occur sometime before this covenant is officially confirmed by the Antichrist and 'many'.</p>
<p>In this case, there are two possible timelines for when Bible prophecy might be fulfilled, depending on whether Jesus was crucified in 30 AD or 33 AD.</p>
<p>I have read several different articles that go in depth using the Hebrew calendar, solar/lunar eclipses, and other historical details to try to argue for usually one of these two years. However, I don't want to assume the authors are doing their math correctly, nor do I want to spend the time to verify their methodology and historical research.</p>
<p>So let's just consider both timelines and see how they could each potentially fit with end-times Bible prophecy.</p>
<h3>Timeline 1: Jesus' Second Coming Is In 2030</h3>
<p>Let us imagine that the 30 AD date for Jesus' crucifixion is correct, and this upcoming UN summit will confirm the seven-year covenant in Daniel 9:27.</p>
<p>If so, then despite the chaos the Rapture will cause, the UN Summit will go ahead as planned on September 18-19, and the world's leaders will recommit to meeting their 2015 SDG goals by 2030.</p>
<p>Whoever it is that leads the world in this global re-commitment will be the Antichrist. This summit will come just shortly after the Feast of Trumpets warns the world of the coming Tribulation, and the confirming of this covenant will coincide with the world calling for international peace, but experiencing sudden destruction (1 Thessalonians 5:3).</p>
<p>Then the Tribulation will begin, and it will last for 2520 days until Jesus' second coming in 2030, likely on either the Feast of Trumpets or the next feast (the Day of Atonement) that happens ten days later.</p>
<p>In this scenario, there may be only a gap of several weeks at most between the Rapture and the start of the Tribulation. Depending on how many people are raptured, and what else happens shortly after the Rapture, this short period of time may be enough for North American society to become mostly functional again, just in time for New York to host the UN's summit.</p>
<p>Yet there would still likely be much sorting-out left for the world to do during the early stages of the Tribulation. This may include issuing a global digital ID to verify who has been left behind on Earth, and creating a global digital currency to prepare the way for the roll-out of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>.</p>
<p>The benefit of this timeline is that the 30 AD date for Jesus' crucifixion lines up better with the 70 AD destruction of the second Temple that happened 40 years later, and could explain the strange things that started happening in the Temple around 30 AD (see Appendix). Plus, it would truly be a <em>seven</em>-year covenant, from 2023 to 2030, without the UN having to revise or extend their target deadline.</p>
<p>There would also be a relatively short gap between the Rapture and the Tribulation, more in line with how the removal of the Restrainer at the Rapture (i.e., the Holy Spirit who lives inside every true Christian as per Ephesians 1:13-14) is what allows the Antichrist to publicly appear on the world stage (2 Thessalonians 2:3-9).</p>
<p>A short gap would also fit better with the idea that the Rapture is a rescue mission to remove Christians right before God's wrath falls on the rest of the world (1 Thessalonians 1:10, 5:9, Revelation 3:10). This divine rescue would be in line with how Noah entered the ark only seven days before God sent the worldwide flood (Genesis 7:1-5), and the angels got Lot and his family out of the sinful city of Sodom just barely before God destroyed it (Genesis 19:12-26).</p>
<p>It should be noted that this timeline does not mean that the current Secretary General of the UN is the Antichrist. The Antichrist is also not necessarily a current leader of <em>any</em> country, even if he is likely to be involved in politics somewhere in Europe. Yet in the chaos that will happen between the Rapture and the signing of the seven-year covenant, the Antichrist will somehow gain enough influence to be the one to lead the world into confirming their 2030 covenant.</p>
<p>Thus, if the seven-year covenant of Daniel 9:27 is what will be agreed to at the upcoming UN summit, then it seems likely that the Rapture will also happen far enough ahead of this summit that there would be enough time for this change of leadership to occur. Whereas if the Rapture happened on the Feast of Trumpets that is only a day or two before the summit, it seems less likely that there would be enough time for this leadership change to occur.</p>
<p>Therefore, the sooner the Rapture happens, the more time there would be for the Antichrist to rise up to power in time to confirm the covenant with 'many' in September. The upcoming August BRICS meeting might produce the ten kings who will rule for a short time along with the Antichrist (Revelation 17:12-13), and at some point early on his career, the Antichrist will take the place of three of these leaders/kings (Daniel 7:24-27).</p>
<p>Based on some interesting astronomical evidence that is presented in the documentary The Star of Bethlehem, Jesus was probably born in 3-2 BC.<cite>57</cite> That means Jesus would have been about 31-32 if he were crucified in 30 AD (remember, there was no year 0).</p>
<p>Jesus is usually thought to have had at least a three year ministry (3 Feasts of Passover are recorded in the Book of John: John 2:13, 6:4, 11:55), and we are told that Jesus began his ministry when he was around age 30 (Luke 3:23). But this timeline is still possible if his ministry began when he was 28 or 29.</p>
<p>So if this timeline is correct, although it seems to be only a short time from now, it fits together remarkably well. The Rapture could happen anytime between now and September 18-19, but potentially as soon as July 26-27. Yet let us now consider the alternative timeline.</p>
<h3>Timeline 2: Jesus' Second Coming Is In 2033</h3>
<p>Let us now presume the 33 AD date for Jesus' crucifixion is correct. If so, something dramatic would have to happen in order to force the UN to delay the confirming of their 2030 SDG goals until the fall of 2026 (seven years before 2033), likely also near the Feast of Trumpets.</p>
<p>A good candidate for the reason that the UN would delay such an important meeting would be because of the chaos that the Rapture will cause, as well as potentially the start of the Psalm 83 war between Israel and several surrounding countries.</p>
<p>Yet there is the possibility that it could be something else besides the Rapture that would cause the UN to delay their SDG summit.</p>
<p>But something that could cause the UN to cancel a huge meeting that has taken months to plan would have to be something <em>very</em> important, like the declaration of World War III, or perhaps the Psalm 83 war and the destruction of Damascus (Isaiah 17). Yet none of these things could happen while the world is saying that things are going on normally, just like they always have (2 Peter 3:3-4).</p>
<p>So I will assume that the only event that could happen between now and then which would be big enough to delay this upcoming UN SDG summit until 2026 would be the Rapture. Maybe I'm wrong, but let's run with that idea for now.</p>
<p>In this scenario, there would be a gap of several years between the Rapture that would happen sometime before September 2023, and the start of the Tribulation sometime in 2026.</p>
<p>However, such a long gap seems out of place if part of the purpose of the Rapture is for God to save Christians (and possibly all children under a certain age or level of maturity) from experiencing God's wrath during the Tribulation (1 Thessalonians 1:10, 5:9, Revelation 3:10).</p>
<p>If there were a long gap between the Rapture and the Tribulation, it would be a time when many people might become Christians and many more children would be born, but they would all be doomed to go through the Tribulation period. That doesn't seem like something a loving God would do if he <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">truly doesn't want anyone to perish</a>.</p>
<p>After all, Peter says, "the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Bible often uses the metaphor of a thief breaking into someone's house at night to describe how the world will be shocked and unprepared for the beginning of the Tribulation (Matthew 24:43, Luke 12:39, 1 Thessalonians 5:2-4, 2 Peter 3:10, Revelation 3:3, 16:15).</p>
<p>But if the Rapture happened <em>three whole years</em> before the Tribulation, the world would not likely be shocked by the beginning of the Tribulation, because they would have had such a long time to see it coming, and the Rapture would have confirmed to many left-behind people that Bible prophecy is true.</p>
<p>Another problem with this timeline is that it would require the UN to change their SDG deadline to 2033 in order to have a seven-year covenant, which they claim they will not do. They can't just shorten the covenant to four years to try to meet the old 2030 deadline, or else the confirmation of the covenant with 'many' wouldn't be for a period of seven years (Daniel 9:27).</p>
<p>So let us presume that in this timeline, the UN extends their SDG deadline to 2033.</p>
<p>The Bible tells us the Antichrist will declare himself to be God in the rebuilt Temple halfway through the Tribulation (2 Thessalonians 2:4, Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15-24), perhaps after almost miraculously surviving what should have been a deadly wound to his head (Revelation 13:3-4, 13:11-14).</p>
<p>He will also miraculously kill the two witnesses who will have been prophesying in the streets of Jerusalem without anyone being able to harm them for the first 1260 days of the Tribulation (Revelation 11:3-13). The world will celebrate his victory over these two 'nuisances' (Revelation 11:9-10).</p>
<p>In this timeline, that means these events would happen sometime around 2030.</p>
<p>After these dramatic events, the Antichrist might receive the full authority of all ten kings (Revelation 17:12-13) in order for him to force the world to meet the UN's SDG goals at all costs, because the world has "run out of time," and so "tough love" is needed to save the world from its own undoing.</p>
<p>That means the Antichrist must have absolute power, and so everyone who resists going along with his orders and/or refuses to take his <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> would be portrayed as being enemies of humanity who deserve execution (Revelation 13:7-10, 13:15-18, 20:4). Many people might approve of the Antichrist's drastic dictatorial actions simply out of fear.</p>
<p>One slight benefit of this timeline is that the 33 AD date for Jesus' crucifixion may line up better with a lunar eclipse that occurred on the night after the potential day when Jesus was crucified.<cite>58</cite></p>
<p>Another slight benefit is that if Jesus was born in 3-2 BC and was crucified in 33 AD, he would have been 34-35 when he died, which would have made him about 31-32 when he began his ministry. This would have been a respectable age for a Rabbi to begin teaching. Church tradition says Jesus was 33 when he was crucified, which doesn't match either of these timelines, however, tradition is not always correct.</p>
<h3>My Preference for Jesus To Return In 2030</h3>
<p>Personally, I think the 2030 timeline for Jesus' second coming would be more ideal and less complicated than the 2033 timeline.</p>
<p>The 2030 timeline fits all the events together perfectly without extra-large gaps between the Rapture and the Tribulation, and without requiring some other equally world-changing event to happen before this September in order to throw off the UN SDG summit until 2026.</p>
<p>Of course, I would also like the Rapture to happen so that I could go be with Jesus as soon as possible, so perhaps my judgment is biased. Yet I hope yours is too, because if you are also hoping that Jesus will soon return at the Rapture, then you will receive an eternal heavenly crown as a reward (2 Timothy 4:8).</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Of course, all of this is somewhat speculative, even if it seems right now like it could all fit perfectly with Bible prophecy.</p>
<p>It would fit especially well if Jesus' second coming will be in 2030, and if so, the Rapture will happen sometime in 2023, likely before the UN's upcoming SDG summit on September 18-19. Alternatively, perhaps something else will interrupt this summit from being held, and the seven-year covenant the Antichrist will sign with 'many' will actually be a different agreement.</p>
<p>However, because of how all the evidence suggests that this UN summit <em>really might be</em> the fulfillment of the Daniel 9:27 prophecy, I believe that Christians should be extra, extra ready for Jesus to appear in the clouds for the Rapture during the next few months (e.g., Matthew 24:44-50).</p>
<p>We <em>really might be</em> seeing all these things beginning to happen (Luke 21:28), just like the Bible tells us we will if we're paying attention (Hebrews 10:25, 1 Thessalonians 5:2-5). If this analysis is accurate, we could even begin literally counting down the days to the start of the Tribulation, even if the Rapture could still happen anytime before then.</p>
<p>Thus, since we won't know for sure the day or the hour of the Rapture (Matthew 24:36), I would highly recommend that Christians should get your Rapture letters written and put them where someone might find them after the Rapture. Also, tell your unbelieving friends/family about the Rapture ahead of time to warn them, and share the gospel with them as often as you can, even if it risks making them annoyed with you, or if you worry they will think you're crazy.</p>
<p>It's worth it to be ready so that we're caught serving Jesus when he returns (Matthew 24:42-51), rather than scoffing and saying the Rapture definitely won't happen in the next few weeks (2 Peter 3:3-4).</p>
<p>But if the Rapture hasn't happened before the UN's upcoming SDG summit finishes, and they do go ahead and reconfirm these 2030 SDG goals, then we'll know that it was not the covenant in Daniel 9:27, despite this agreement having some strikingly similar features. We will know this because a mid-wrath or post-Tribulation Rapture are not biblical options, because of how the Bible says life will be going on like <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/expect-the-rapture-when-things-are-normal/">normal at the Rapture</a>. Life will certainly <em>not</em> be normal either during or after the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Jesus promises that Christians will be kept safe from the entire time of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10). The revealing of the Antichrist occurs at the start of the Tribulation (Revelation 6:1-2), and the key identifier that will reveal the Antichrist will be how he confirms the seven-year covenant in Daniel 9:27.</p>
<p>Therefore, people who are Christians now and people who become Christians before the start of the Tribulation absolutely <em>cannot</em> still be here on Earth after the Antichrist confirms the real seven-year covenant.</p>
<p>Remember: just because the Rapture hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it will never happen. One of these days, it <em>will</em> happen. Some particular day <em>will</em> be the last day of 'normal' before the Rapture. Some particular week <em>will</em> be the very last week before the Tribulation begins. It's only a question of time.</p>
<p>It's very possible that the next few days, weeks, or months will be a <em>very</em> good time for the Rapture. Christians should get excited, do what we can to spread the gospel, warn others about being left behind after the Rapture to face the Tribulation, and spiritually prepare ourselves to meet Jesus face to face.</p>
<p>If you have never before trusted in Jesus as your savior, now is possibly your very last chance to do so in order to not miss the Rapture.</p>
<p>Accepting <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">the gospel message is completely free</a>, and you can do it right now, simply by praying to Jesus in your thoughts or out loud, and saying you believe in him and accept his death on the cross for your sins, so that you can have eternal life (John 3:16).</p>
<h3>September 20, 2023 Update</h3>
<p>Apparently, already on September 18th, the UN has officially adopted a declaration to accelerate their pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals over the next seven years.<cite>59</cite></p>
<p>So it seems that since the Rapture hasn't happened, this was not (or is not yet) the seven-year covenant with "many" that is prophesied in Daniel 9:27, despite how promising it appeared to be.</p>
<p>There has also not been any particularly interesting individual who has recently popped up on the international stage who seems like a good candidate for the Antichrist.</p>
<p>Therefore, because the Rapture must happen before the Tribulation, which begins with the Antichrist confirming a seven-year covenant with 'many', we know that the Tribulation has not begun. However, there are still good reasons to stay watching closely for the Rapture throughout the rest of September 2023.</p>
<p>The 'Revelation 12' sign that several end-times watchers on Youtube were paying close attention to over the last month or so has a ton of interesting detail that all points to the union of Christ with his Church at the Rapture. There is too much to go into here, but you can find several videos about some of the things going on in this astronomical sign on the Youtube channel God A Minute.<cite>60</cite></p>
<p>Now, I don't find every single detail of this analysis to be convincing, but all together, the sheer number of interesting things going on in the constellation Virgo right around September 19 seems like too much to just be a coincidence. Many end-times watchers believe this sign indicates the Rapture is about to happen. However, even though the ideal alignment of this sign on September 19 has passed, the full series of interesting celestial events won't be over until September 23 or even a few days later.</p>
<p>Furthermore, very important meetings at the UN will continue until September 26th, which is the day after the Jewish feast of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).</p>
<p>Some end-times watchers have argued that if 2023 is a Jubilee year, then the Feast of Trumpets is actually celebrated at the same time as the Day of Atonement, which this year is September 24-25. So if the Rapture will occur on the Feast of Trumpets, there is possibly a second opportunity for the prophetic significance of that feast to be fulfilled on the exact day it occurs in 2023.</p>
<p>Yet whenever I've looked into it, I've found that it's very difficult to determine which year is a Jubilee year, or even which year is a Sabbatical year (Leviticus 25). Many end-times watchers disagree about these things, and so I can't say for sure if the claim that 2023 is a Jubilee year is correct. There is also no Bible verse about the Feast of Trumpets moving to the Day of Atonement in a Jubilee year.</p>
<p>But if it is true that 2023 is a Jubilee year, it could explain why the Rapture has not yet happened although the usual date for the Feast of Trumpets, the SDG summit, the International Day of Peace, the Saudi-EU peace discussion about Israel-Palestinian peace, and the Revelation 12 sign that all appeared to fit together so nicely have passed.</p>
<p>Another possibility is that the Rapture could occur on the Day of Atonement, and Jesus will fulfill the Feast of Trumpets again later at his second coming. Some end-times watchers have even argued that we could look at the last fall feast, the Feast of Booths, as a potential Rapture high-watch time, but this is a less-popular opinion.</p>
<p>Others have looked at the upcoming full moon on September 29 as perhaps having some significance, although to me, that seems less relevant than some of these previous options.</p>
<p>So although as of the posting of this update, September 19 and the UN's SDG summit is officially over, there are still several more interesting days to look for in September, so I believe it's still a high-watch time for the Rapture.</p>
<p>Yet regardless of what happens, none of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">signs of the end-times</a> that Jesus said to watch for before his return have disappeared, and they will continue to increase in frequency and intensity just like he said they would (Mark 13:8, compare with Isaiah 66:9).</p>
<p>Until the Rapture happens, the Holy Spirit who is at work through the Church will continue to restrain the appearance of the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8). Things will remain <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/expect-the-rapture-when-things-are-normal/">generally 'normal'</a> like in the days of Noah and Lot when people were eating, drinking, marrying, buying, and selling (Matthew 24:37-38, Luke 17:28-30) until the Rapture occurs and the sudden destruction of the Tribulation begins when they are saying "peace and safety" (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).</p>
<p>So there is no reason for anyone who was particularly excited by this high-watch time to be disappointed. Nothing has really changed, and it's likely that the Revelation 12 sign meant something in relation to the end times and the Rapture, even if we don't know for sure what that is. Some have thought it is a seven-day 'warning sign' before the Rapture on the Feast of Atonement, but again, we would have to wait to see if that is true.</p>
<p>Hold on to your hope in Jesus' soon return at the Rapture, so that you don't lose the Crown of Righteousness that is promised to everyone who loves watching for Jesus' return (2 Timothy 4:8, Revelation 3:10-11).</p>
<p>Jesus is still coming back very soon, and it is still very important to tell others about him and how they can be saved by believing in him so they can have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">eternal life</a>, and also, be ready for the Rapture whenever it does happen.</p>
<h2>Appendix: Evidence for Jesus' Crucifixion in 30 AD</h2>
<p>As mentioned earlier, scholars seem to be divided on what year Jesus was crucified, whether it was 30 AD, or 33 AD. This is relevant to end-times Bible prophecy if Jesus will return exactly two thousand years from the year he died, came back to life, and ascended to heaven.</p>
<p>The recent <em>Messiah 2030</em> documentary presents some fascinating evidence from the Jews' own sources that may confirm that Jesus died in 30 AD, exactly 40 years before the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans.<cite>61</cite></p>
<p>The Bible says when Jesus died, the thick curtain that separated the rest of the Temple from the Holy of Holies where God's presence dwelled suddenly tore in half, right from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51, Mark 15:38). So it would not be out of place for other supernatural signs to have also begun occurring in the Temple in 30 AD.</p>
<p>Supposedly, in the Jerusalem Talmud, it says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Forty years before the destruction of the temple, the western light went out, the crimson thread remained crimson, and the lot for the Lord always came up in the [high priest's] left hand. They would close the gates of the Temple by night and get up in the morning and find them wide open (Jacob Neunser, <em>The Yerushalmi</em> p.156-157).</span></p>
<p>The Babylonian Talmud supposedly agrees:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Our rabbis taught: During the last forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the lot ['for the Lord'] did not come up in the right hand; nor did the crimson-colored strap become white; nor did the western most light shine; and the doors of the Hekel [Temple] would open by themselves (Soncino version, Yoma 39b).</span></p>
<p>Some of these details (the 'lot' and the crimson thread/strap) refer to details of two animal sacrifices that occurred every year on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).</p>
<p>The lot for the sacrificial goat coming up in the high priest's left hand every year for 40 years is statistically extremely unlikely. The color change of the sacrificial goat's thread/strap should have signified that God had accepted the high priest's sacrifice and forgiven the people's sins for another year. The western light/lamp was supposedly used to re-light the rest of the temple's lamps the next day, and so the western lamp was given an extra-large reservoir of oil so that it should have been able to burn all night long.</p>
<p>To me, this is all extremely interesting, because it likely provides strong confirmation that Jesus did die in 30 C.E.</p>
<p>Since Jesus provided the single sacrifice that takes away all sin forever (Hebrews 7:27, 10:12-14, 1 John 2:2), there was no longer any need for the Jewish sacrificial system to allow people to have a right relationship with God. Now, everyone who believes in Jesus as their savior has all their sins forgiven once and for all (Acts 10:43).<cite>62</cite></p>
<p>Theologically, the evidence mentioned about the scarlet thread/strap turning white fits well with the above Christian interpretation, just like Isaiah 1:18 and Daniel 12:10 imply.</p>
<p>The color scarlet is the color of blood, and without blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). Yet God's perfect righteousness is often symbolized by the color of pure white (e.g., Daniel 7:9, 11:35, Matthew 17:2, Luke 9:29, Revelation 1:14, 7:14). 2 Corinthians 5:21 says "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Jesus is also described as our perfect, final high priest (Hebrews 7:23-28).</p>
<p>So the scarlet thread/strap turning white after a sacrifice for sin was made by Israel's high priest would have strong theological significance, as would the scarlet thread/strap no longer turning white after Jesus had made the final perfect sacrifice for sin in 30 AD.</p>
<p>In fact, the author of the Book of Hebrews warned the early Jewish Christians that if any of them returned to the system of animal sacrifices after believing in Jesus, it would be like they were rejecting Jesus as their Messiah, in a similar way to how Jesus had been rejected by the Jewish leaders before he was crucified (Hebrews 6:4-6, John 19:14-16, Mark 15:9-15).</p>
<p>Of course, currently, Jews who do not believe that Jesus was their Messiah reject this interpretation and have alternative explanations for such events. They also criticize this interpretation that is given by Christians.<cite>63</cite></p>
<p>This criticism isn't surprising to Christians, since Paul said Israel became partly blinded/hardened to the fact that Jesus truly was their prophesied Messiah (e.g. see Isaiah 53:1-12) while the gospel goes out to the rest of the world (Romans 11:25, Acts 13:45-47).</p>
<p>Yet during the Tribulation, 144,000 Jews will come to faith in Jesus (Revelation 7:1-8), perhaps due to the preaching of the two witnesses during the first 1260 days of the Tribulation (Revelation 11:3).</p>
<p>By the end of the Tribulation, the surviving one-third of Israel will finally recognize that Jesus is their Messiah who is the promised descendant of David (Zechariah 12:10–14, Isaiah 9:6–7, Luke 1:31–32, Acts 2:22–36), and they will call out for him to save them from the Antichrist's armies that have gathered against Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:7–9, 13:8–9, 14:3-5, 14:12-15, Revelation 16:14-16).</p>
<p>This is the moment that Jesus promised his second coming would occur (Matthew 23:39, Luke 13:35).</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Grant R. Jeffrey, <em>Countdown To The Apocalypse</em> (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbook Press, 2008), 15, 132; Mark Hitchcock, <em>Who Is The Antichrist?</em> (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2011), 108-112, 121-124.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Gilad Sharon, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/ariel-sharons-son-explains-why-israel-cannot-return-to-pre-1967-borders">"Ariel Sharon’s Son Explains Why Israel Cannot Return To Pre-1967 Borders,"</a> <em>The Daily Beast</em>, October 9, 2011, updated July 13, 2017. In 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued similarly, saying "We can't go back to those indefensible lines" (<em>NBC News</em>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43106082">"'We can't go back': Israeli PM rejects 1967 border proposal,"</a> May 20, 2011). This is still the position of several ministers in Israel's government today (World Israel News Staff, <a href="https://worldisraelnews.com/israeli-ministers-to-biden-two-state-solution-is-suicide-land-of-israel-is-ours/">"Israeli ministers to Biden: The land of Israel is ours, two state solution is suicide,"</a> <em>World Israel News</em>, July 10, 2023.)</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> "The hard core of the Abraham Accords is regional security cooperation against Iran." James Traub, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/08/netanyahu-israel-united-states-saudi-arabia-abraham-accords/">"Netanyahu Has Drawn a Saudi-U.S. Road Map,"</a> <em>Foreign Policy</em>, February 8, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> "All the Saudis I met, officially or not, on the record or off, made a point of saying that they are ready for diplomatic relations with Israel only if the Palestinian issue is resolved. It sounded to me like they were still following the old Saudi playbook: A resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would have to come before normalization." Eric R. Mandel, <a href="https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/will-saudi-arabia-join-the-abraham-accords/">"Will Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords?"</a> <em>Israel Hayom</em>, March 11, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> William D. Mounce, <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 143, 911, 1038, 439, 1050.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> William D. Mounce, <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 143.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> United Nations, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/SDGSummit2023">"United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Summit 2023"</a>.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/desa/we-need-7-years-accelerated-transformative-action-achieve-sdgs">"We Need 7 Years of Accelerated, Transformative Action to Achieve SDGs,"</a> June 13, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> United Nations, <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2023/05/un-2023-sdg-summit/">"UN 2023 SDG Summit."</a>
</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> "Covenant" in the <em>Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary</em>, eds. Chad Brand, Charles Draper, and Archie England (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 355. They define a covenant as an "oath-bound promise whereby one party solemnly pledges to bless or serve another party in some specified way."</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal17">"Goal 17."</a>
</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> "The SDG Summit, in September 2023, must signal a genuine turning point. It must mobilize the political commitment and breakthroughs our world desperately needs. It must deliver a rescue plan for people and planet. At the center of this rescue plan, Heads of State and Government must recommit to seven years of accelerated, sustained, and transformative action, both nationally and internationally, to deliver on the promise of the SDGs." United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/desa/we-need-7-years-accelerated-transformative-action-achieve-sdgs">"We Need 7 Years of Accelerated, Transformative Action to Achieve SDGs,"</a> June 13, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> United Nations, <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2023/05/un-2023-sdg-summit/">"UN 2023 SDG Summit."</a></li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> United Nations, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/conferences/SDGSummit2023">"United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Summit 2023"</a>.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/desa/we-need-7-years-accelerated-transformative-action-achieve-sdgs">"We Need 7 Years of Accelerated, Transformative Action to Achieve SDGs,"</a> June 13, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Joe Hoft, <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/red-pope-francis-calls-new-economic-system-guarantees-food-health-economic-social-rights/">"Red Pope Francis Calls for 'New Economic System' that Guarantees 'Food, Health, Economic and Social Rights',"</a> <em>The Gateway Pundit</em>, October 16, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Le Monde with AFP, <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/06/22/paris-climate-summit-opens-with-macron-s-call-for-public-finance-shock_6035330_4.html">"Global Financial Pact summit opens with Macron's call for 'public finance shock',"</a> <em>Le Monde</em>, June 22, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Kate Irwin, <a href="https://insidebitcoins.com/news/un-proposes-digital-id-system-for-banking-and-mobile-payments">"UN Proposes Digital ID System for Banking and Mobile Payments,"</a> <em>Inside Bitcoins</em>, June 25, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> Calum Handforth and Kendrick Lee, <a href="https://www.undp.org/blog/how-digital-can-close-identity-gap">"How digital can close the 'identity gap',"</a> United Nations Development Programme, May 19, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> Aaron Kheriaty, <a href="https://brownstone.org/articles/who-treaty-tied-to-digital-passport-id-system/">"The WHO Treaty Is Tied to a Global Digital Passport and ID System,"</a> <em>Brownstone Institute</em>, May 24, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>21.</strong> "As of July 2022, there were nearly 100 CBDCs in research or development stages and two fully launched: the eNaira in Nigeria." Andrew Stanley, <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/09/Picture-this-The-ascent-of-CBDCs">"The Ascent of CBDCs,"</a> International Monetary Fund, September 2022.</li>
<li><strong>22.</strong> Leo Hohmann, <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/worldcoin-ceo-global-digital-currency-tied-global-digital/">"Worldcoin CEO: Global Digital Currency Tied To Global Digital ID Will Soon Be Required 'Whether You Like It Or Not',"</a> <em>The Gateway Pundit</em>, July 21, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>23.</strong> Ahmed Eljechtimi, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/imf-working-global-central-bank-digital-currency-platform-2023-06-19/">"IMF working on global central bank digital currency platform,"</a> <em>Reuters</em>, June 19, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>24.</strong> Jacob Nordangard, <a href="https://www.technocracy.news/global-digital-id-fur-alle-seen-as-key-to-sustainable-development-goals/">"Global Digital ID Coming On Heels Of Coronavirus Panic Of 2020,"</a> <em>Technocracy News & Trends</em>, April 6, 2020.</li>
<li><strong>25.</strong> Ian Austen, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-protest-finances.html">"Canada Ends Its Freeze on Hundreds of Accounts Tied to Protests,"</a> <em>The New York Times</em>, February 22, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>26.</strong> United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/desa/we-need-7-years-accelerated-transformative-action-achieve-sdgs">"We Need 7 Years of Accelerated, Transformative Action to Achieve SDGs,"</a> June 13, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>27.</strong> Neil Murphy, <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/uk-news/2023/06/28/king-charles-helps-unveils-climate-countdown-clock-at-london-summit/">"King Charles unveils climate countdown clock at London summit,"</a> <em>The National News</em>, June 28, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>28.</strong> <em>Messiah 2030 - The Prophetic Timeline (Part 1)</em> is currently available on YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AG_nJNcTjM">here</a>, or on their website <a href="https://watch.messiah2030.com/">https://watch.messiah2030.com/</a>. However, this documentary does not talk about the Rapture in relation to Jesus' second coming, and on their <a href="https://watch.messiah2030.com/forums">discussion forums</a>, they seem to deny the biblical teaching of a pre-Tribulation Rapture. Yet this theological error does not significantly impact the documentary's conclusions regarding a possible year for Jesus' second coming.</li>
<li><strong>29.</strong> Within the span of years between 30 AD to 33 AD, it was only the Passovers on April 7 of 30 AD and April 3 of 33 AD where the Day of Preparation occurred on a Friday, which lines up with what the Bible says about the day when Jesus was crucified (John 19:14, Luke 23:54, Mark 15:42, Matthew 27:62). See <a href="https://bethlehemstar.com/the-day-of-the-cross/dating-the-crucifixion/">"Dating the Crucifixion"</a> at BethlehemStar.com.</li>
<li><strong>30.</strong> Sam Nadler, <em>Messiah in the Feasts of Israel</em>, Revised Edition (Charlotte, NC: Word of Messiah Ministries, 2010), 4-5. Nadler's book provides more details on Israel's feasts and how they are fulfilled in Jesus both historically and in the future. Similar arguments can be found on many Christian apologetic websites that focus on preaching the gospel to Jews.</li>
<li><strong>31.</strong> Sam Nadler, <em>Messiah in the Feasts of Israel</em>, Revised Edition (Charlotte, NC: Word of Messiah Ministries, 2010), 108.</li>
<li><strong>32.</strong> Jeff Van Hatten, <a href="https://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=206433">"No One Knows The Day Or Hour, A Hebrew Idiom,"</a>, <em>FaithWriters</em> 11/05/20.</li>
<li><strong>33.</strong> I don't have space to discuss this idea in more detail now, but you can watch several in-depth videos on this topic on the YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@Generation2434/streams">Generation2434</a>.</li>
<li><strong>34.</strong> United Nations, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace">"International Day of Peace."</a>
</li>
<li><strong>35.</strong> United Nations, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace">"International Day of Peace."</a>
</li>
<li><strong>36.</strong> United Nations, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace">"International Day of Peace."</a>
</li>
<li><strong>37.</strong> Kent Masing, <a href="https://www.ibtimes.com/medvedev-threatens-use-russias-arsenal-inhumane-weapons-warns-world-war-3-getting-closer-3704786">"Medvedev Threatens To Use Russia's Arsenal Of 'Inhumane Weapons'; Warns World War 3 Is 'Getting Closer',"</a>, <em>International Business Times</em> July 12, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>38.</strong> Robert Farley, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/conflicts-that-could-turn-into-world-war-iii-during-2023-2023-1?op=1">"5 places World War III could start in 2023,"</a> <em>Business Insider</em>, January 3, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>39.</strong> Danielle Ziri, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Israel-commits-to-new-UN-sustainable-development-agenda-421543">"Israel commits to new UN sustainable development agenda,"</a> <em>The Jerusalem Post</em>, October 11, 2015.</li>
<li><strong>40.</strong> <a href="https://sdg.iisd.org/news/un-secretary-general-outlines-priorities-for-the-un-for-2023/">"UN Secretary-General Outlines Priorities for the UN for 2023,"</a> <em>IISD SDG Knowledge Hub</em>, February 8, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>41.</strong> United Nations Office of the High Commissioner, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/06/right-return-palestinian-refugees-must-be-prioritised-over-political">"Right of return of Palestinian refugees must be prioritised over political considerations: UN experts,"</a> June 21, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>42.</strong> Anadolu, <a href="https://www.nation.com.pk/21-Jul-2023/un-chief-reaffirms-his-support-for-two-state-solution-in-meeting-with-israeli-president">"UN chief reaffirms his support for two-state solution in meeting with Israeli president,"</a> <em>The Nation</em>, July 21, 2023. Anadolu, <a href="https://www.nation.com.pk/10-Jul-2023/pope-calls-on-israel-palestine-to-resume-dialogue-amid-ongoing-escalation">"Pope calls on Israel, Palestine to resume dialogue amid ongoing escalation,"</a> <em>The Nation</em>, July 10, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>43.</strong> Anadolu, <a href="https://www.nation.com.pk/25-May-2023/stop-encroaching-upon-palestinian-land-china-tells-israel">"'Stop encroaching upon Palestinian land,’ China tells Israel,"</a> <em>The Nation</em>, May 25, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>44.</strong> Jacob Magid, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudis-co-hosting-un-event-aimed-at-revamping-israeli-palestinian-peace-process/">"Saudis co-hosting UN event aimed at revamping Israeli-Palestinian peace process"</a>, The Times of Israel, September 14, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>45.</strong> Tovah Lazaroff, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/international/article-759623">"Saudi Arabia, EU launch new initiative for Israeli-Palestinian peace"</a>, The Jersualem Post, September 19, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>46.</strong> Tovah Lazaroff, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-759725">"Biden: US to work for Israeli normalization and two states"</a>, The Jerusalem Post, September 19, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>47.</strong> James Rogers, <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/time-for-the-d10-to-replace-the-g7/">"Time for the D10 to replace the G7?"</a> June 16, 2020.</li>
<li><strong>48.</strong> Vinod Dsouza, <a href="https://watcher.guru/news/5-new-countries-to-join-brics-alliance-in-august">"5 New Countries To Join BRICS Alliance in August,"</a> Watcher.guru, June 30, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>49.</strong> Tim Cocks, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/more-than-40-nations-interested-joining-brics-south-africa-2023-07-20/">"More than 40 nations interested in joining BRICS, South Africa says,"</a> <em>Reuters</em>, July 20, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>50.</strong> Mihaela Papa, <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/06/25/dollar-reserve-currency-brics-brazil-russia-india-china-south-africa/">"How long will the dollar last as the world’s default currency? The BRICS nations are gathering in South Africa this August with it on the agenda,"</a> <em>Fortune</em>, June 25, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>51.</strong> Oliver Stuenkel, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/22/brics-summit-brazil-russia-india-china-south-africa-putin-nonalignment-global-south/">"BRICS Faces a Reckoning,"</a> <em>Foreign Policy</em>, June 25, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>52.</strong> Astrid Prange, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/a-new-world-order-brics-nations-offer-alternative-to-west/a-65124269">"A new world order? BRICS nations offer alternative to West,"</a> <em>DW</em>, April 10, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>53.</strong> <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/brics-summit-calls-for-establishment-of-independent-palestinian-state/">"BRICS Summit Calls for Establishment of Independent Palestinian State,"</a> <em>The Palestine Chronicle</em>, July 24, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>54.</strong> Carien du Plessis, Anait Miridzhanian and Bhargav Acharya, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/brics-poised-invite-new-members-join-bloc-sources-2023-08-24/">"BRICS welcomes new members in push to reshuffle world order"</a>, Reuters, August 24, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>55.</strong> <a href="https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/mercosur/argentina/argentina-will-not-join-brics-group-and-alberto-fernandez-desisted-from-participating-in-summit/">"Argentina will not join the BRICS group; Alberto Fernandez has renounced participation in the summit"</a>, The Rio Times, August 21, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>56.</strong> <a href="https://en.mercopress.com/2023/08/26/main-opposition-candidates-against-argentina-joining-brics">"Main opposition candidates against Argentina joining BRICS"</a>, MercoPress, August 26, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>57.</strong> See <a href="https://bethlehemstar.com/setting-the-stage/why-are-we-hearing-this-now/">"Dating Christ's Birth"</a> at BethlehemStar.com.</li>
<li><strong>58.</strong> See <a href="https://bethlehemstar.com/the-day-of-the-cross/dating-the-crucifixion/">"Dating the Crucifixion"</a> at BethlehemStar.com.</li>
<li><strong>59.</strong> <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140857">"UN General Assembly adopts declaration to accelerate SDGs"</a>, UN News, September 18, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>60.</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@GodAMinuteGoJesusGo/videos">God a Minute</a>, YouTube.com </li>
<li><strong>61.</strong> See the documentary <em>Messiah 2030 - The Prophetic Timeline (Part 1)</em>, starting at 1 hour 31 minutes on YouTube <a href="https://youtu.be/4AG_nJNcTjM?t=5371">here</a> or at <a href="https://watch.messiah2030.com/">https://watch.messiah2030.com/</a>. This information is confirmed and explained more from a Jewish perspective by Tovia Singer, <a href="https://outreachjudaism.org/yomkippur/">"Why Didn't the Red Ribbon on the Head of the Scapegoat Turn White in 30 C.E.?"</a> <em>Outreach Judaism</em>, although Tovia does not accept the Christian interpretation of the evidence mentioned here.</li>
<li><strong>62.</strong> Yet the Bible prophesies that animal sacrifices will be reinstated during Jesus' Millennial Kingdom in a limited way (Ezekiel 43:18-27, 44:10-16, 45:22), and at least the Feast of Booths will be celebrated worldwide (Zechariah 14:16-19). I wonder if these sacrifices during the Millennial Kingdom are intended to remind the people who will be alive during that time of Jesus' past sacrificial death for sin, since the people will not be seeing death, violence, and blood as an everyday part of their blessed experience (Isaiah 11:1-9, 65:20-23).</li>
<li><strong>63.</strong> Tovia Singer, <a href="https://outreachjudaism.org/yomkippur/">"Why Didn't the Red Ribbon on the Head of the Scapegoat Turn White in 30 C.E.?"</a> <em>Outreach Judaism</em>. Despite Tovia's alternative explanation, Tovia does not directly cite any textual evidence to support the claim that these unusual signs did not begin happening immediately and consistently after 30 AD.</li>
</ul>Read This When Millions of People Suddenly Disappear2023-09-13T00:00:00+00:002023-09-13T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2023-09-13:/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/<p>Have millions or even billions of people around the world suddenly disappeared all at once, in the blink of an eye? Even perhaps including some of your friends and family?</p>
<p>Is the world full of fear, confusion, and chaos as a result?</p>
<p>Are the world's leading experts claiming that it …</p><p>Have millions or even billions of people around the world suddenly disappeared all at once, in the blink of an eye? Even perhaps including some of your friends and family?</p>
<p>Is the world full of fear, confusion, and chaos as a result?</p>
<p>Are the world's leading experts claiming that it was a mass abduction by aliens? Or maybe some shift into a new era or dimension of consciousness?</p>
<p>If so, I want to reassure you that no, it wasn't. And all those people who disappeared are completely safe.</p>
<p>In fact, they're now happier than they have ever been in their entire lives. You don't need to worry about them.</p>
<p>In this post below, I'll explain what has happened, what it means, and what you need to know for your immediate future, because things are about to become very dangerous for everyone who has been left behind on Earth.</p>
<h2>Where Did All The Missing People Go?</h2>
<p>This event, although it has been shocking to you, has actually been known about for just a little less than two thousand years. You've probably even heard it mentioned before.</p>
<p>It's called <em>the Rapture</em>, and it's described in the Bible:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).</span></p>
<p>At the exact same moment, God changed the bodies of the people who disappeared from mortal to immortal:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).</span></p>
<p>After everyone who was raptured met Jesus in the clouds, we went from there to heaven, where Jesus has been preparing places for us to stay with him. Jesus said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:1-3).</span></p>
<p>So that's what just happened. Everybody who suddenly disappeared had, at some point in their lives, believed that Jesus Christ had died for their sins so that they could have the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">free gift of eternal life</a>:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:16-18, NRSVA).</span></p>
<p>If all or at least some children have suddenly disappeared also, it is because they fit into one of two categories:</p>
<ol>
<li>They were old enough to have personally believed in Jesus, and did so.</li>
<li>They were too young to have personally believed in Jesus, or were older but mentally incapable of doing so. But God, in his love and mercy, chose to spare them from having to experience the terrible events that will be occurring on Earth over the next several years.</li>
</ol>
<p>I believe this second category will definitely include the young children of Christian parents, since God wouldn't rapture the parents and leave their helpless children behind. But it could potentially include all children who were not yet old enough to have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">personally rejected Jesus' offer of salvation</a>, since we know that Jesus loves children very much (Matthew 19:13-15, Matthew 18:1-6).</p>
<p>There is no specific age cutoff given in the Bible for children in relation to the Rapture. Some scholars argue that the age at which God counts people to be personally responsible for their beliefs may even be as high as twenty, based on Numbers 32:11, as well as modern scientific studies which suggest that a person's brain is only fully developed around that age. If so, it is possible that perhaps everyone who is under twenty years old may be taken to heaven in the Rapture.</p>
<p>The concept of the Rapture has been mocked for many years (2 Peter 3:3-4), despite there being several convincing <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">Biblical arguments for it</a>. Even now, authority figures and other experts of various sorts (maybe even some pastors and priests) are probably telling you that whatever just happened wasn't the Rapture.</p>
<p>But hopefully, if everything has happened as described above, this will convince you that the Bible is true and that Christians who warned about the coming Rapture were telling you the truth.</p>
<p>And if you believe that the Rapture did just happen, then you will hopefully care about what else the Bible says will happen in the next few years. Christians who have studied Bible prophecy refer to this upcoming period of time as <em>the Tribulation.</em></p>
<h2>What Do The Rapture And The Tribulation Mean?</h2>
<p>If you missed the Rapture, the good news is that there's still time for you to believe in Jesus as your savior.</p>
<p>However, you will be heading into the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Jesus warned that during the Tribulation,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">This will be the worst time of suffering since the beginning of the world, and nothing this terrible will ever happen again. If God doesn't make the time shorter, no one will be left alive. But because of God's chosen ones, he will make the time shorter (Matthew 24:21-22, CEV).</span></p>
<p>The Tribulation includes all the events that will occur as described in chapters 6 to 19 of the Biblical book of Revelation.</p>
<p>It ends with the second coming of Jesus Christ, along with his heavenly armies of saints and angels. Jesus will destroy the armies of the world who will make one last-ditch attempt to oppose him, and Jesus will then set up <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">his kingdom</a> that will last for 1000 years (Revelation 19:11-21, Jude 1:14-15, Revelation 20:1-6).</p>
<p>There may be some period of time between when the Rapture occurs and when the Tribulation starts. This gap could be perhaps as long as weeks, months, or even a year or two, because it will take some time for the world to get reorganized and deal with the chaos the Rapture caused. But I don't think the gap will be decades.</p>
<p>That's because the purpose of the Rapture was to prevent all true Christians (and perhaps all children) from experiencing God's wrath, which will be poured out on all the God-rejecting people who were left behind on Earth.</p>
<p>Jesus promised all true Christians who live before the Rapture that "I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world" (Revelation 3:10, NLT).</p>
<p>God also promised, through the Apostle Paul's writings, that Christians who believed in Jesus before the Rapture would not experience God's wrath and judgment, which would come on the world suddenly and surprise everyone who wasn't paying attention:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, "There is peace and security", then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness... For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him (1 Thessalonians 5:2-10, NRSVA).</span></p>
<p>Christians who studied Bible prophecy and paid attention to current events have warned for many decades that the world is approaching the Tribulation. We could see the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">signs of the end times</a> increasing in frequency and intensity, just like contractions do for a pregnant woman in labor, as mentioned in the verse above. But this was only the lead-up to the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Whenever the Rapture happens, afterward, there will no longer be a single true believer in Jesus left on the planet. This makes the world ready for God's testing and divine judgment.</p>
<p>Therefore, I believe the events of the Tribulation will begin quite quickly after the Rapture.</p>
<h2>What Will Happen During the Tribulation?</h2>
<p>The Tribulation will involve God sending twenty-one specific divine judgments on the world. These judgments are grouped into three sets, and are represented symbolically as Jesus opening the seals on a scroll, as angels blowing trumpets, or as angels pouring out bowls of divine wrath onto the world.</p>
<p>Here is a very brief summary of these future judgments:</p>
<h3>The 7 Seals</h3>
<ul>
<li>Seal 1: The revelation of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>, a.k.a. "the Beast" (Revelation 6:1-2, 2 Thessalonians 2:3). There is more information about him later in this post, to help you identify him when he appears.</li>
<li>Seal 2: Outbreak of worldwide wars and violence (Revelation 6:3-4, Matthew 24:6, Matthew 24:12).</li>
<li>Seal 3: Some sort of economic disaster and/or severe famine, which means that for most people, a day's wage will only buy a quart of wheat or 3 quarts of barley (Revelation 6:5-6).</li>
<li>Seal 4: One quarter of the world's population die from violence, famine, pestilence, and animal attacks (Revelation 6:7-8).</li>
<li>Seal 5: People who believed in Jesus after the Rapture may begin to be killed for their faith, just like many martyrs were in the past (Revelation 6:9-11), thus leading to a great number of people standing before God in heaven (Revelation 7:9-17, Matthew 24:9-10).</li>
<li>Seal 6: Something causes an earthquake that moves every mountain and island from their places, and meteorites strike many cities (Revelation 6:12-17).</li>
<li>Seal 7: Thunder, lightning, and an earthquake occur as the Trumpet judgments are prepared (Revelation 8:1-5).</li>
</ul>
<h3>The 7 Trumpets</h3>
<ul>
<li>Trumpet 1: A third of the trees and all green grass is burned up (Revelation 8:7).</li>
<li>Trumpet 2: Something like a large, burning mountain impacts the ocean, turning a third of it to blood, killing a third of the sea life, and destroying a third of the ships (Revelation 8:8-9).</li>
<li>Trumpet 3: A star from heaven falls that contaminates a third of the freshwater streams and rivers and people die from the bitter water (Revelation 8:10-11).</li>
<li>Trumpet 4: All sunlight, moonlight, and starlight reaching the earth is reduced by a third (Revelation 8:12).</li>
<li>Trumpet 5: Demonic locusts are released on the world that sting and torment people for five months (Revelation 9:1-11).</li>
<li>Trumpet 6: A third of humanity is killed by fire, smoke, and sulfur, perhaps centered around the Euphrates river (Revelation 9:18, 9:14).</li>
<li>Trumpet 7: An earthquake, lightning, and hail, as the seven bowl judgments are prepared (Revelation 11:15-19).</li>
</ul>
<h3>The 7 Bowls</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bowl 1: Painful sores break out on people who took the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> and worshiped the Antichrist (Revelation 16:2).</li>
<li>Bowl 2: The sea somehow becomes like the "blood of a corpse" and everything living in it dies (Revelation 16:3).</li>
<li>Bowl 3: The freshwater rivers also become like blood (Revelation 16:4-7).</li>
<li>Bowl 4: The sun scorches people with intense heat, causing them to cry out in pain (Revelation 16:8-9).</li>
<li>Bowl 5: The Antichrist's kingdom is plunged into darkness and people moan from their sores (Revelation 16:10-11).</li>
<li>Bowl 6: The Euphrates river dries up to allow the kings from the east to bring their armies for the battle of Armageddon (Revelation 16:12-16).</li>
<li>Bowl 7: The strongest earthquake in history occurs, many cities are destroyed, and extremely heavy hail falls (Revelation 16:17-21).</li>
</ul>
<p>This might all sound unbelievable now, but similar judgments happened back before the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt, to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave (Exodus 7:4-5). You can read about these judgments in the Biblical book of Exodus, chapters 7 to 12.</p>
<p>God has the power to do whatever he wants, and so I think even if we don't understand every detail of these judgments now, they will all be fulfilled perfectly. If you are alive on Earth during the Tribulation, you should be able to compare what you see in the book of Revelation to current events that are happening, as irrefutable proof that what the world is experiencing is divine judgment.</p>
<p>Additionally, during the Tribulation, two prophets will appear in Jerusalem and will prophesy for 1,260 days (Revelation 11:3):</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire (Revelation 11:6).</span></p>
<p>So that will also be going on along with all the rest of these judgments.</p>
<p>Finally, the battle of Armageddon happens, when the Antichrist will bring his armies down toward Jerusalem and try to make a final stand against Jesus who returns in the clouds with the armies of heaven (Revelation 19:11-19). But Jesus will win, the Antichrist's armies will be destroyed, and the Antichrist and False Prophet will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20-21).</p>
<p>When we consider all of these divine judgments that are prophesied to occur, it makes sense why Jesus says the Tribulation will be the worst time in humanity's history, and that if the Tribulation wasn't shortened, everyone would die (Matthew 24:21-22).</p>
<h2>It's Not Too Late For You</h2>
<p>Now, if you are reading this after millions or maybe even billions of people have suddenly disappeared, then you have missed the Rapture.</p>
<p>And due to all the divine judgments that will be happening over the next few years on Earth, there is a high chance you will end up dying in one way or another (Amos 5:18-19). So now is a really good time to make sure you know what your eternal destiny will be.</p>
<p>It's important for you to know that every human being is a sinner (Romans 3:10, 3:23), even those of us who were raptured.</p>
<p>Being a sinner means that we all act or have acted in ways that are not perfectly good or loving. Sinning is a violation of God's instructions for how all people should behave, which is summed up as <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">loving God and loving others</a> (Luke 10:27). And committing even one sin means we deserve eternal death:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).</span></p>
<p>But even now, it's not too late for you to choose to believe in Jesus as your personal savior, who died on the cross for your sins. He experienced the suffering and death that you justly deserve, to satisfy God's justice and pay the divine penalty for your sins, so that you can <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">have eternal life for free</a>.</p>
<p>It's extremely easy to accept this free offer of eternal life:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).</span></p>
<p>So if you have believed in Jesus, now, even if you die, you can be assured that someday you will be <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-christian-hope-of-resurrection/">resurrected</a> and will receive an immortal body that will never age, get sick, or be able to be injured or destroyed. You'll be reunited with everyone who disappeared in the Rapture, and with all the people who believed in God throughout history.</p>
<p>You'll get to live forever with God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, angels, and all the saints in the New Heaven and New Earth, where there will be no more crying, suffering, or death (Revelation 21, Hebrews 12:22-24).</p>
<p>There is far more that could be said about all of this, but for now, that's enough. I truly hope you have taken this advice to believe in Jesus.</p>
<p>Whether you have believed in Jesus or not, please continue reading, because there is a very important warning you need to hear.</p>
<h2>A Warning About The Antichrist, False Prophet, and Mark of the Beast</h2>
<p>After the Rapture, the next major thing to watch for is the appearance of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>.</p>
<p>He will likely appear to be a good guy with incredible charisma and intelligence. He will rapidly rise up in power and influence over the world, initially, through peaceful means (Revelation 6:1-2).</p>
<p>Ten world leaders will hand over their authority to him (Daniel 7:24, Revelation 17:12-13). He will confirm some sort of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/watch-for-the-seven-year-covenant-with-many/">covenant between "many"</a> that is designed to last for seven years (Daniel 9:27).</p>
<p>But don't trust him or be fooled by him, because he's actually working for Satan (Revelation 13:4-9, Matthew 24:4-5, Matthew 24:23-27).</p>
<p>Most people will follow him and be deceived by his lies:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">When the wicked one appears, Satan will pretend to work all kinds of miracles, wonders, and signs. Lost people will be fooled by his evil deeds. They could be saved, but they will refuse to love the truth and accept it. So God will make sure they are fooled into believing a lie. All of them will be punished, because they would rather do evil than believe the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, CEV).</span></p>
<p>Halfway through the Tribulation, the Antichrist will declare himself to be God in the rebuilt Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem (Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15-20, Mark 13:14-18):</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4, NIV).</span></p>
<p>As a result, the Antichrist will start persecuting anyone who believes in Jesus or who refuses to worship the Antichrist as God (Revelation 13:7-8, Daniel 7:25).</p>
<p>There will also be a powerful religious leader (the False Prophet) who will endorse the Antichrist and do miracles for him, which will be extremely impressive and deceive even more people:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It [the False Prophet] performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of all; and by the signs that it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, it deceives the inhabitants of earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived; and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed (Revelation 13:13-15, NRSVA).</span></p>
<p>Even more importantly, the False Prophet will require everyone to take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> or be cut off from all ability to buy and sell:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the <em>right hand</em> or the <em>forehead</em>, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.(Revelation 13:16-18, NRSVA).</span></p>
<p>So this warning is <em>VERY, VERY IMPORTANT</em> to pay attention to:</p>
<p><strong>If, for any reason, someone says that you can't buy or sell without opting into some system that requires a mark in/on your right hand or forehead, and/or someone tells you to worship someone who isn't Jesus returning in the clouds wearing a robe dipped in blood, sitting on a white horse, surrounded by the armies of heaven (Revelation 19:11-14), in a display that will be like lightning flashing from the east to the west (Matthew 24:27, Luke 17:24), DON'T DO IT. Even if it costs you your life.</strong></p>
<p>That's because:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, they will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name (Revelation 14:9-11).</span></p>
<p>So please, just don't accept the Mark!</p>
<p>I'm convinced that if you have truly believed in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will give you the ability to say no to taking the Mark, no matter what suffering you might have to face, even including torture or death.</p>
<p>You won't be able to take the Mark of the Beast because your eternal salvation is guaranteed the moment you believed in Jesus. You can never lose it or do anything to renounce it, due to how the Holy Spirit lives inside you now:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:13-14).</span></p>
<p>There are some end-times Bible teachers who argue that this divine sealing was only for Christians who lived before the Rapture. These teachers argue that people who believe in Jesus during the Tribulation (a.k.a. Tribulation saints) will have to keep themselves saved by their own effort.</p>
<p>But this can't be true, because eternal salvation is <em>always</em> by God's grace alone, through faith in Christ alone, and has nothing to do with our actions/works, or else people could brag that they did something to earn their salvation:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).</span></p>
<p>This verse would still apply to the Tribulation saints, and not just to Christians who believed in Jesus before the Rapture. There will not be some people who receive eternal life only by faith in God, and others who have to do something to earn it. As Charles Ryrie explains:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The basis of salvation in every age is the death of Christ; the <em>requirement</em> for salvation in every age is faith; the <em>object</em> of faith in every age is God; the <em>content</em> of faith changes in the various dispensations.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>So in all human history, everyone who has ever been saved had faith in God, and was saved only because Jesus died for them. Yet the specific details of what these saved people knew about God and about God's promise to send Jesus to die for their sins varied, since other than believing in God and/or Jesus, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/is-correct-theology-necessary-for-salvation/">no specific theological knowledge is necessary for salvation</a>.</p>
<p>How faithful people lived out their faith also varied, depending on what God called them to do. Some examples of difficult things that God called his faithful people to do can be seen in the Bible, the book of Hebrews, chapter 11.</p>
<p>So for believers in Jesus during the Tribulation, your faith will be demonstrated by standing strong and refusing to take the Mark of the Beast. Because if it were possible for you to be both sealed with the Holy Spirit and take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>, there would be a conflict with regard to your eternal destiny. God won't let that happen.</p>
<p>Therefore, you can be confident that God will give you the ability to stand strong and perhaps even face death as a testimony of your faith in him. But don't worry: if you are killed for your faith, you'll be resurrected and rewarded by ruling with Jesus when he returns at his Second Coming (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<h2>What You Should Do Now If The Rapture Has Happened</h2>
<p>If the Rapture has happened, then here's what I would strongly recommend you should do as soon as you can:</p>
<ol>
<li>If you didn't do it earlier, please believe that Jesus died for your sins so that you can have eternal life. Then no matter what happens, your eternal future in heaven is guaranteed (Ephesians 1:13-14).</li>
<li>Pray to God and ask him to give you strength and to protect you and provide for you, and to give you courage to stand strong in your faith during the persecution that will be coming. Also pray for discernment to not be deceived by lies and deception, and to have wisdom to know what to do.</li>
<li>Find or buy a Bible, because I suspect they will quickly be banned, confiscated, and destroyed. I also suspect the authorities will ban and destroy other Christian books and take down Christian websites. The homes of people who were raptured should have at least one Bible, and most churches store Bibles in their pews, offices, or libraries. Keep some extra Bibles around to give to others who have also chosen to believe in Jesus who don't already have one.</li>
<li>Start reading the Bible for yourself, and pray that the Holy Spirit will help you understand it. I would recommend for you to begin with the book of John, then read Matthew or Luke. The book of Revelation, especially chapters 6 to 19, will give you an outline of what to expect in the future, although some of it is presented symbolically. The book of Psalms may also be comforting and reassuring to you. If you're lucky, the homes of people who were raptured might also contain other Bible study resources and books on theology that could be helpful for you. But don't just believe everything in these other books without verifying it with the Bible (Acts 17:11).</li>
<li>Tell your family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors that the Rapture has just happened, and warn them to not believe whatever lies are being told by the authorities and experts. Warn them about what will be happening during the Tribulation, and tell them that they also need to believe in Jesus, and to not take the Mark of the Beast.</li>
<li>Begin stockpiling food, medicine, and basic supplies to help get you through the third Seal judgement and survive without taking the Mark of the Beast. Share generously with others in need (Matthew 25:34-40), and trust that God will help you have enough (Matthew 6:25-33).</li>
<li>Pray that God will give you wisdom about where you should go and what you should do in case you need to leave your current location due to disasters or violence.</li>
<li>Find a group of other new Christians to meet with to support and encourage each other, to pray for each other, to study the Bible, and to worship God together. Be careful, though, because there will be many churches still operating after the Rapture because they were run and attended by people who weren't truly Christians. Many of these churches might be promoting a new worldwide false religion that will persecute real Christians who will refuse to go along with it (Revelation 17). If the church you find to attend isn't talking about how you need to believe in Jesus to have eternal life, which is fully a gift of God's grace, and isn't warning you about the Tribulation, or about not taking the Mark of the Beast, or about not worshiping the Antichrist, I would go elsewhere.</li>
</ol>
<h2>What You Should Do Now if the Rapture Has Not Yet Happened</h2>
<p>If the Rapture has not yet happened, then here's my list of what I think you should do now while you still can:</p>
<ol>
<li>If you haven't done so before, believe that Jesus died for your sins so that you can have eternal life. Then look forward to one day being with Jesus, whether at the Rapture or perhaps sooner.</li>
<li>In the meantime, try to find a faithful church to attend which preaches that we are saved only by putting our faith in Christ, and not by anything we can do. (If you can't find a good church, I'd recommend watching pastor JD Farag's online services at <a href="https://www.jdfarag.org/">jdfarag.org</a> while you keep looking for a home church). Read your Bible and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-do-daily-devotions/">make time each day</a> to pray to God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit to get to know him better, and to be strengthened and comforted in difficult times.</li>
<li>If you know people who might be left behind, talk to them now about Jesus, and about the Rapture and the Tribulation. Offer to give them a Bible, if you have a spare one, or buy them one as a gift. Warn them about what will happen, and encourage them to put their faith in Jesus so they don't miss the Rapture. Pray that God will soften their hearts and open their ears and eyes to the truth. Or, in the worst case, pray that after the Rapture, they will wake up and realize you were telling them the truth, and that they will believe in Jesus then.</li>
<li>Do good things for God while you still can, to make a difference in the world and earn heavenly rewards (1 Corinthians 3:12-15, Matthew 25:14-30, John 9:4, Luke 19:13).</li>
</ol>
<p>Finally, I would encourage you to write a letter like the one I've written in this blog post to your currently non-Christian family, friends, or anyone else who might find it once the Rapture happens. Put a copy of your letter with your will or other important documents, and also put a copy in an obvious place where it will be seen by someone who enters your home to look for you (or for supplies) after you are raptured.</p>
<p>In your letter, do like I did earlier in this post: explain why you have suddenly disappeared, where you are now, and what will be happening next, and for people to avoid the Mark of the Beast at all costs. Encourage your reader to put their faith in Jesus, and give them any last wishes you might want to tell them.</p>
<p>Feel free to copy parts of this blog post and make use of it in your own letter, or simply copy my whole blog post into a text editor and print it to keep with your letter as a helpful resource for anyone who is left behind. If you want to include even more information about the end times, you can make use of my other relevant blog posts:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">How To Have Eternal Life</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">My Top 5 Reasons for the Rapture</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-all-christians-be-raptured/">Will All Christians Be Raptured?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">Are We In The End Times?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/expect-the-rapture-when-things-are-normal/">Expect The Rapture When Things Are 'Normal'</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Mistaking the Antichrist for Jesus</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Important: Regarding Buying and Selling</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/climate-change-and-the-end-times/">Climate Change and the End Times</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/watch-for-the-seven-year-covenant-with-many/">The Rapture Is Coming: Watch For The Seven-Year Covenant With 'Many'</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christians-should-not-fear-death/">Christians Should Not Fear Death</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/have-courage-to-be-disliked/">Have The Courage To Be Disliked</a></li>
</ul>
<p>If you have unbelieving family members, friends, or roommates, you could also explain to them now why you are writing this letter and where you are putting it, so that when the Rapture happens, they can find it for themselves if they don't want to read it now.</p>
<p>(Of course, if they <em>do</em> want to read it now, then that's a fantastic opportunity to share your faith with them, and to encourage them to believe in Jesus so that they can be raptured too!)</p>
<p>Personally, I also have a few books on my bookshelf that I've clustered together in plain sight and wrapped with a piece of white paper, on which I wrote in large text: "PLEASE READ these books in case of SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE of MILLIONS of PEOPLE". I hope that if my landlord, emergency services, or a looter comes into my apartment after the Rapture, they'll see the note and be intrigued enough to take the books. For me, these books include:</p>
<ul>
<li>a Bible.</li>
<li>Charles C. Bing, <em>Simply By Grace: An Introduction to God's Life Changing Gift</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2009). This is my favorite short and clear book about the gospel and the Christian life.</li>
<li>John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011). I recommend this book as a clear and easy to understand commentary on the book of Revelation. Another good option is Tim Lahaye, <em>Revelation Unveiled</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999).</li>
<li>Mark Hitchcock, <em>Who Is The Antichrist?</em> (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2011). This book should help those left behind identify the Antichrist and not fall for his deception.</li>
<li>Gary Bates, <em>Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection</em>, Updated and Expanded (Powder Springs, GA: Creation Book Publishers, 2011). This book offers a persuasive Christian explanation for what 'aliens' actually are (i.e., demons). I included it because I think the Rapture will most likely be explained away as a mass alien abduction, and I don't want people to fall for that lie.</li>
</ul>
<p>So you could also go through your books and see if there are any useful ones you can point people to after the Rapture. Or, maybe consider buying some of the above if you want some good resources to leave behind for others.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Based on everything that's happening in the world now, I think we can see things being set up for the first few seal judgments and other <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">signs of the end times</a>. The <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/watch-for-the-seven-year-covenant-with-many/">seven-year covenant with 'many'</a> may also be on the verge of being confirmed.</p>
<p>So I would encourage you to write your letter and talk to your non-Christian family and friends about Jesus and the Rapture very soon, because Jesus could come take Christians to heaven at any moment.</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:28).</span></p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Charles C. Ryrie, <em>Dispensationalism</em>, Revised and Expanded (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2007), 134.</li>
</ul>Will All Christians Be Raptured?2023-09-11T00:00:00+00:002023-09-11T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2023-09-11:/article/will-all-christians-be-raptured/<p>Sometimes when I bring up the topic of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, it seems to make some Christians nervous, rather than excited.</p>
<p>Yet the promise that Jesus will one day suddenly return in the clouds to resurrect all deceased Christians, transform all living Christians from mortal to immortal, and then take us …</p><p>Sometimes when I bring up the topic of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, it seems to make some Christians nervous, rather than excited.</p>
<p>Yet the promise that Jesus will one day suddenly return in the clouds to resurrect all deceased Christians, transform all living Christians from mortal to immortal, and then take us all to heaven with him before the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">Tribulation</a> begins is called our <em>blessed hope</em> (Titus 2:13). Paul tells Christians to <em>encourage</em> each other by reminding each other of the coming Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:18).</p>
<p>One reason that many Christians may not be looking forward to the Rapture is because they were told that only <em>some</em> Christians will be raptured, while the rest will be left behind on Earth to suffer and be martyred during the Tribulation. These Christians might worry that they will be one of the ones that will be left behind.</p>
<p>But if this were a possibility, then instead of the Rapture being a source of encouragement, hope, and joy for Christians as the Bible says it should be, the Rapture would become something to fear. So already, we can see that this argument that only some Christians will be raptured is false, because it removes the encouragement that Christians should have when they think about the Rapture.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there are many more solid biblical reasons why we can be confident that <em>all</em> true Christians will be included in the Rapture. In this post I will lay out these reasons, and also explain a few verses that are often misused to teach that not every Christian will be raptured.</p>
<p>I hope that by the end of this post, if you are a Christian, you will never again worry about being left behind, so that you can look forward to the Rapture with excitement and hope.</p>
<h2>A Disclaimer</h2>
<p>First, there is one thing I need to address. It <em>is</em> true that there are going to be many "Christians" who will be left behind when the Rapture happens. This is because although they call themselves Christians, these people have never personally trusted in Jesus as their Savior who died for their sins so they can have eternal life.</p>
<p>Some of these people will likely be the first ones who will speak out after the Rapture and deny that it just happened. They will say "Well, I'm a Christian, and I'm still here, so it wasn't the Rapture." Entire churches may even still be here after the Rapture if their pastors never preached the true gospel to their congregations.</p>
<p>Sadly, these "Christians" will have thought they were true Christians because of how they may have:</p>
<ul>
<li>lived in a 'Christian' country</li>
<li>been 'good' people</li>
<li>had Christian parents or grandparents</li>
<li>attended worship services on Sundays</li>
<li>participated in Sunday school as a child</li>
<li>celebrated Christmas and Easter</li>
<li>read the Bible</li>
<li>were baptized</li>
<li>participated in Communion/the Eucharist/the Lord's Supper</li>
<li>tithed</li>
<li>volunteered at church in various ways</li>
<li>worked as pastors, priests, or other high-level church officials</li>
<li>written theology books</li>
<li>taught at Bible colleges</li>
</ul>
<p>Or really, you could add to this list almost anything else that might define a Christian other than having personally believed in Jesus.</p>
<p>Jesus warns that people can do all sorts of amazing things such as prophesying in his name and casting out demons, but still not have a personal relationship with him which comes through faith (Matthew 7:22-23). So if you think you are a Christian for one of the above reasons, but you have never admitted that you are a sinner who needs Jesus to die to pay for your sins, then you should expect to be left behind at the Rapture.</p>
<p>However, as long as the Rapture has not yet happened, there's still time for you to believe in Jesus and be saved, and then you will be ready for whenever the Rapture happens. If you would like more details about the gospel and how to accept Jesus as your Savior, check out my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">here</a>.</p>
<p>So in the rest of this post, when I use the term <em>Christian</em>, I am referring to true Christians, which are those people who have personally trusted in Jesus for eternal life.</p>
<h2>All Christians Will Be Raptured</h2>
<p>The quickest way to answer this question of whether any true Christians will be left behind at the Rapture is to review the key Bible verses about the Rapture:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18, NRSV)</span></p>
<p>Note how there is nothing in the above verse which says that only <em>some</em> of the Christians who are still alive at this time will be caught up to be with Jesus. If it were a possibility that some true Christians would be left behind at the Rapture, then why didn't Paul mention this possibility and warn his audience about how to avoid being left behind?</p>
<p>Usually, those false teachers who argue that only some living Christians will be raptured make it dependent on the individual Christian's personal holiness or worthiness.</p>
<p>Yet what the false teachers often forget is that the Rapture is not just an event for living Christians, but also for deceased Christians. Just as the above verses in 1 Thessalonians say, those who have died after putting their faith in Jesus will be resurrected, and then living Christians will be caught up along with them to meet Jesus in the clouds.</p>
<p>I have never heard anyone who claims that only <em>some</em> living Christians will be caught up also argue that only <em>some</em> of the deceased Christians will be resurrected at the Rapture. I suppose that's because you can't scare Christians who are already dead. So if false teachers want to scare Christians by threatening them with not being raptured unless they do what the false teacher says, the false teachers naturally have to target only living Christians.</p>
<p>However, to be consistent, these false teachers should at least claim that only <em>some</em> deceased Christians will also be resurrected at the Rapture. This is because there is nothing different between deceased Christians and living Christians in terms of personal holiness or worthiness that could explain why <em>all</em> deceased Christians will be resurrected at the Rapture, but only <em>some</em> living Christians will be included in the Rapture.</p>
<p>After all, no Christian has ever become perfect or sinless in this life, because we are all sinners: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). Jesus instructed us to pray "forgive us our sins" (Luke 11:4) as part of the Lord's Prayer because he knew that there would never come a time in our lives when we would no longer sin.</p>
<p>So all Christians who have died were not living perfectly holy lives, and all Christians who are alive at the Rapture will not be living perfectly holy lives, either.</p>
<p>The same is true for any other criteria that someone might want to use to argue that only <em>these</em> sorts of Christians will be caught up at the Rapture. To be consistent, people who argue this way would need to say that only <em>some</em> of the deceased Christians would also be resurrected at the Rapture (the ones who met the particular conditions to be included in the Rapture).</p>
<p>However, there is nothing in the Bible that says there is some particular condition that deceased Christians must have met before they died in order to be resurrected at the Rapture. Likewise, there is nothing that gives any particular condition(s) that living Christians must meet in order to be included in the Rapture.</p>
<p>If false teachers argue that the last generation of Christians living before the Tribulation are so immoral that some of these Christians will need to be left behind in order to be 'purified' by suffering in the Tribulation, then these false teachers clearly haven't read 1 and 2 Corinthians to see the scandalous things that were going on in that church. Yet Paul never hinted that the Corinthian Christians were not true Christians. Instead, he called them his brothers and sisters (1 Corinthians 1:10, NRSV) and said they were sanctified in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2).</p>
<p>The result is the same in any other period of church history. There was no time when Christians weren't struggling with sins of various sorts, some of which we would be shocked by if we imagined them being committed by people in our churches today.</p>
<p>Thus, if some Christians today need to be spiritually purified by suffering in the Tribulation, then why do all the deceased Christians get to skip such 'purifying' when they were not any better? So the argument that only living Christians need purification doesn't make any sense, except, again, if the argument is being made by a false teacher who is trying to scare Christians by threatening them with missing the Rapture.</p>
<p>So if <em>all</em> deceased Christians will be resurrected at the Rapture, then <em>all</em> living Christians will be transformed and caught up at the Rapture. To argue anything else is to be inconsistent.</p>
<p>Now, although this thought experiment was worthwhile in order to point out flaws in the false teachers' logic, ultimately, it doesn't matter because in another verse, we are told explicitly that <em>all</em> Christians who are alive at the Rapture will be included:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53, NRSV)</span></p>
<p>Did you catch that? <em>We will all be changed</em>. The Bible couldn't be any clearer than that. Therefore, if you believe that Jesus died for your sins so that you can have eternal life, then you <em>will</em> be included in the Rapture.</p>
<h2>The Church Is The Body of Christ</h2>
<p>A further argument for why all Christians will be included in the Rapture comes from how the Church—made up of all true Christians regardless of their particular denomination—is described as being the body of Christ.</p>
<p>Paul used this analogy a few different times in his letters:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote"> The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:12-14, NLT)</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. (Romans 12:4-5, NLT)</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote"> Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. (Ephesians 4:15-16, NLT)</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-6)</span></p>
<p>Notice here that in two of the verses above it is the Holy Spirit that joins individual believers together to form the body of Christ. We also know that no one can say that Jesus is Lord without having the Holy Spirit in them (1 Corinthians 12:3).</p>
<p>Therefore, if you have trusted in Jesus as your Savior, and you can say Jesus is Lord, then you have the Holy Spirit in you, and you are part of the body of Christ.</p>
<p>The Holy Spirit is a seal and a guarantee of your eternal salvation which you received the first moment you believed in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14). Therefore, you cannot lose the Holy Spirit, and you will never lose your salvation.</p>
<p>Now according to these verses, it means that at the Rapture, Jesus will be uniting his body with himself, who is its head. So it wouldn't make sense for Jesus to unite only <em>some</em> of the parts of his body with him at the Rapture. Why would he tear his body apart like that, when he says his purpose for his body is for it to grow together and build itself up in love (Ephesians 4:16)?</p>
<p>Furthermore, Jesus' death on the cross was enough to pay for all sin (1 Peter 3:18, Hebrews 7:27, 9:25–26), so there is no reason for any part of his body to have to suffer again because of sin. Therefore, no true Christians will be left behind to suffer through the Tribulation because of their own sins.</p>
<p>Also, due to being part of Christ's body, Christians are credited with Jesus' own perfect righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 3:21–25, 1 Corinthians 1:30-31). Therefore, there is no need for us to become more righteous by suffering through the Tribulation.</p>
<h2>The Church is the Bride of Christ</h2>
<p>This argument is even more true when we see that the Church (made up of all true Christians) is not just Jesus's body, but we're also his bride:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:28-32)</span></p>
<p>So Jesus loves the Church not just as his body, but also as his bride. Using this metaphor, it wouldn't make any sense for Jesus to take only part of his bride to heaven to be with him, and leave the rest of his beloved bride on Earth to suffer and be killed during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Yes, there will be many people who will believe in Jesus after the Rapture, and so they will be eternally saved. They are the ones who will have to endure through the Tribulation, and many of them will be killed for their faith (Revelation 6:9-11). They are also the ones who will be resurrected to rule along with Jesus and the Church during the Millennial Kingdom as a reward for being killed (Revelation 7:9-17, 20:4).</p>
<p>However, this group of believers are <em>not</em> the Church. How do we know this?</p>
<p>Because Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not overcome the Church (Matthew 16:18). Yet God <em>will</em> allow the Antichrist to overcome believers who are on Earth during the Tribulation (Revelation 13:7). Therefore, they are two different groups of people.</p>
<p>There is confirmation of this in how we see that Christians who make up the Church are promised that we will not face God's wrath:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:8-10, NRSV)</span></p>
<p>So this verse says that being justified is different from being saved from God's wrath. Being saved from God's wrath is a benefit for Christians who live before the Rapture, in addition to having our sins forgiven by God. This is confirmed in the following verse:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. (1 Thessalonians 5:9-11, NLT)</span></p>
<p>The reason that all Christians who believe in Jesus before the Rapture will be saved from the Tribulation is because the Tribulation is when God will pour out his wrath on the Christ-rejecting world (2 Peter 3:7). Yet Jesus promised Christians who live before the Rapture that we won't even experience the <em>time</em> of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10).</p>
<p>This is because God's wrath is only meant for those who reject him (John 3:36, Ephesians 2:3, Romans 1:18, 2:8). One second after the Rapture, the only people who will be left on Earth will be those who had not yet put their faith in Jesus (John 6:28-29).</p>
<p>Paul instructed the Thessalonian Christians to "wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming" (1 Thessalonians 1:10, NRSV). This is a clear promise that the Rapture will happen before the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Thus, the Church will not be on Earth during the Tribulation. Instead, Christians will be safely with Jesus in his Father's house (i.e., heaven), just as he promised us (John 14:2-3, Isaiah 26:19-21).</p>
<p>This makes sense when we remember that there is no reason for the Church to be on Earth during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>The Tribulation is the last seven years that are assigned to Israel in order for them to complete God's purposes for them (Daniel 9:24-27). One of these purposes is for God to bring Israel to the point of recognizing that Jesus is their true Messiah, which is the condition that must be fulfilled before Jesus' second coming (Matthew 23:39, Zechariah 12:10–11, 13:8–9). For more on this, see my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">here</a>.</p>
<p>The Tribulation period will also be a second chance for everyone who didn't believe in Jesus before the Rapture to believe and be eternally saved before Jesus' second coming.</p>
<p>But the Church already knows that Jesus is our Messiah, and we have already believed in him. Therefore, there is no reason why Christians who have believed in Jesus before the Rapture must go through the Tribulation.</p>
<p>However, there are still some verses that can trouble Christians because if these verses are not interpreted correctly, it can appear that they teach that true Christians will go through the Tribulation. These verses will now be addressed to show how they do not contradict the clear verses we have already seen that say that no true Christians will be left behind at the Rapture.</p>
<h2>Objection: The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids/Virgins</h2>
<p>This parable in Matthew 25:1-13 is frequently used to claim that only Christians who are somehow "ready" for Jesus' return will be raptured, while the rest will have to go through the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Alternatively, I have also heard this parable used in a number of other ways, so there is not much consistency in how this parable is interpreted.</p>
<p>The best interpretation of this parable that I've come across is from Zane Hodges. He explains that this parable is not talking about Christians and the Rapture at all, because it's actually about believers who will live through the Tribulation period.</p>
<p>The setting of this parable is that ten bridesmaids are waiting with their lamps/torches in order to perform what was called a "torch dance". This was a common part of a Jewish wedding celebration during the first century AD. It would have been considered an honor for the girls who were chosen to perform this dance for the bridegroom, bride, and their guests at their wedding feast.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Thus, the bridesmaids are not the bride (i.e., the Church), and they are not the ones getting married to the bridegroom. Yet the bridesmaids are to have a special role in the wedding celebration.</p>
<p>In the parable, while waiting for the bridegroom (and bride) to come start the wedding feast, all the bridesmaids fall asleep. When they get woken up by a shout that the bridegroom is coming, only half of the girls were wise enough to have brought extra oil to re-light their torches/lamps.</p>
<p>Those girls who had the extra oil and re-lit their torches/lamps are able to go directly into the wedding feast with the bridegroom and bride to perform their dance and enjoy the celebration, while those girls who were foolish and unprepared are locked out of the party while they are away trying to buy more oil.</p>
<p>Zane Hodges interprets this parable as saying that during the Tribulation, only some believers will have spiritually prepared themselves to make it through the extra-difficult last three-and-a-half years of the Tribulation. Those believers who remain faithful despite the severe persecution of Christians during this time will be rewarded by ruling with Jesus and the Church during Jesus' Millennial Kingdom.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>In contrast, those believers who do not remain faithful are still eternally saved, but they will lose their physical lives and will not be resurrected until after the Millennial Kingdom is over. This outcome would fulfill Jesus' warning that only those who endure (in faith) to the end (of the Tribulation) will be (physically) saved (Matthew 24:12-14).<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>This judgment on unfaithful believers during the Tribulation seems harsh, but it makes sense.</p>
<p>At the Sheep and Goats Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus judges everyone who has physically survived the Tribulation to see if they will be permitted into his Millennial Kingdom, apparently based on whether they did particular good works. However, there is no category at this judgment for true believers who did not do good works. So the only possibilities are either:</p>
<ol>
<li>The Holy Spirit will guarantee that all true believers during the Tribulation will do these good works, or</li>
<li>Any true believers who did not do these good works are not alive to be judged at this judgment.</li>
</ol>
<p>The possibility of option 2 makes sense when we consider the specific things that Jesus commends the faithful believers for doing in Matthew 25:35-36.</p>
<p>It can seem that these faithful believers pass Jesus' judgment because of the good works they do, while those who do not do these things are condemned to the lake of fire (Matthew 25:46). Yet that seems to be salvation by works, rather than faith, which is contrary to Scripture (e.g., Galatians 2:16).</p>
<p>However, we can say that these things that Jesus mentions the faithful believers will do during the Tribulation will actually be evidence of their faith in him. This is because these believers will have been cut off from all ability to buy and sell, since they will not take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>. Due to this, sharing their food, water, and extra clothing with other persecuted believers would require strong faith that God will provide for them in the future.</p>
<p>It would also take strong faith for believers to visit those who are in prison if the Antichrist's government is jailing and executing known Christians (Revelation 13:10). Visiting those who are sick would also require believers to trust God to keep them healthy if they are now cut off from the ability to buy medicine in case they get sick.</p>
<p>In contrast, believers who do not do these things would demonstrate that they have weaker faith. Under the intense pressure of the last half of the Tribulation, these weaker believers may be tempted to give up their faith and take the Mark of the Beast in order to survive. But since taking the Mark leads to eternal negative consequences that aren't compatible with eternal salvation (Revelation 14:9-11), God could graciously allow these unfaithful believers to be killed in various ways in order to prevent them from taking the Mark.</p>
<p>These believers in category 2 who die will still be eternally saved, but by not enduring in faith, they won't be resurrected with the faithful martyrs after Jesus' second coming (Revelation 20:4). The unfaithful believers will have to wait to be resurrected at the final judgment, after the Millennial Kingdom is over.</p>
<p>This means they will have missed out on the joy of seeing the Millennial Kingdom, even though they will still experience eternity in the New Heaven and New Earth. Missing out on the Millennium is depicted as the foolish bridesmaids not being able to join in the celebration of the wedding feast.</p>
<p>Overall, Hodges' interpretation is far more convincing to me than other interpretations I've heard because it is theologically compatible with the earlier verses which clearly teach that all Christians who live before the Rapture will be raptured.</p>
<h2>Objection: You Must Be Strong Enough/Counted Worthy To Escape The Tribulation</h2>
<p>One of the more difficult verses that often scares Christians into thinking they might not be raptured is Luke 21:34-36.</p>
<p>After Jesus gave his disciples many details about things that will happen during the Tribulation, he said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man. (Luke 21:34-36, ESV)</span></p>
<p>On the surface, it does seem like Jesus is saying that Christians need to pray to be somehow 'strong' enough to be included in the Rapture, and thus escape the Tribulation period. But because this is not taught anywhere else in the Bible, especially in the clear passages about the Rapture, it cannot be the correct interpretation.</p>
<p>Now, it is possible that Jesus could be referring to the people who will live through the Tribulation. As was discussed earlier in the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, those people who will believe in Jesus after the Rapture will need to pray that they will be strong enough to hold onto their faith and survive the judgments of the Tribulation in order for them to "stand before the Son of Man" at the Sheep and Goats judgment.</p>
<p>After all, an important principle of Biblical interpretation is that clear Bible verses must be used to interpret the unclear verses, not the other way around.</p>
<p>So, we have already seen earlier in this post that the two major passages in Scripture about the Rapture do not include any warnings or conditions that Christians must meet in order to be included in the Rapture. Therefore, we cannot interpret this verse in Luke 21:36 as saying that there is some condition that Christians must meet in order to qualify to be raptured.</p>
<p>We also can't interpret these verses in a way that overrides what we saw in the previous section of this post about how all Christians are equally members of Christ's body/bride, and the verses that say all Christians will be saved from God's wrath that is to come on the world during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>However, there is an alternative interpretive possibility for Luke 21:34-36. This verse is one of the rare instances in which there is a significant difference between the few Greek manuscripts that different English Bible translations use.</p>
<p>Most modern English Bibles translate Luke 21:34-36 in ways similar to the verse shown at the start of this section from the ESV. Alternatively, the KJV and NKJV use a different manuscript and translate this verse as:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. (Luke 21:34-36, NKJV)</span></p>
<p>Now my academic background is theology, not Biblical studies, so I'm not going to discuss the history of these different manuscripts or how these variations arose, or which variant is more likely to have been in the original manuscript. However, some scholars would say the original is the one used by the KJV/NKJV.</p>
<p>In this case of the KJV/NKJV variant, it is easier to explain how this verse is compatible with the Rapture in a way that does not imply that only some Christians will be raptured.</p>
<p>For example, let's compare this verse with 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.</span></p>
<p>Yet Paul goes on to say:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:4-11)</span></p>
<p>So this entire passage in 1 Thessalonians seems to parallel quite well what Jesus says in Luke 21:36, KJV/NKJV.</p>
<p>Both passages discuss an "escape" in relation to the disastrous events that the world will experience in the end times. In Luke, the focus is on some people who <em>will</em> escape the sudden start of the Tribulation, and in 1 Thessalonians, the focus is on others who <em>will not</em> escape from the sudden destruction.</p>
<p>Both passages include instruction for Christians to stay alert and watch for Jesus' return, and behave properly while watching. These verses also include hints that some people who are not watching will be very surprised when the Rapture happens.</p>
<p>But again, neither of these passages teach that some true Christians will be left behind.</p>
<p>However, the Bible does warn in several places that not all Christians will be equally <em>ready</em> when Jesus returns at the Rapture. In fact, this is exactly what Jesus is warning about at the start of these verses. Some Christians will be too caught up in sinful behavior or worrying about the things of this life to want to think about being <em>caught up</em> at the Rapture.</p>
<p>The same warning is repeated elsewhere in the Bible.</p>
<p>Paul explains that if Christians are paying attention, we will be able to see the day of Jesus' return at the Rapture approaching. The appropriate behavior then is to give up living in ways that sinners do, and to soberly watch and be ready for Jesus to return in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 5:4-8, Romans 13:11-14).</p>
<p>This may be why the crown that Paul says Jesus will give to everyone who is eagerly looking for Jesus' return is called the "crown of righteousness" (2 Timothy 4:8). In contrast, Christians who scoff about the nearness of Jesus' return are said to do so because they want to keep indulging their own sinful desires (2 Peter 3:3-4).</p>
<p>So yes, Christians should watch for Jesus' return, and pray that the Holy Spirit will help us avoid living in ways that look no different than the unsaved world world that we will be leaving behind at the Rapture. Not all Christians will do this though, and so some will be living in ways that make them look like they should not have been "counted worthy" to escape the Tribulation. Yet even these Christians will still be raptured.</p>
<p>The story of Lot is a potentially helpful illustration of this.</p>
<p>Remember that Jesus said that when he returns, it will be like it was in the days of Lot (Luke 17:28). Lot lived in a very sinful city named Sodom, along with his family.</p>
<p>However, Lot, his wife, and his two daughters were considered righteous by God. Thus, they were counted worthy of escaping the judgment and destruction that God was about to bring on the city. God sent angels to take Lot and his family out of the city just in time before the destruction came (Genesis 19:15-16).</p>
<p>Lot, though, is a rather unusual character. He is called righteous and is said to have been "greatly distressed" by the sin he saw around him (2 Peter 2:7-8).</p>
<p>Yet in the story in Genesis, Lot shockingly offers his two unmarried daughters to the crowd of men who have surrounded Lot's house, saying that the crowd can "do to them as you wish," as long as the crowd leaves Lot's two angelic visitors alone (Genesis 19:6-8). But that doesn't really seem like something a 'righteous' father would do, does it?</p>
<p>Furthermore, after Lot and his family escape the destruction of Sodom, they end up living in a cave, where Lot's two daughters act in another shocking and indecent way (Genesis 19:30-35).</p>
<p>Therefore, the best explanation is that Lot and his family were "counted worthy" to escape the judgment on Sodom because they believed in God, just as Abraham did (Romans 4:3-5, Genesis 18:23-26). It is not because they were morally flawless, since the Bible tells us they were not.</p>
<p>Similarly, all Christians will be "counted worthy" of escaping the Tribulation simply because we have faith in Jesus, even if, judging only based on outer actions, some Christians will not appear to be living in ways that are any different from the world around them.</p>
<p>But in either case, both variants of Luke 21:34-36 are explainable in ways that do not conflict with the clear Bible verses that say that all true Christians will be included in the Rapture.</p>
<p>However, it turns out that the KJV/NKJV variant about being "counted worthy" may be more consistent when we consider how it fits with the Parable of the Faithful and Wicked Servant in Matthew 24.</p>
<h2>Objection: The Faithful and Wicked Servant</h2>
<p>After Jesus tells his disciples about the coming Tribulation in Matthew 24, he ends with a short parable:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, "My master is delayed," and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:45-51)</span></p>
<p>This is another passage that is often used to claim that Christians who are not being watchful for Jesus' return at the Rapture will experience negative consequences.</p>
<p>Here, the behavior of the wicked servant parallels with the behavior Jesus warned against in Luke 21:34-36. Yet the servant goes beyond simply being drunk and un-watchful, since the servant denies Jesus's soon return and mistreats fellow servants.</p>
<p>This wicked servant's behavior matches well with how Peter predicts that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:3-4).</span></p>
<p>So this parable is yet another way of saying that at Jesus' next coming at the Rapture, not all Christians will be found to be faithfully watching for Jesus' return and serving God as they should be. Those who are found faithfully serving God will be rewarded, but others will suffer negative judgment.</p>
<p>Now, the judgment that the wicked servant faces can seem very harsh. The phrase about "weeping and gnashing of teeth" reminds many Christians of verses like Matthew 13:41-42 or 13:49-50 which talk about wicked people being eternally destroyed in the lake of fire after the final judgment (Revelation 20:14-15).</p>
<p>However, as Zane Hodges points out, we shouldn't interpret the punishment of the wicked servant as him being eternally destroyed.</p>
<p>After all, the servant is still a <em>servant</em>, as is the wicked servant in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:26-30. See also the Parable of the Minas in Luke 19:11-27, where the wicked servant is differentiated from the nobleman's enemies who are killed (Luke 19:27). And we know that all Christians are eternally secure, based on Ephesians 1:13-14 and other verses.</p>
<p>So whatever the fate is for the wicked servant, it is <em>not</em> eternal destruction.</p>
<p>Instead, Hodges says that weeping and gnashing of teeth was a common expression of intense grief in the Middle East during Jesus's time. The expression "cut in pieces" is likewise talking about the experience of receiving God's severe judgment, but is not meant to be taken literally. This wicked servant is called a hypocrite because he claimed to be a servant, but he was not found acting in ways that a servant should act, and so he is deprived of some sort of reward that causes the servant to feel intense grief.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>That grief is not caused by missing out on the Rapture, but rather, it is the loss of some sort of position of ruling authority in eternity. As Wilkins explains:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In v.25, Jesus speaks of the faithful and wise servant whom his master made ruler over His household to give them food in due season. That's in this life. But then He says that if the servant-ruler is still fulfilling his task when the Master comes, the servant-ruler will be made ruler over all His goods. In other words, the servant-ruler now, if he's faithful until Christ comes, will be a ruler over much more in the life to come. This seems to be a promise of eternal rulership. A loss of such rulership would cause great grief.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>It would surely be embarrassing to be caught being a bad servant at Jesus' return (1 John 2:28). These verses along with others imply that some Christians will face deep regret and loss when their lives are judged for eternal rewards (Luke 19:26, 1 Corinthians 3:15), versus the blessing and commendation that is promised to other Christians who have been more faithful during their lives (Matthew 25:21, Luke 19:16-19, 1 Corinthians 3:14).</p>
<p>Yet this feeling of loss will be temporary, as Hodges explains:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">So since this passage is about a real servant of Christ who has lost the promotion and the rewards that could have been his by being faithful, he experiences intense grief. Some Christians experience a muted form of this grief now when they look back at wasted years and opportunities, but when we stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ, we will no longer have our sin nature and the grief will be intensely acute. We will be perfect and will be able to see with painful clarity what we have lost. Grief is an appropriate response to that. This does not mean that such servants will weep and gnash their teeth forever, for we know that God will wipe away all tears from every eye (Rev 21:4).<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, this parable is an encouragement to Christians that because Jesus could return anytime at the Rapture, we don't know how long we will have to serve God. Therefore we should be diligent and do our best to serve God now in whatever ways he calls us to, because we will be rewarded for doing so, especially if we are found serving him when Jesus returns.</p>
<p>Obviously, this shouldn't be taken to an extreme. Christians need to sleep, eat, and relax too, as this is an important part of keeping ourselves functional enough that we can serve God well, as I've written about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/self-care-is-spiritual-warfare/">here</a>. No one can literally serve God every minute of the day.</p>
<p>But in general, this parable teaches that some Christians will be more actively involved in following and serving God when Jesus returns, while others will not be doing this, and so there will be different consequences for these two groups of believers when Jesus returns.</p>
<h3>Practical Application Of This Parable</h3>
<p>Given <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/watch-for-the-seven-year-covenant-with-many/">how close it seems the world may be</a> to the Rapture, I hope all Christians will wake up and do what God calls us to do to for him before we no longer have the opportunity. Let's be faithful servants with whatever time we have left.</p>
<p>Anything we can do to tell others about Jesus and to encourage them to believe in Jesus so that they don't get left behind at the Rapture should be at the top of our priority lists, even if it risks making us look silly.</p>
<p>At worst, if your loved ones don't believe you now, hopefully they will remember what you said after the Rapture happens, and they will believe then, and avoid falling for the great deception that will come on the whole world (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).</p>
<p>An extremely easy thing you can do right now is to simply write a letter explaining what the Rapture is and why you have suddenly disappeared. You can also warn your reader about the coming Tribulation, to not take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>, and most importantly, explain the importance of believing in Jesus to have eternal life.</p>
<p>Feel free to copy directly from (or even print out in full) my post titled <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">"Read This When Millions of People Suddenly Disappear"</a> if you like what I wrote there and want to use that as your letter.</p>
<p>Put your letter in a place where people will likely see it if they come into your house to look for you after the Rapture happens. Also put a copy with your will or other important documents. Some Christians I know plan to put such a letter in their pantries so that if anyone breaks into their home after the Rapture happens in order to look for supplies, they will find the letter then.</p>
<p>This way, even if your family, friends, coworkers, roommates, or landlord are not open to talking about God now, you can still reach them after the Rapture. Then, the fact that you warned about the Rapture ahead of time in your letter might convince them to seriously consider what else you have to say about Jesus, and motivate them to pay attention to your warnings about what will be happening in the world in the near future.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>As explained in this post, there is no reason for any true Christian to worry about being left behind at the Rapture. All the clearest verses about the Rapture do not give any condition(s) that Christians must fulfill in order to be raptured.</p>
<p>Instead, those parables and other verses that are often used to make Christians nervous about missing the Rapture are best understood in other ways that do not contradict the clear and strong arguments that all Christians will be raptured. This is how consistent Biblical interpretation should be done.</p>
<p>However, there is a risk for people who only call themselves Christians, but who have never truly <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">put their faith in Jesus</a>. If they don't admit that they need Jesus to die for their sins and instead choose to believe that the things they do can earn them eternal salvation, they will be left behind at the Rapture.</p>
<p>Hopefully, the Rapture will cause many of these Christians-in-name-only to realize their mistake and to truly believe in Jesus then, although they will face the Tribulation which will be the worst time in the history of the world (Matthew 24:21).</p>
<p>As in the parables we examined in this post, it will be a challenge for these new believers to keep their faith due to the severe persecution they will face. However, if they are faithful to the end, whether they physically survive the Tribulation or are martyred, they will be eternally rewarded.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Zane C. Hodges and Robert N. Wilkin, <em>Tough Texts: Did Jesus Teach Salvation By Works?</em> (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2017), 63-65.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Zane C. Hodges and Robert N. Wilkin, <em>Tough Texts: Did Jesus Teach Salvation By Works?</em> (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2017), 64-68.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Robert Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/why-are-all-the-gentile-sheep-found-faithful-but-only-five-of-the-ten-virgins/">"Why Are All The Gentile Sheep Found Faithful, But Only Five of the Ten Virgins? — Matthew 25:1-13 & 25:31-46,"</a> <em>Grace Evangelical Society</em>, January 30, 2018. See also John Claeys, <a href="https://faithalone.org/journal-articles/matthew-2531-46-salvation-by-works/">"Matthew 25:31-46: Salvation by Works?"</a> <em>Grace Evangelical Society</em>, September 1, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Zane C. Hodges and Robert N. Wilkin, <em>Tough Texts: Did Jesus Teach Salvation By Works?</em> (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2017), 58-62</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Zane C. Hodges and Robert N. Wilkin, <em>Tough Texts: Did Jesus Teach Salvation By Works?</em> (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2017), 60.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Zane C. Hodges and Robert N. Wilkin, <em>Tough Texts: Did Jesus Teach Salvation By Works?</em> (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2017), 59.</li>
</ul>My Theory of Christian Inclusivism2023-07-13T00:00:00+00:002023-07-13T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2023-07-13:/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/<p>This post is the culmination of several of my previous blog posts. In them, I explored why I believe that Christians need to endorse some sort of theory of soteriological inclusivism in order for us to be faithful to all the verses in the Bible that tell us about who …</p><p>This post is the culmination of several of my previous blog posts. In them, I explored why I believe that Christians need to endorse some sort of theory of soteriological inclusivism in order for us to be faithful to all the verses in the Bible that tell us about who will ultimately be saved.</p>
<p>That is, we need to believe that God truly <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">wants to save everyone</a>, even though in the end, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">not everyone will be saved</a>.</p>
<p>For example, we are told that in the New Heaven and New Earth, there will be at least one person from every tribe, language, and nation that has ever existed (Revelation 5:9-10, 7:9-10). Therefore, there must be some way that eternal salvation is genuinely open to all people—including those who never heard the gospel during their lives, or those who died before they were capable of personally putting their faith in Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>In the previous posts, I've examined a few theories of Christian inclusivism that I've come across. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li>that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">all religions lead to the same heaven</a>.</li>
<li>that people can choose to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">believe in Jesus after death</a>.</li>
<li>that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">all 'good' people will be saved</a>.</li>
<li>that there is enough <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/are-there-divine-truths-in-nature-or-other-religions/">divine truth in nature or in other religions</a> for people to be saved.</li>
</ul>
<p>In this post, I want to finally outline my own theory of Christian inclusivism. That is, I want to explain how I think it is that everyone will have a fair opportunity to be eternally saved, yet everyone who is ultimately saved will be saved only on the basis of putting their faith in Christ.</p>
<p>To do this, I will blend the best of Jonathan Edwards' theology with some insights from Karl Barth that have been mentioned previously into one theory, combined with my preference for understanding hell as <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">eternal annihilation</a>, and predestination as election to service.</p>
<p>Some of my arguments here may be short, as this is only an outline, and more detailed support for some of my claims is found in my previous posts. Furthermore, each point in my outline builds upon or adds to the others to form one continuous argument. Each point will be numbered to make it easy to see how they connect.</p>
<h2>The Short Version</h2>
<p>However, in case you just want a short summary of what I'm proposing, here it is, along with a very short introduction to Biblical eschatology to give the necessary context:</p>
<p>At one point or another, all individuals will have their lives judged by Jesus Christ (Romans 14:10-12, Acts 17:31, Romans 2:6-8, Hebrews 9:27-28, John 5:22). Regardless of which judgment individuals face, those who are eternally saved will be rewarded for every one of their good works, no matter how small (Mark 9:41).</p>
<ul>
<li>For Christians who lived before <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, we will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ, where the things we did in this life will be judged to determine our <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-christians-need-to-talk-more-about-heaven/">eternal rewards</a> (2 Corinthians 5:10, 1 Corinthians 3:11-15). This judgment will happen after the Rapture, which is when we will be resurrected and/or instantly changed from mortal to immortal (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53). The Rapture will take place at least seven years before Jesus' second coming.</li>
<li>For people who survive <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">the seven-year Tribulation</a> that follows the Rapture, they will be judged at the Sheep and Goats Judgment that takes place after Jesus' second coming (Matthew 25:31-46, Mark 13:24-27). This judgment will determine who is allowed into Jesus' <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">Millennial Kingdom</a>, and who is thrown into the lake of fire, as will have already happened for the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> and the False Prophet at Jesus' second coming (Matthew 25:41, Revelation 19:20).</li>
<li>Everyone who takes the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> will not pass the Sheep and Goats Judgment. Alternatively, they may be condemned directly to the lake of fire as the Antichrist and False Prophet will be, because they will have effectively already made their final choice to reject Jesus by taking the Mark (Revelation 14:9-11, Matthew 13:36-43). Some prophecy experts teach that taking the Mark of the Beast is not just idolatrous worship of the Antichrist, but it actually does something to those who take it that makes them <em>unredeemable</em>, because idolatry can be forgiven (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), but there is no hint that taking the Mark can be forgiven.</li>
<li>For the saints who will be martyred for their faith during the Tribulation (Revelation 6:9-11, 13:10, 13:15), they will be judged once they are resurrected after Jesus' second coming. This judgment will determine their rewards and ruling positions during Jesus' Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:4-5).</li>
<li>I'm not sure when Old Testament believers will be resurrected, judged, and rewarded. It could be either along with Christians at the judgment seat of Christ, or perhaps with the other resurrected saints after the Tribulation and before Jesus' Millennial Kingdom begins.</li>
<li>For everyone else who has ever lived in history, they will be judged at the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15). This judgment will happen after the final Gog-Magog rebellion at the end of Jesus' thousand-year Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:7-10).</li>
</ul>
<p>For my theory of inclusivism, it is the final judgment in Revelation 20:11-15 that is the most relevant. It is here that everyone who never had an opportunity to hear the gospel during their lives will be judged.</p>
<p>The purpose of this judgment will be to demonstrate that they are all sinners, and that their <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">good works are not enough to earn salvation</a>, (e.g., Romans 3:10-12, 3:20, 3:23-25, Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:4-6).</p>
<p>Then, after their works are judged, I believe God will give all these people one last opportunity to accept Jesus as their personal Savior. God's love and justice require him to give them such an opportunity, because he <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly wants everyone to be saved</a> (e.g., 1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9).</p>
<p>Every single person who will be eternally saved is a sinner who is saved only on the basis of Jesus Christ's death on the cross for his or her sins (Romans 3:23-26). Thus, everyone who is saved will have personal faith in Jesus and love for Jesus, for there is no other name but Jesus' by which people can be saved (Acts 4:12), and there is no other mediator between God and humanity besides Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).</p>
<p>Everyone who is eternally saved will also be made perfectly holy, as God is holy (1 Peter 1:14-16, Hebrews 12:14). Primarily, this will occur through receiving a new, incorruptible body that is untainted by sin, as I argue in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/protestant-purgatory/">here</a>.</p>
<p>Thus, the only people who will end up being <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilated in the lake of fire</a> will be those who have clearly had their works judged, been shown their sin and heard God's judgment that their sins are worthy of eternal death, been offered a clear opportunity to believe in Jesus Christ, and yet still rejected Jesus. Thus, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">salvation is opt-out</a>, not opt-in.</p>
<p>Despite my theory, at the end of this post, I will explain why there are still very good reasons to become a Christian now, and for Christians to continue to share the gospel with others.</p>
<h2>My Theory of Christian Soteriological Inclusivism</h2>
<p>My theory of inclusivism was inspired by several interesting ideas I came across in Jonathan Edwards' theology as I was working on <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-predestination/">my PhD dissertation</a>. Yet what matters most is whether my claims can be supported by Scripture, and whether they are in line with traditional Christian understandings of God's nature and character.</p>
<p>Each of the following points builds on the earlier ones, and will be referred to in other points:</p>
<ol class="list-long">
<li><!-- 1 -->
God is Love (1 John 4:16). This is because God is a perfect, eternal relationship of love between the three equally-divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (i.e., the Trinity, as seen in Matthew 3:16-17).<cite>1</cite>
</li>
<li><!-- 2 -->
Therefore, due to Point 1, what God loves most are perfectly loving relationships, because that is what God himself is.<cite>2</cite> So God created people in order to potentially create a greater number of eternally loving relationships between people and God, and between people themselves.<cite>3</cite>
</li>
<li><!-- 3 -->
People's ultimate happiness is found in being loved by God and by others, and in loving God and loving others, because this is what God made us for (Point 2). This is why Jesus said that loving God and loving others are the two most important commandments that all the rest of God's Law rests on (Matthew 22:37-40, Romans 13:9-10), because the Law is good and was given for our good (e.g., Romans 7:12, 1 Timothy 1:8, Joshua 1:8, Psalm 19:7-11).<cite>4</cite>
</li>
<li><!-- 4 -->
Based on Points 1 to 3, God loves the whole world, and therefore, God wants all people to have perfectly loving relationships with himself and with each other, forever (John 3:16-17, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11). This is what will occur in the New Heaven and New Earth, which will be a world of love.<cite>5</cite>
</li>
<li><!-- 5 -->
Therefore, if it were only up to God’s will, everyone would be saved (Point 4). God is omnipotent, which means that God can do whatever God wants (Jeremiah 32:27, Job 42:1-2, Isaiah 14:27). Satan, fallen angels, and other people are not more powerful than God, and so they cannot prevent God from saving any individual person.<cite>6</cite>
</li>
<li><!-- 6 -->
Yet the Bible clearly says that not everyone will be saved (e.g., Isaiah 66:24, Revelation 20:12-15, Matthew 25:41-46).
</li>
<li><!-- 7 -->
So, to explain the disparity between Points 5 and 6, the only reason that any individual person is not saved is because of that individual's own free choice. Individuals must make a free choice to love God because God cannot force an individual to love him, or it would no longer be love.<cite>7</cite> If people did not have a free choice to love God, that relationship would lose all value to God, and it would not fulfill the reason why he created the world (Point 2).
</li>
<li><!-- 8 -->
Therefore, due to Points 5 and 7, God must have some way for all individuals to make that choice to love God and others or not. Thus, God needed to give people the ability to freely reject him (Acts 7:51, Matthew 23:37), even though God knew this rejection would lead to sin, evil, suffering, and death (John 10:10, James 1:15, Genesis 2:16-17), which are the opposite of God's intentions for human happiness (Point 3).
</li>
<li><!-- 9 -->
People who reject God/Love will have no place in the New Heaven and New Earth (e.g., Luke 14:16-24, Matthew 7:21-23), as they do not fulfill the purpose for which they were created (Point 2). They would not want to live there anyway, unless they valued love for God and love for others, because heaven will be a world of love (Point 4).
</li>
<li><!-- 10 -->
Due to Point 9, theoretically, God would have to create some other place for these people who reject him to live. But a world without God/Love would be a world of total isolation, sin, evil, and hatred, and thus, it would be complete misery (the opposite of Point 3). A world without God/Love is what Christians usually think of as hell.<cite>8</cite>
</li>
<li><!-- 11 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">A loving God does not want people to live forever in complete misery (Points 3 and 4). Therefore, the Bible teaches that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a> (i.e. eternal death/destruction) is the ultimate fate for those who finally reject God/Love (e.g., Matthew 10:28, Romans 6:23, 2 Peter 2:6).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0;">This is appropriate because if these people do not want to live in loving relationships with God and all others, then there is no purpose for them to exist (Point 2). Furthermore, by rejecting the eternal God who created them (Colossians 1:16) and who upholds all creation in existence (Hebrews 1:3), they have rejected the source of their own existence, and thus, they have effectively chosen eternal non-existence.</p>
</li>
<li><!-- 12 -->
Yet The Bible says that annihilation/eternal death is a punishment for sin (2 Thessalonians 1:9, Romans 6:23, Matthew 25:46). Sin is everything that goes against God's desires for people to live in loving relationships with himself and all others (Point 3). A loving God (Point 1) hates sin, because sin is the opposite of love (Proverbs 6:16-19, Proverbs 15:9, Romans 1:18, Psalm 5:4-5).
</li>
<li><!-- 13 -->
A loving God (Point 1) also desires perfect justice for all people (Psalm 33:5, Deuteronomy 16:19). Yet someone can only be justly punished if they can avoid doing whatever it is that deserved that punishment (e.g., Ezekiel 18:25-28, Deuteronomy 24:16).
</li>
<li><!-- 14 -->
But all people have become sinners because of how Adam and Eve first sinned (Romans 5:12-14). All people have sinned (Romans 3:23), and thus, no one is righteous (Romans 3:10-12). Therefore, all people deserve eternal death (Point 11).
</li>
<li><!-- 15 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Yet God loves everyone (Point 4), and his love moves him to want to be merciful to sinners (Matthew 9:13, Exodus 33:19, Daniel 9:9). To love someone is to desire their ultimate happiness, even if it comes at a cost to yourself (John 15:13). God's solution for the problem of sin was for the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, to be born as the human named Jesus (John 1:14).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Jesus was able to live a perfect, sinless life of love (1 John 3:5, Hebrews 4:15), and he volunteered to accept the punishment of death that all sinners deserve (1 Peter 2:24, Philippians 2:8) by dying once for all sin, even the sins of the entire world (1 John 2:2, John 1:29, 2 Corinthians 5:19). In this way, God, who is love (Point 1), lovingly chose to absorb his own wrath at sin, and satisfied his own perfect justice (Points 12, 13, 14), while making it possible for him to mercifully forgive the sinners who he loves (Point 4).</p>
</li>
<li><!-- 16 -->
Now, anyone who believes that Jesus died for their sins (Point 15, summed up as John 3:16-17) is permanently indwelled by the Holy Spirit, as a guarantee of their eternal salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14). The Holy Spirit <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-made-in-image-of-God/">unites them to Jesus</a>, so that Jesus' death can be counted as theirs. In this way, God can forgive believers' sins, and God treats believers as if they were as sinless as Jesus is (2 Corinthians 5:21, Colossians 1:21-22). This is the gospel, which literally means 'good news.'
</li>
<li><!-- 17 -->
Believing in Jesus is the only way for people to have their sins forgiven and thus, for people to have eternal life (Acts 4:12, John 14:6). It is not possible to be <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">good enough</a> to earn eternal life, and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">other religions</a> do not provide alternative paths to heaven.
</li>
<li><!-- 18 -->
But many people have died before they had an opportunity to hear the gospel and believe in Jesus (Points 15, 16, and 17). Even if some people do hear the gospel, they may not have heard it clearly or understood it properly.<cite>9</cite> Many children have died before they were old enough to personally believe in Jesus, and some people may not have ever had the mental capability to understand the gospel.
</li>
<li><!-- 19 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">But God truly wants to save everyone (Point 4), and no external factors can prevent God from saving someone (Point 5), except for an individual's free choice to not love God (Point 7) and/or not believe in Jesus (Point 17). Therefore, we are left with only two options regarding the people in Point 18:</p>
<ol class="list-lower-roman">
<li>They get the opportunity to accurately learn about Jesus and make a free choice to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">believe in him after death</a>.</li>
<li>God has some way that they could know enough about himself to make an equivalent choice before they died, such as through the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/are-there-divine-truths-in-nature-or-other-religions/">divine truths</a> that may be revealed in nature, or in other religions.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><!-- 20 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Recall that a loving God is perfectly just (Point 13). It would be unfair for God to have one standard for people who do hear the gospel clearly enough and accurately enough to make that choice to believe in Jesus as their Savior during their earthly lives, and another standard for everyone else.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">A just and loving God would also want to avoid the situation where some individuals would have been saved if they had <i>not</i> heard the gospel during their lives. That is, God would need to make sure that a person who could have been saved under options i) or ii) in Point 19 would not be automatically condemned to eternal death if he or she hears the gospel and does not immediately believe it.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">For example, in my earlier <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">post</a>, I imagined a woman walking downtown who hears the gospel for the first time from a street preacher. However, she doesn't believe it right away because she's still thinking it over or trying to understand it. Or maybe she's even turned off from it, due to the preacher's angry demeanor. Yet the next moment, she steps off the curb, is hit by a bus, and dies instantly. The fact that she heard the gospel and didn't believe it in time before she died must not mean that she is condemned to eternal destruction — especially if she could have been saved under one of the two options in Point 19, if only she had been hit by the bus <i>before</i> she heard the gospel.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Otherwise, hearing the gospel would become a liability, and people might be better off not hearing it during their earthly lives. Yet that would contradict with how Jesus commanded Christians to preach the gospel and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). Why would a loving God who wants all people to be saved (Point 4) command Christians to do something that would condemn many other people to eternal death?</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Or put another way, people who <i>do</i> hear the gospel during their earthly lives should not be put at a disadvantage when compared to those who <i>do not</i> hear the gospel. God is just (Point 13), and God loves everyone equally (Point 4), so he would not make it harder for some people to be saved than others. Furthermore, the gospel must always be a blessing, and never a curse. So when people hear the gospel, it should make it <i>more</i> likely — not <i>less</i> likely — that they will be eternally saved.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0;">Therefore, whatever personal choice is necessary for non-Christians to be saved, it must be equivalent to putting their faith in Jesus as their Savior who promises them eternal life, so that those who hear the gospel are not put at a greater advantage or disadvantage than others in terms of having an opportunity to receive God's gift of eternal life. (Even though there are many other benefits to being a Christian besides just eternal life, as will be discussed at the end of this post).</p>
</li>
<li><!-- 21 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Furthermore, as hinted at in Point 19, based on Points 1, 7, and 17 it seems that the free choice that God ultimately needs individuals to make can be thought of as both:</p>
<ol class="list-lower-roman">
<li>to love God/Love.</li>
<li>to believe in Jesus for eternal life.</li>
</ol>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0;">So, how will these two criteria be used by God when he determines people's eternal destinies?</p>
</li>
<li><!-- 22 -->
At the final judgment, everyone who was not previously resurrected either at <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17) or before Jesus' Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20:4) will be resurrected in order to be judged (Revelation 20:11-15). This judgment will consider their works, as well as whether their names are written in the Book of Life (Romans 2:6-11, Revelation 20:12-13, 20:15). But the Bible does <i>NOT</i> say that all these people will be automatically condemned to the lake of fire, unless they took the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> (Revelation 14:9-11).
</li>
<li><!-- 23 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Based on Point 21 i), I propose that at the final judgment, God will judge people according to whether they loved Love or not. This judgment would be based on the individuals' actions (Revelation 20:12), in that at least at times, individuals who loved Love should have attempted to act in loving ways toward others, or felt regret and guilt in their consciences when they did not (Romans 2:14-16).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">There is good scriptural support for this part of my theory, based on how John says, "love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7-8). John also says "whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">More verses equate love for God with obeying God's commandments (e.g., John 14:15, 14:21-24, 1 John 5:3), which are again, summed up as loving God and loving others (Point 3). Other verses say that acting in loving ways towards others is, in some way, expressing love for God himself (e.g., Mark 9:36-38, 9:40-42, Matthew 10:41-42, 25:40, Luke 9:48). I've written more about this in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">here</a>.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0;">So we can safely say that if someone loves Love, they love God, and they are already 'in God' in some sense, even if they don't yet know about Jesus or the gospel. I believe these individuals who loved Love — as shown at the final judgment by their actions and consciences — will have their names written in the Book of Life (Revelation 20:15).</p>
</li>
<li><!-- 24 -->
But, also due to Points 20 and 21, the choice to love Love must also be equivalent to believing in Jesus for eternal life, because all people are sinners (Point 14), and there is no other way for anyone to have their sins forgiven besides believing in Jesus (Point 17).
</li>
<li><!-- 25 -->
Based on Point 23, I propose that for anyone who never got an opportunity to hear the gospel during their lives, if they love Love in their hearts, as demonstrated during Jesus' final judgment of their actions and consciences, they would inherently feel regret and shame at the times when they acted in unloving ways, or when they failed to act in loving ways, or when they had unloving motives in their hearts (Romans 2:15-16).
</li>
<li><!-- 26 -->
Such individuals who love Love would also value justice (just like God does, who is Love, as per Points 1 and 13). Therefore, individuals who love Love would humbly agree with God's judgment that they deserve eternal death because of all their sins (Points 11 and 12).
</li>
<li><!-- 27 -->
However, because God truly wants to save everyone (Point 4), and Jesus is the one who will be doing the judging (John 5:22-23), I believe that after he has judged everyone's works and shown beyond all doubt that all people are sinners who deserve eternal death, he will inform everyone that he has already suffered the penalty of death that their sins deserved (Points 15 and 16), and that if they will only believe this, they can have eternal life with him in the New Heaven and New Earth (Point 17).
</li>
<li><!-- 28 -->
I believe that anyone who truly loves Love would see how the gospel is a demonstration of God's ultimate love for them (Point 15). If they love Love, they will not resist the Holy Spirit who is drawing them to Jesus' love and mercy (John 12:32, Acts 7:51, Matthew 23:37), and they will accept Jesus' offer. They would then feel gratitude toward him, and would desire to praise and worship him for how he died on the cross for their sins.
</li>
<li><!-- 29 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">In contrast to Point 28, those who reject Jesus' final presentation of the gospel will prove that they do not love Love. Their rejection of his offer will show that they are full of pride and self-righteousness, and that they reject both the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:12, Romans 1:18) and <i>the Truth</i>, who is Jesus himself (John 14:6).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">These people will probably even <i>hate</i> Jesus for telling them their good works aren't enough to save them (Matthew 7:21-23), or for telling them that they are sinners (Matthew 23:27-28). They would demand that he accept them just as they are, and let them keep sinning forever.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0;">Since a loving God won't do that (Point 11), then they will probably say fine, Jesus can go ahead and destroy them. They might even take perverse delight in the thought that they are causing Jesus to lose out on their eternal love and worship. I wouldn't be surprised if they even curse Jesus to his face as they are thrown into the lake of fire.</p>
</li>
<li><!-- 30 -->
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0;">Regarding infants and children who died too young to understand the gospel, as I said in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">this post</a>, they are still descendants of Adam and Eve, which means they are born as sinners (Point 14, Psalm 51:5, Psalm 58:3).</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 0;">Therefore, we must still say that even they needed Jesus to die for their sins (Point 15). Thus, they too will need to make a free choice about whether to believe in Jesus or not (Point 7). However, because they were not exposed to the sinful world for very long, I doubt that they would have much motive to reject Jesus, even if it must remain a possibility due to the nature of free will.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h2>Summary and Evaluation of My Theory</h2>
<p>Although it's impossible to know exactly what percentage of people might be saved at the final judgment, I believe that Christians can be very optimistic. We know there will be at least one of every tribe (Revelation 7:9-10), but hopefully also many more than that.</p>
<p>Yet, unlike some of the other theories of inclusivism that I analyzed, in my version of inclusivism, everyone will be saved only because of Jesus, and all saved people will explicitly put their trust in Jesus, even if this only occurs after death. But it seems that the opportunity to believe in Jesus after death must be given for people who died as infants and young children anyway, so it's not unreasonable to say that God will give that same final opportunity to everyone else who didn't have an opportunity to believe in him during their lives, since God truly wants everyone to be saved.</p>
<p>Yet during their lives, people's loving actions, attitudes, and motives, even if expressed in false religions, will reveal whether they loved Love or not. Because God is Love and he wants everyone to be saved, at the final judgment, after their good works are shown to be insufficient for salvation, and their sins are shown to be worthy of eternal destruction, God will give them one final opportunity to believe in Jesus and be saved.</p>
<p>All people who truly loved Love will recognize their sin and their need for a savior, and will humbly believe in Jesus when given this final opportunity to do so. Conversely, those who did not love Love but rather loved selfishness, wickedness, money, or power will be less likely to change their mind at the final judgment, and at least some of them will reject Jesus' offer.</p>
<p>Those who do reject this final offer will have been hardened beyond any possibility of redemption, and so they will be fit only for eternal destruction. Their situation would be analogous to those Israelites who hardened their hearts against God in the wilderness and rebelled, so they were not allowed to enter the promised land and were instead punished with physical death (Hebrews 3:7-19).</p>
<p>So in the end, it will be true that everyone who is eternally saved will be saved only because Jesus died for their sins, and because they had faith in Jesus as their Savior. No one will be saved because of their good works, or because of their faith in other religions, or because of what hints of Gods' character they may have seen in nature or in otherwise false religions. There truly is no other name besides Jesus by which people will be eternally saved (Acts 4:12, John 14:6). At the final judgment, everyone will finally recognize that Jesus truly is God (Philippians 2:9-11), and all who reject Jesus will be condemned to eternal death by being thrown into the lake of fire (John 3:16-18, 3:36, 1 John 5:11-12).</p>
<p>But it does not mean there is no hope for those who did not hear about Jesus during their earthly lives, or who died before they were able to make such a choice.</p>
<p>In this way, I believe that all these different Bible verses about the final judgment, good works, sin, salvation, and faith in Jesus that sometimes appear to conflict can actually all be true at the same time. My theory of soteriological inclusivism upholds the gospel as absolutely central, while ensuring that God's love, goodness, justice, and mercy are also maximized because everyone gets a fair and equal opportunity to be eternally saved.</p>
<h2>A Possible Objection</h2>
<p>Critics of my theory would likely refer to Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31). In this parable, the rich man is never given any opportunity after his death to repent and be saved. He doesn't even face God or Jesus at the final judgment, but simply finds himself immediately suffering in fire.</p>
<p>The rich man also doesn't plead for forgiveness or say that he is sorry for his sins. He simply regrets that he is suffering, wants his suffering to be reduced, and wants his family members to avoid ending up suffering like he is. (He also attempts to boss around Abraham and Lazarus to try to get them to help him).</p>
<p>I have mentioned this parable in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">my post</a> on hell as eternal annihilation, because if the parable is taken literally, it seems to claim that the unsaved will immediately face eternal conscious torment the moment they die, and there are no more chances to repent or be saved.</p>
<p>In that post, I agreed with Edward Fudge, who argued that Jesus' parable is probably a modification of a common Rabbinical story that came in several variations. The main point is the final 'punchline' of the parable (Luke 16:31), which is that those who reject what God has revealed to them in Scripture still wouldn't believe it even if someone rose from the dead to confirm it.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>This parable was therefore particularly relevant for the scribes and Pharisees who knew the Old Testament, but most of them didn't recognize or believe that Jesus was their Messiah, even after his bodily resurrection.</p>
<p>I've recently come across more analysis of this parable by David Jakubovic. In his article, Jakubovic highlights several scholars who show that the details of this parable do not fit with the rest of what the Bible teaches about heaven and hell, salvation, or the final judgment.<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>For example, Lazarus is not depicted as being saved because he recognized he was a sinner who needed God's forgiveness. The parable only mentions that Lazarus had a hard life on earth but in the afterlife he was in comfort, while the rich man lived in comfort on earth but was now suffering in the afterlife (Luke 16:25).</p>
<p>Ralph Cunnington summarizes the problems that occur if we try to take this parable literally:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Most treatments of the text note that the parable is not intended to provide actual descriptions of the afterlife. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, much of the imagery appears to be based upon a Jewish adaptation of an Egyptian folk-tale. This is perfectly acceptable for a parable because parables do not purport to depict true stories, but it should caution us against viewing the details of the narrative as a realistic account of the afterlife. Secondly, the parable contains details that are problematic even for defenders of the conscious punishment position. The rich man is portrayed as having a bodily existence (v. 24) and he is able to see Lazarus, suggesting that Lazarus is in Hades as well (although seemingly in another compartment). The former detail is incompatible with a future resurrection of the body and the latter has more in common with 1 Enoch 22:1-14 than with New Testament descriptions of the intermediate state of believers (2 Corinthians 5:1-10; Philippians 1:23; Hebrews 1:23; Revelation 6:9-11).<cite>12</cite></span></p>
<p>As a result,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Those who argue that Jesus must be describing spiritual realities in this parable face a real problem here because they either have to affirm spiritual realities contrary to Scripture (a corporeal existence in a compartmentalised intermediate state) or admit that Jesus is picturing an intermediate state that does not completely correspond to the spiritual reality, thus undermining their argument. Thirdly, it is clear that the descriptions of the afterlife are necessary in order to illustrate the central teachings of the parable. This suggests that the details are not, in themselves, intended to be teachings of the parable anymore than the actions of the dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-13) are intended to provide investment advice.<cite>13</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, Cunnington concludes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The theological intent and significance of a parable should always be consistent with Jesus’ teaching elsewhere and with the whole canon of Scripture. As we have seen, Scripture nowhere else teaches that unbelievers proceed to conscious punishment upon death and therefore we should be reluctant to conclude that Jesus teaches otherwise here.<cite>14</cite></span></p>
<p>Jakubovic likewise quotes one scholar who says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The story of the rich man and Lazarus was never intended as an account of human destiny. On the contrary, it was a satirical story by means of which Jesus attacked Pharisaic piety in general and the Pharisaic understanding of human destiny in particular.<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>So the best interpretation of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man is to say that Jesus was making use of a common cultural understanding of the afterlife, which may have been taught by the Pharisees, in order to critique both it and the Pharisees themselves. Thus, this parable doesn't present any difficulty for my theory above.</p>
<p>All it might confirm is that those who continually rejected what they heard about God in the Bible during their lives will not be likely to change their minds, even at the final judgment (Luke 16:31).</p>
<h2>So Then Why Be A Christian Now?</h2>
<p>So if it is still possible to believe in Jesus and be saved at the final judgment, then a cynic might wonder why anyone would even bother becoming a Christian now. Similarly, Christians might fear that such a theory of inclusivism discourages evangelism, because it removes the urgency for people to hear the gospel and believe it during this life.</p>
<p>However, there are still some very good reasons why Christians should continue to evangelize, and why there is value in becoming a Christian now.</p>
<p>In the Appendix of a <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">previous post</a>, I examined what Karl Barth wrote about salvation. He argued that although everyone will be saved eventually, the benefit of being a Christian now is that we know God as our Redeemer and we can recognize and confess the gospel, unlike others who don't yet know it.<cite>16</cite></p>
<p>Although I'm convinced the Bible says that not everyone will be saved, I think the second part of Barth's insight is useful here. The Bible says that in some sense, people who believe in Jesus in this life are only the "first fruits" of everyone who will eventually be saved:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. <span class="blockquote-verse">(2 Thessalonians 2:13-14, NRSV)</span></span></p>
<p>In ancient Israel, the first fruits were the early part of the harvest that came in the spring, although the rest of the crops weren't ready to harvest until the end of summer (Numbers 18:12-13). Jesus used harvest imagery to talk about the final judgment (Matthew 13:24-30, 13:36-43). Using these metaphors, we can say that Christians are both the early part of this harvest, and we also act as workers to help Jesus bring in the harvest of others who will also be saved (Luke 10:2, Matthew 20:1-16), by taking the gospel to people so that they can also believe (Romans 10:14-15).</p>
<p>In another verse, Christians are called Christ's ambassadors:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" <span class="blockquote-verse">(2 Corinthians 5:19-20, NLT)</span></span></p>
<p>So if you are a Christian, you have been chosen to help with these tasks in whatever way your spiritual gifts enable you to. This is a privilege, and whether we are the ones who sow seeds of the gospel or are the ones who see people put their faith in Jesus, Christians can all rejoice together (John 4:36-38).</p>
<p>Sharing the gospel is also important not just so individuals can become eternally saved, but even for the wellbeing of our entire society.</p>
<p>Faithful churches are like lampstands that shine the light of the gospel out into our world to repel the darkness, and like salt that holds off moral decay (Matthew 5:13-16, Revelation 1:20, 2:5). So if Christians don't evangelize or teach people to become disciples (Matthew 28:19-20), then we shouldn't be surprised when our <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/churches-must-evangelize-or-die/">churches die out</a>, and our society becomes increasingly immoral.</p>
<h2>The Personal Benefits of Being a Christian</h2>
<p>There are also here are many personal benefits to knowing Jesus and trying to follow his instructions for how he wants us to live now.</p>
<p>The greatest benefit of being a Christian now is that we get to enjoy a personal relationship with Jesus (1 John 5:20, John 17:3), through the Holy Spirit who comes to live in our hearts the moment we first believe the gospel (Ephesians 1:13-14, John 14:16-17, 14:22-23).</p>
<p>There is no greater privilege than being able to boldly come to Jesus in prayer about everything, (Hebrews 4:15-16, 1 John 5:15), and to know that God is our Father (Romans 8:15-16, John 20:17). In the New Heaven and New Earth, Christians will be even further united with Jesus, in some way that's similar to how a man and woman are united in marriage (Ephesians 5:31-32, Revelation 19:6-10, 21:2).</p>
<p>Furthermore, because of our hope in our <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-christian-hope-of-resurrection/">future bodily resurrection</a>, we <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christians-should-not-fear-death/">don't have to fear death</a> (Hebrews 2:14-15, 1 Corinthians 15:54-56), and we can go through life with the supernatural hope that comes from knowing we have eternal life (1 John 5:13). We can be confident that our eternal future is <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">completely secure</a>, and that nothing can separate us from God's love (Romans 8:38-39).</p>
<p>The Holy Spirit is God's love poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit also gives us the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22). The Holy Spirit also helps <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-to-pursue-sanctification/">sanctify us</a>, so that we can overcome sins that would otherwise make our lives miserable and lead to death (James 1:14-15, Romans 7:5).</p>
<p>Christians also gain spiritual gifts that we can use to serve God and build up the church, spiritual armor to protect us from evil, and a new family of other Christians who can love us, support us, and pray for us, like I talked about in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christians-are-superheros/">here</a>.</p>
<p>By using our spiritual gifts and the other talents that God has given us, we can earn heavenly rewards that will last forever (1 Corinthians 3:11-14, Colossians 3:23-24, Matthew 6:19-20). There is also an inheritance for all believers (1 Peter 1:3-5, Ephesians 1:18), and we can even be co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16-17)!</p>
<p>Faithful Christians who have served God in this life will be rewarded by ruling with Christ over cities in his Millennial Kingdom and/or eternity on the New Earth (Luke 19:17-19, 2 Timothy 2:12). We'll also have authority to judge the world, and will even judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3, Revelation 2:26-27, 5:10, 20:4).</p>
<p>And, what might be most relevant to Christians who are alive now, we have the promise that one day soon Jesus will take us to be with him in heaven at <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> (John 14:1-3). In this way, we will avoid suffering God's judgment that will be poured out on this sinful, God-rejecting world during the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">Tribulation</a> (Revelation 3:10).</p>
<p>So, since we should love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31), we should also want everyone to be able to experience all these wonderful things, just like God also wants them to. Therefore, we should still share the gospel and pray that people will believe in Jesus now.</p>
<p>However, if my theory is true, we can evangelize without being afraid of what might happen if people don't believe in Jesus in this lifetime, and without threatening them that they <em>must</em> believe in Jesus during this lifetime, <em>or else...</em>.</p>
<p>In this way, we can emphasize God's perfect, loving character and how he truly wants everyone to believe in Jesus and be saved, rather than perish (John 3:16-17). There are many good reasons to believe in Jesus now, and the sooner someone believes, the longer they will have to enjoy all the benefits of a relationship with Jesus.</p>
<p>Plus, best of all, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">eternal life is completely free</a>. If you don't know Jesus as your Savior, you can begin such a relationship right now, simply by praying to Jesus in your thoughts or out loud, and saying you believe in him and accept his death on the cross for your sins, so that you can have eternal life.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>What other implications might there be from this theory of inclusivism? I think there are several which I hope to explore more in the future.</p>
<p>For example, the idea of Christians being chosen/predestined by God, not for salvation, but for service to God in this life and a special position in Christ's future kingdom is very interesting (e.g. John 15:16-19, 1 Peter 2:9, Matthew 22:14).<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>This might also be one way to understand some of the difficult Bible passages regarding free will and divine sovereignty, such as when God prophesies that people were chosen for particular roles in this life, even before they were born. For example: John the Baptist, Josiah, and Cyrus (e.g. Luke 1:13-17, 1 Kings 13:2, Isaiah 44:28, 45:1-6).</p>
<p>It doesn't mean these individuals were predestined for eternal salvation, because their salvation would depend on their own free choice. But it could mean that these people were chosen for a special role or task that they could do regardless of whether they ended up being eternally saved.</p>
<p>For example, despite how John the Baptist proclaimed that Jesus was the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29-35), John seems to still have wrestled with the question of whether he personally believed that Jesus was the Messiah or not (Matthew 11:2-3). See also Judas, who was chosen to serve with Jesus and the disciples, but Jesus calls him a devil (John 6:70-71).</p>
<p>So service to God in this life can be separated from eternal salvation, and this might improve our understanding of how free will relates to God's sovereignty. But more on this will have to wait.</p>
<p>In the meantime, what do you think of my outline of a theory of Christian inclusivism? Does it seem plausible? Are there any relevant Bible verses you think I've overlooked?</p>
<p>If you want to send me any suggestions for improvements or things to consider, feel free to send me an email through the address on my About Me page. I can't promise that I'll reply (life gets busy), but I will read them and consider them.</p>
<p>If you find my theory persuasive, then I hope it can encourage you if you're worried about the eternal salvation of people you love who haven't yet believed in Jesus, despite your best efforts to witness to them. Perhaps you might also find hope for loved ones who died before they understood the gospel or clearly expressed faith in Jesus.</p>
<p>I also hope my theory highlights how loving, just, and merciful our Triune God is, and how amazing it was that he would send Jesus to die for all of our sins. God truly is Love, and all who love Love will one day recognize this, believe in Jesus, and live with God forever in a perfect world of complete love. I hope you'll be there!</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Edwards said the fact that God is said to be Love (1 John 4:8, 16) "shows that there are more persons than one in the Deity: for it shows love to be essential and necessary to the Deity, so that his nature consists in it" (Edwards, "Discourse on the Trinity," in WJE 21: 113–114). Conversely, if God was not Triune, then God could not be Love in Himself, since "one alone, without any reference to any more, cannot be excellent; for in such case there can be no manner of relation no way, and therefore, no such thing as consent [i.e., love]" (Edwards, "The Mind," in WJE 6: 336-337, Edwards, "Miscellanies," no. 117 in WJE 13: 284). Edwards said God's glory/beauty "must consist primarily in love to himself, or in the mutual love and friendship which subsists eternally and necessarily between the several persons in the Godhead" (Edwards, "True Virtue," in WJE 8: 557).</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> This is my alteration of Edwards' idea that God is "Being in general", who loves all other beings and seeks their good, except for beings who are opposed to the good of other beings and/or the good of "Being in general" (Jonathan Edwards, "Dissertation 2: True Virtue", in WJE 8: 540-545. See also Edwards, "The Mind," nos. 1 and 45 in WJE 6: 332–38, 362–64.) Instead, I start with the claim that God is Love, who therefore loves love and hates what goes against love (i.e., sin/evil), which is much easier to prove from the Bible.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> This is similar to how Edwards thought that a larger network of mutually-loving relationships has more "spiritual beauty" or "true virtue", which was derived from Edwards' philosophy of aesthetics. (Edwards, "True Virtue," in WJE 8: 540, 548–549, 562–563).</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> This is similar to how Edwards said that God created the world in order for people to know God and love God, which makes them happy. Therefore, God's glory and creaturely happiness are identical, and God is most glorified when his people are happiest (Edwards, "End of Creation," in WJE 8: 459). Essentially, a creature's true happiness consists of the creature knowing and loving God, perceiving God's beauty and glory, and rejoicing in God as the creature's "supreme end" (Edwards, "End of Creation", 533). Yet again, though, I would prefer to argue from Scripture, which is easier. Since all of God's commands for people are ultimately to love God and love others, and God loves us and wants what is best for us, then following God's commands is what will make us happiest, which is to love and be loved, since Love is what God is.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Edwards said heaven will be a society of perfect love between saints, angels, and the Trinity. There, redeemed saints will perfectly love all others, and will be perfectly loved by all others in return. Edwards believed that the saints will grow in their knowledge and love of God for all eternity, becoming progressively happier and closer to God, and God will be even more glorified. It is therefore in God’s own interest to ensure that the saints are eternally happy, and God will continue to bless his saints with infinite good. Saints will also rejoice in each other’s happiness. (Edwards, "End of Creation," in WJE 8: 443, 533–536, Edwards, "Heaven is a World of Love," in WJE 8: 370-374, 382, Edwards, "True Virtue," in WJE 8: 541–54.)</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em>, WJE 1: 378–380. Edwards also says "every being had rather things should be according to his will than not; and therefore, if things ben't [are not] according to his will, it must be for want of power. It can't be for want of will, by supposition; it must therefore be for want of sufficiency. It must be either because he can't have it so, or can't have it so without some difficulty, or some inconvenience" (Edwards, "Part V: Predestination," in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 27, "Controversies" Notebook [Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008].) Although Edwards thinks that God can do whatever God wants, I would argue that God cannot force someone to love Him, because that would not be true love (see sources in next footnote). Thus, although God wants everyone to love Him, the nature of free will which is necessary for love to be possible means that God's omnipotence is not able to guarantee that everyone will freely choose to love Him.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> I have talked about this in more detail in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">here</a>. See also Gregory A. Boyd, "God Limits His Control," in <em>Four Views on Divine Providence</em>, eds. Stanley N. Gundry and Dennis W. Jowers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 188-189; Norman Geisler, "God Knows All Things," in <em>Predestination & Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty & Human Freedom</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1986), 69; C.S. Lewis. "The Screwtape Letters," in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), letter 8, 207.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> For example, the hell/purgatory that C. S. Lewis imagined in his story "The Great Divorce" where the 'ghosts' live is a miserable, dreary place where the ghosts don't even like each other. Yet this would only be the mildest version of a world without any love/goodness. Actually, though, a world without any love at all would be even worse than a planet full of Reavers from the Firefly/Serenity sci-fi series, where everyone would be full of as much hate and rage as possible, and their only goal would be to do maximum harm to themselves and all others.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> "In this life, of course, we rarely, if ever, choose in a context of full clarity. We all emerge and start making choices in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and illusion, where God remains at least partly hidden from us. But that merely makes matters worse.... For insofar as God remains hidden from us and we do not fully understand the true nature of God or the consequences of separating ourselves from him, we are in no position to reject the true God at all. We may reject a caricature of God, as frequently happens in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and misperception; but we are in no position to reject the true God until our ignorance has been removed and our misjudgments have been corrected" (Thomas B. Talbott, "Response by Thomas B. Talbott" in <em>Perspectives on Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 144.)</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 148-151.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> David Jakubovic, <a href="https://www.afterlife.co.nz/2023/05/turn-or-burn-1920s-style-response-essay/">"'Turn or Burn!' 1920s Style"</a>, Afterlife.co.nz, May 3, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Ralph Cunnington, "A re-examination of the intermediate state of unbelievers," <em>Evangelical Quarterly, 82.3</em>, 2010, 234-235.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Ralph Cunnington, "A re-examination of the intermediate state of unbelievers," <em>Evangelical Quarterly, 82.3</em>, 2010, 235. See also a good quote from Tony Wright: "We need not conclude that Jesus is endorsing in any way the veracity of these motifs. In this parable Jesus no more provides information about the intermediate state than, in other parables, does he provide instruction on correct agricultural practices (Luke 15:4-6) or investing tips (Luke 16:1-13)."(Tony Wright, "Death, the Dead and the Underworld in Biblical Theology – Part 2," <em>Churchman 122:2</em>, 2008, 114.)</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Ralph Cunnington, "A re-examination of the intermediate state of unbelievers," <em>Evangelical Quarterly, 82.3</em>, 2010, 235. In the same article, Cunnington deals with 2 Peter 2:9 that is often translated as "and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment," yet he gives reasons why it is perhaps better translated as "keep the unrighteous to be punished" (232).</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> David Jakubovic, <a href="https://www.afterlife.co.nz/2023/05/turn-or-burn-1920s-style-response-essay/">"'Turn or Burn!' 1920s Style"</a>, Afterlife.co.nz, May 3, 2023, citing David J. Powys, <em>Hell: A Hard Look at a Hard Question</em> (Paternoster, Carlisle, 1997), 225.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> "[Christians] have over the rest of the world the one inestimable advantage that God the Reconciler and the event of reconciliation can be to them a matter of recognition and confession, until the day when He and it will be the subject of His revelation to all eyes and ears and hearts, and therefore of the recognition and confession of all men." (Karl Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, eds. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 2004), §58 section 4, 149).</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Shawn Lazar, <em>Chosen to Serve: Why Divine Election Is to Service, Not to Eternal Life</em> (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2017), 137-141, 171, 202-203, 207-212, 238-239.</li>
</ul>Are There Divine Truths in Nature or Other Religions?2023-05-01T00:00:00+00:002023-05-01T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2023-05-01:/article/are-there-divine-truths-in-nature-or-other-religions/<p>In my past several posts, I've been building a case for why I believe that some sort of theory of Christian inclusivism is necessary if Christians want to believe everything the Bible says about which individuals will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>As a reminder, Christian inclusivism is the idea that although …</p><p>In my past several posts, I've been building a case for why I believe that some sort of theory of Christian inclusivism is necessary if Christians want to believe everything the Bible says about which individuals will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>As a reminder, Christian inclusivism is the idea that although Christianity is the only true religion/faith, people who were not Christians and who never heard the gospel during their earthly lives can still be eternally saved, because God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly wants to save all people</a>.</p>
<p>However, despite this, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">not everyone will be saved</a>, and so universalism isn't a biblical option. Inclusivism also denies that all religions lead to the same God or the same heaven, and thus, it is not the same as <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">religious pluralism</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that a theologically-sound theory of inclusivism could be an option for Christians who might otherwise be tempted to endorse universalism. It could also resolve the negative consequences for God's character that can be implied by exclusivism.</p>
<p>A good theory of inclusivism could also reduce the anxiety that Christians may feel regarding the eternal destiny of our neighbors, friends, and family members who don't currently believe in Jesus, or who died without accepting Jesus, despite our best efforts to witness to them.</p>
<h2>Three Possibilities For Christian Inclusivism</h2>
<p>There may be historical precedent for Christian inclusivism, as demonstrated by the behavior of the earliest Christians.</p>
<p>It is suggested that Christians in the early church believed that God was at work in all people, and so these Christians could live with "a subtle combination of relaxation and urgency in relation to non-Christians. On the one hand, they do not seem obsessed about the fate of the majority of pagans among whom they lived, yet on the other hand they still engaged in vigorous mission activity among them."<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>So although I'm convinced that some form of Christian inclusivism seems to be biblically necessary, and it might even have historical precedent, the challenge is to explain how it works.</p>
<p>That is, Christian inclusivists need to explain on what basis God will judge people who never heard the gospel (or who died before they had the ability to understand and personally respond to the gospel) that could lead to at least <em>some</em> of those people being eternally saved.</p>
<p>There are several possibilities I have heard Christians propose, including:</p>
<ol>
<li>Each person has an encounter with God/Jesus after death, giving individuals who have not previously had a chance to accept or reject the gospel the opportunity to make their final decision regarding God's offer of salvation then. I explored this option in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">here</a>.</li>
<li>God judges people based on what their earthly actions revealed about their hearts being oriented either toward God or away from God. I discussed this option <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">here</a>.</li>
<li>God judges people based on how they responded to the truths about God that they did have access to during their lives through nature, or maybe, through otherwise false religions.</li>
</ol>
<p>A disclaimer: I haven't read every book or article on Christian inclusivism that exists. However, it seems to me that most proposals for Christian inclusivism would fall into one of these categories, or might make use of a combination of these basic but distinct claims.</p>
<p>In the rest of this post, I will examine the third and last option, and explain why I believe it is not as persuasive as the first or second options.</p>
<h2>People Can Know Something About God Through Nature</h2>
<p>David said that the sky and stars testify about God to all people:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
and their words to all the world. (Psalm 19:1-4, NLT)</span></p>
<p>Psalm 8 likewise praises God's design of the stars, humanity, and all the animals.</p>
<p>In Romans 1:18-23, Paul said that all people should know something about God from what they can see in nature. Two specific divine traits that Paul mentions include God's "eternal power" and "divine nature."</p>
<p>In theology, the idea of knowing something about God from nature is called <em>general revelation</em>, because it is available to all people, at all times. In contrast, <em>special revelation</em> is communication given directly from God, such as was given to the human authors of the books that would become the Old and New Testaments.</p>
<p>In the theology class I was a TA for, it was common for students to endorse the idea of general revelation by pointing to beautiful sunsets, rainbows, forests, mountains, and the stars as being examples of God's glory and goodness.</p>
<p>The 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards loved walking in nature. One reason for this was because he believed he could see many things in nature that pointed to spiritual truths about God, or to other truths that were found in Scripture. He wrote:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">I believe that the whole universe, heaven and earth, air and seas, and the divine constitution and history of the holy Scriptures, be full of images of divine things, as full as a language is of words; and that the multitude of those things that I have mentioned are but a very small part of what is really intended to be signified and typified by these things.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>Edwards filled several notebooks with lists of the theological ideas that he believed could be seen in the sun, moon, stars, snakes and spiders, grass and vegetation, rivers, trees, clouds, and animals, among other things.<cite>3</cite> For example, the beauty of nature represented God's goodness, grace, and love, while thunder and lightning represented God's wrath at sin.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>So this is one way that some Christians say they can see God through nature.</p>
<p>Alternatively, Christians who lean more toward science might point out how the physical properties of the universe, our solar system,<cite>4a</cite> and even the Earth itself appear to be "finely tuned" to support the existence of life.<cite>4b</cite> This is called the <em>anthropic principle</em>, and it is often referred to as support for the idea that God created the universe.</p>
<p>Similar arguments for God's amazing design of living things could be made from the irreducible complexity of certain aspects of biological organisms.<cite>4c</cite> In irreducibly complex systems, without every component being exactly the way it is, the entire system loses all functionality. These examples are strong support for the idea that God created life, because these irreducibly-complex biological systems could not have evolved piece-by-piece.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is certainly possible for Christians to argue that nature provides evidence of God's existence, power, and glory.</p>
<h2>But Nature Is Not Enough To Lead People To Salvation</h2>
<p>However, there is a major difficulty for theories of Christian inclusivism that rely on general revelation.</p>
<p>This difficulty is that Paul also said that because all people can know some basic truths about God by looking at nature, all people are "without excuse" when they suppress this truth and refuse to honor God or thank God (Romans 1:18-23). Then, as a judgment, God allows these people's minds to be darkened so that they fall into idolatry, sexual immorality, and a variety of other sins (Romans 1:24-32).</p>
<p>So in effect, Paul's explanation in Romans 1 is an elaboration of the point he makes later, that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one (Romans 3:10-12 NLT, quoting Psalm 14:2-3)</span></p>
<p>Other Bible verses make the same point, such as Ecclesiastes 7:20, Isaiah 53:6, and Romans 3:23. All people are sinners due to being descendants of Adam and Eve, who sinned when they <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/">doubted God's word</a> in the Garden of Eden and chose to disobey God's instructions (Romans 5:12-14).</p>
<p>Because of Romans 1:18-23, Bible commentators and theologians usually say that general revelation does not provide enough information about God for people to be eternally saved.</p>
<p>For example, John Calvin argued that although some things about God are revealed in nature, the problem is that sinful humans can't properly perceive God by looking at nature without <em>also</em> having been told about God through God's Word. Yet, once someone has faith in God because they have been told about him, <em>then</em> they can see God's glory in creation.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>Jonathan Edwards made the same point when he argued that Christians learn from Scripture how to interpret the spiritual meaning of what they see in nature. We also need the help of the Holy Spirit in order to properly understand spiritual things. Without the Holy Spirit and Scripture as a guide, Edwards thought that people are effectively 'blind' to seeing God's glory in nature.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>This argument can appear to be supported by how the famous skeptic David Hume argued that when we look at nature on its own, without any other sources of information, it is difficult to make any conclusions about what sort of God might have created it.</p>
<p>For example, Hume said that things such as earthquakes, diseases, and other natural disasters might suggest that the designer of the world (if there is one) is incompetent. Or maybe, these things show that the world is the product of both good and bad forces or gods, or even a whole pantheon of gods, each with their own area of expertise.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Some atheists have made similar objections against a perfectly good and loving God based on the suffering they see in nature.</p>
<p>For example, Charles Darwin famously said, "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ [parasitic wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars."<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>Sir David Attenborough also rejected the idea of a good and loving God, citing an instance of a parasitic worm that he found living inside a child's eyeball.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>Christian apologists rightly point out that any such suffering in nature is the result of the first sin of Adam and Eve. Because of the first sin, the natural world became partly corrupted and subject to a curse, until it will be set free at some point in the future when Jesus returns (Romans 8:20-22). Thus, there are ways that Christians can defend God's goodness despite the suffering that we currently see in nature.</p>
<p>Regardless, Paul's statement in Romans 1:18-21 must still be true, because every word of Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), and the Holy Spirit is God, who never lies (Titus 1:2).</p>
<p>So it seems that what is revealed in nature about God is enough for people to know that God exists, and this makes them accountable to God when they turn away from God. Yet it does not seem that nature on its own provides enough information for people to know that they need to believe in Jesus in order to be eternally saved.</p>
<p>However, because God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly wants all people to be saved</a>, then there must be some way for this to be possible, even for people who lived in times or places when they did not have access to the Bible or to Jewish or Christian missionaries.</p>
<p>So if nature is ruled out as a way for people to know enough about God to be saved, then what other source of information about God might unevangelized people have access to?</p>
<p>Some inclusivists suggest that maybe God is able to make use of whatever genuine truths about him are found in otherwise false religions. If people respond positively to these truths, then God might consider their faith in these truths to be equivalent to having faith in Jesus. In this way, these people might be able to be eternally saved, even without having known specifically about Jesus or the gospel.</p>
<p>C. S. Lewis hints at something like this possibility at the end of his Narnia series.</p>
<h2>Does God Accept The Worship and Service of False Deities As Worship and Service Of Himself?</h2>
<p>In the <em>The Last Battle</em>, the final novel of C.S. Lewis' <em>Chronicles of Narnia</em> series, Lewis imagined a character named Emeth. Emeth is a soldier in an enemy army and worships a false god named Tash.</p>
<p>At this point in the book, many of the characters are gathered together outside a horse stable. A conniving monkey says that inside the stable is "Tashlan," which is a mash-up of the names Tash and Aslan. In Narnia, Aslan is equivalent to Jesus Christ. The monkey has claimed that Tash is the same as Aslan, and so the soldier Emeth is eager to go into the stable to meet his god Tash.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>Emeth goes in, but everyone else assumes that he will be killed. During the subsequent battle between the Narnians and the enemy army, the boy Eustace is captured and thrown into the stable by an enemy soldier. Other characters are likewise thrown in, including the human leader of the Narnian army, and Eustace's friend Jill.</p>
<p>Inside the stable, Eustace, Jill, and the Narnian leader find themselves in the presence of various humans who had been on Aslan's side in previous Narnia books. They are all depicted in glorified bodies, wearing fine robes and crowns.<cite>11</cite> They are in a sort of heavenly dimension, with fruit trees, green grass, sunshine, and a clear sky, rather than inside a horse stable.</p>
<p>One of the characters, Queen Lucy, describes what has been happening from her perspective inside this heavenly dimension. When Emeth came through the stable door, expecting to see his false god Tash, he actually met these other good characters. But Emeth seemed to be in a daze or trance, and he didn't quite realize where he was, so he wandered off somewhere.<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>Aslan then appears and ends the world of Narnia, after performing a final judgment of all creatures. Aslan welcomes the creatures who loved him into the heavenly alternative-dimension. After all of this, the saved characters come across Emeth again, who has also been saved from the destruction of Narnia.</p>
<p>Emeth explains to them that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For always since I was a boy I have served Tash and my great desire was to know more of him and, if it might be, to look upon his face. But the name of Aslan was hateful to me.<cite>13</cite></span></p>
<p>When Emeth found himself to be in this heavenly alternative-dimension, he wandered around looking for Tash. Instead of Tash, though, he met Aslan. Emeth says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc [emperor] of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, "Son, thou art welcome." But I said, "Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash." He answered, "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.... For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted".<cite>14</cite></span></p>
<p>So it seems that Lewis is proposing a theory of Christian inclusivism where anyone who truly seeks what he or she thinks is God, and also does what is right, is accepted by God. This is similar to when the Apostle Peter said, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears [i.e., respects] him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:34-35).</p>
<p>Yet this verse (and Lewis' story) must be interpreted in ways that do not teach salvation by works. It is clear from the Bible that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">no one is saved by the good works</a> that they do during their lives, but only by faith in God/Jesus (e.g., Ephesians 2:8-9).</p>
<p>Lewis is also careful to clarify that the false god Tash is not actually the same as Aslan, in order to avoid the unbiblical idea of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">religious pluralism</a>, which suggests that all religions worship the same God.</p>
<p>But it could also appear that Lewis is saying that Emeth was saved because he responded to the truth about God that he knew from his false religion. Lewis' depiction of Emeth's entry into heaven might also imply that people from other religions who are eternally saved will initially think that they have entered heaven due to their false gods or their false religion.</p>
<p>However, the Bible says that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).</p>
<p>So Christians need to be careful about implying that people from other religions will enter directly into heaven without recognizing who Jesus is and what he has done for them.</p>
<p>Because of Philippians 2:10-11, I am quite certain that, unlike Lewis' depiction of Emeth, any Hindus who end up being saved will not be wandering around heaven wondering where all their gods are. Any ancient Greeks who are saved will not be in heaven asking for directions to Mount Olympus, and any saved Muslims will not think they earned their way into heaven through performing the works prescribed by the 'Five Pillars' of Islam.</p>
<p>In fact, it might actually be better to see Lewis' story as primarily promoting a combination of the first two inclusivistic options I listed earlier: a post-mortem encounter with Jesus, along with the idea that God will judge each person's heart as it was revealed by a person's actions.</p>
<p>I just wish that Lewis had depicted this a little more clearly, to avoid mistakenly suggesting that in heaven, some people may not initially realize that the reason they have been eternally saved is because of Jesus's death for their sins.</p>
<p>It would also be important for a theory of Christian inclusivism to avoid implying that God doesn't ultimately care which religion a person follows, as long as the person tries to do what is good. Otherwise, it does not make sense why Jesus instructed Christians to take the gospel to all people (Matthew 28:19-20). Therefore, it does not seem that all religions are equal when it comes to fulfilling God's purposes for people's lives.</p>
<p>However, obviously, Christian evangelists have not been able to reach all people. Might there still be some way that God can reach these people with his truth, even maybe through their otherwise-false religions?</p>
<h2>Is There Truth In Other Religions?</h2>
<p>C.S. Lewis is not the only Christian who has suggested that people from other religions can still possibly be eternally saved. This is also Clark Pinnock's basic proposal in his book <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Zondervan, 1992).</p>
<p>Pinnock says that on the basis of Acts 14:16-17,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Since God has not left anyone without witness, people are judged on the basis of the light they have received and how they have responded to that light. Faith in God is what saves, not possessing certain minimum information. Hebrews is clear: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>So far, this is all supportable by Scripture, and I have argued similarly in my blog post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/is-correct-theology-necessary-for-salvation/">here</a>. However, where Pinnock takes it is more questionable. Although it is slightly long, here is Pinnock's summary of how he understands the salvation of people who never knew about Jesus or the gospel:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">People cannot respond to light that did not reach them. They can only respond to revelation that did. Scripture and reason both imply that no one can be held responsible for truth of which they were inculpably ignorant; they are judged on the basis of the truth they know. A person is saved by faith, even if the content of belief is deficient (and whose is not?). The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus to be saved. Job did not know it. David did not know it. Babies dying in infancy do not know it. It is not so much a question whether the unevangelized know Jesus as whether Jesus knows them (Matthew 7:23). One does not have to be conscious of the work of Christ done on one's behalf in order to benefit from that work. The issue God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of theology. Paul says that faith makes the difference. God is the "Savior of all men [potentially], and especially of those who believe [actually]" (1 Timothy 4:10). This is the path I will take to explain how the unevangelized gain access to God and are finally saved.<cite>16</cite></span></p>
<p>The question then for this post is what true 'light' might be found in other religions that unevangelized people could respond to, in order for them to be eternally saved.</p>
<p>Pinnock suggests that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God calls on all persons to seek him, whether they seek him from within religion or outside it. There is enough truth in most religions for people to take hold of and put their trust in God's mercy.<cite>17</cite></span></p>
<p>For example, Pinnock claims,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Though Christianity and Islam, for instance, are vastly different, they are not without important similarities. Christians and Muslims, together with large numbers of people from other traditions of the world, believe there is one God who created the universe and they admire the work of his hands. Christians do not have a monopoly on belief in one God. Even oriental religious systems with an absence of clear belief in a personal God do not lack for abiding insight into religious and philosophical truth. Even there, the light shines and points to a greater light.<cite>18</cite></span></p>
<p>Yet I am reminded of how James said, "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!" (James 2:19). Thus, belief in monotheism alone is not particularly praiseworthy.</p>
<p>Futhermore, historically, monotheism has actually been a key reason that Muslims and Jews have <em>rejected</em> the idea that Jesus is God. Christians have been persecuted by both groups because worshipping Jesus as God while also worshipping God the Father appears to contradict the idea of monotheism.</p>
<p>Thus, starting from the point of there being only one God is not necessarily helpful for inter-religious dialogue, unless these other monotheistic religions are prepared to accept the Christian belief that God is a Triune being of three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (e.g., Matthew 3:16-17, 28:19).</p>
<p>Additionally, Pinnock seems to be implying that a belief in monotheism <em>alone</em> is enough to save someone.</p>
<p>In contrast, at least C.S. Lewis' version of inclusivism had some provision for considering a person's heart and/or works, and whether these works are in alignment with God's loving character, which would exclude those who commit atrocities in the name of a false god. In Pinnock's version, it seems that if people were convinced that their monotheistic god told them to do something terrible, and they acted on it, then that would be a praiseworthy act of faith!</p>
<p>Even more troubling is how Pinnock claims that Christians have things to learn from other religions:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Other religions have resources for speaking truth and referring to realities that Christians need to learn about. As George Lindbeck says, "Whatever the faults of Hellenization, it must be seen as a process in which Christians learned much of inestimable value from ancient paganisms and from the culture and philosophies that were their offspring".<cite>19</cite></span></p>
<p>This is very questionable, especially since Pinnock does not provide any specific examples of things that were of 'inestimable value' that Christians learned from the pagan Greeks. Pinnock only mentions how Paul claimed that God had not left himself without a witness in any nation (Acts 14:16-17), and how Paul strategically made use of some things that Greek poets had said in some of Paul's initial presentations of the gospel to Greeks (Acts 17:28).<cite>20</cite></p>
<p>And actually, rather than being a benefit, there are arguments to be made that ideas which crept into Christianity from other religions have actually <em>harmed</em> Christian theology.</p>
<p>For example, Randy Alcorn has pointed out how the Greek philosophy of Platonism which disdains the physical world has undermined Christians' understanding of bodily resurrection and what we should expect eternal life to be like on the New Earth.<cite>21</cite></p>
<p>Thomas F. Torrance has also investigated how the proper biblical understanding of God's grace (i.e., God acting graciously toward people in various ways, most importantly, by sending Jesus to atone for sin) was gradually distorted through the influence of Greek philosophy on various early church leaders, until God's grace came to be thought of as some sort of mystical substance or energy that could be dispensed by the church's sacraments.<cite>22</cite></p>
<p>In a later book, Pinnock himself argues that Greek metaphysical assumptions about God may have led to possible misportrayals of God. For example, God came to be seen as ultra-transcendant, timeless, unchangeable, impassible, and thus unresponsive to the world, much like the Greek philosophers believed, unlike the Biblical depiction of God as relational, passionate, and flexible enough to adapt to people's free choices.<cite>23</cite></p>
<p>Furthermore, Pinnock admits that there can be some problematic ideas found in other religions that would prevent someone from believing in God as he truly is:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For example, the antimetaphyiscal tendency of Buddhist theology would not help a person trying to conceptualize God as loving and personal. The Muslim emphasis on works righteousness would not propel people to seek the mercy of God. The Hindu notion of illusion would not encourage people to take this life and its tasks seriously.<cite>24</cite></span></p>
<p>Therefore, it seems that Pinnock has not clearly proven that there is enough 'light' in other religions to allow those who follow them to be saved.</p>
<p>And unfortunately, Pinnock's appeals to Old Testament figures such as Job to support his claims is actually a logical fallacy called a <em>red herring</em>, because these people are not relevant to this topic of how God will judge unevangelized people, as I will show in the next section.</p>
<h2>Are There 'Pagan' Saints?</h2>
<p>One difficulty with Pinnock's theory of inclusivism is how he often labels people like Abel, Abram, Job, Enoch, Melchizedek, Abimelech, and Noah as
"pagan saints," simply because they did not know as much about God as Jews or Christians today do.<cite>25</cite></p>
<p>About these people, Pinnock says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">These were men who sought God and were rewarded for their faith (Hebrews 11:6). Though the content of their theology might have been pre-Christian and deficient from a later standpoint, they were moving in the direction toward God, no matter whether their religion helped or hindered their approach.<cite>26</cite></span></p>
<p>Throughout his book, Pinnock refers to these individuals as proof of his argument that people from other religions can still be saved if they have faith in God. However, I think this claim is somewhat disingenuous.</p>
<p>Most Christians would argue that people like Job, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham were eternally saved because they trusted in the one true God, even though greater details about God and how God would save people through Jesus were not yet revealed. They did not worship idols or participate in some other false religion, as Pinnock might imply when he describes them as pagans.</p>
<p>For example, Job famously said, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another" (Job 19:25-27).</p>
<p>Job also offered sacrifices to God as compensation or atonement for sins (Job 1:5). This shows he had some awareness of what sin was, and that sacrifice somehow pleased God and/or took away God's displeasure at sin.</p>
<p>So Job was not a 'pagan' saint who worshipped some false god, because he worshipped the true God in the way that he had been taught. Job had faith that he would be resurrected because God would redeem him by sending a savior. In terms of the content of Job's theology, that's pretty good, considering that Job is often thought to be one of the oldest books of the Bible.</p>
<p>Noah and Enoch are similar to Job, because both these men walked closely with the true God.</p>
<p>Enoch pleased God so much that it seems he was taken directly to heaven in a sort of personal <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">Rapture</a> before the worldwide Flood came (Genesis 5:24).</p>
<p>Noah was also a preacher of righteousness to the world of his time (2 Peter 2:5), and he is said to have walked with God (Genesis 6:9) in the sense of having a close personal relationship with God. Noah is listed in Hebrews 11 as an example of someone who had strong faith in God (Hebrews 11:7).</p>
<p>Thus, both Enoch and Noah were not 'pagans', in the sense of following other religions and worshipping idols or other false gods.</p>
<p>Abram, who would later be renamed Abraham, is not recorded in the Bible as personally being part of a false religion or worshipping idols, although his family before him did so for at least some time before they left Ur (Joshua 24:2, Genesis 31:53, Genesis 11:31).</p>
<p>Still, after God called Abram to leave his home and head out to a new land that God would show him, Abraham had faith in God's promise to give him many descendants (Genesis 15:3-6, Hebrews 11:8-10). Abraham's faith in God's promise was enough for him to be eternally saved, and this is why Abraham is an example of all who would later put their faith in God (Romans 4:3-12). Like Job, Abraham also had faith in God's ability to bring people back from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).</p>
<p>So if Pinnock wanted to make a case that people from other false religions can still be saved, he would need to find someone in the Bible who was <em>actually</em> worshipping a false god, but who was saved because of the 'truth' that was still found in this false religion, <em>without</em> that person giving up their false religion and turning to put their faith in the true God.</p>
<p>However, I do not believe there is any such example in the Bible.</p>
<p>Even Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came to eventually recognize Daniel's God as the only true God who had sovereignty over the kings of the world, after God had humbled Nebuchadnezzar for seven years (Daniel 4:34-37). Darius the Mede also believed in God after he saw God rescue Daniel from being eaten in the lion's den (Daniel 6:25-27). So these two individuals are not helpful examples for a theory of inclusivism.</p>
<p>Pinnock refers to the Queen of Sheba who came to hear Solomon's wisdom as an example of someone who was 'unevangelized' who will still be saved. <cite>27</cite> Jesus said that this queen would rise up on the last day and would condemn those who heard Jesus but rejected him, implying that she is saved (Matthew 12:42). However, the Queen of Sheba does not count as a worshiper of a false god, because at the end of her time of learning from Solomon, she praised God who she recognized as the Lord of Israel (1 Kings 10:8-9). So she really wasn't 'unevangelized' after all, contra Pinnock's claim.</p>
<p>Melchizedek also does not qualify as being 'unevangelized,' because he is described as being a priest of God Most High (Genesis 14:18-20, Hebrews 7:1-3). In the book of Hebrews, Melchizedek is used as an example or foreshadowing of Jesus, and it is unlikely that the author of Hebrews would have compared Jesus to Melchizedek if Melchizedek had worshipped a false god (Hebrews 5:5-6, 6:19-20, 7:15-25). The fact that Abraham tithed to Melchizedek also seems to show that Abraham recognized him as being a true follower and priest of God. The author of Hebrews even says that Melchizedek was superior to the Levitical priests of Israel (Hebrews 7:4-13).</p>
<p>Cornelius, the Roman centurion, was described as being a non-Jewish person who still respected and prayed to Israel's God, and so was well-spoken of by the Jewish people (Acts 10:1-2, 10:22). Although Cornelius had not yet heard the gospel until God sent Peter to him, he certainly wasn't a 'pagan' in the sense of worshipping false gods. Plus, he and his family became Christians.</p>
<p>What about Abimelech? Pinnock refers to King Abimelech as being a Canaanite who had greater faith in God than Abraham did.<cite>28</cite> Yet this is a bit of an overstatement.</p>
<p>Abimelech received a warning about divine judgment from God in a dream, and acted on it by returning Sarah to Abraham after having believed that she was available to marry (Genesis 20:3-7). However, it is not completely clear what Abimelech's beliefs were about God, either before or after this incident.</p>
<p>Abraham said he thought that there was no one who feared God in Abimelech's kingdom, and this is why he felt the need to lie about Sarah being his wife (Genesis 20:11). This, though, only reflects Abraham's personal judgment of Abimelech's faith, and says nothing about Abimelech's true beliefs.</p>
<p>So it's impossible to say whether Abimelech believed in God before his dream. Since there is not enough evidence, it may be best to see Abimelech as being similar to the king of Nineveh, who also repented after being warned about God's judgment (Jonah 3:6-9), rather than as someone who had faithfully worshipped the true God all along.</p>
<p>The Syrian commander Naaman is perhaps the closest example to a 'pagan saint' that I can think of in the Bible, but even he doesn't meet the necessary criteria to support Pinnock's theory of religious inclusivism.</p>
<p>After Naaman was cured of leprosy by following the prophet Elisha's instructions, Naaman said, "Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel" (2 Kings 5:15), and he promised to not offer sacrifices to any other gods (2 Kings 5:17). However, Naaman also asked to be pardoned when, in service of his master, he would have to go into a pagan temple and bow his head as part of his duties (2 Kings 5:18). Elisha told him to not worry about it (2 Kings 5:19).</p>
<p>So I would say that Naaman was truly saved because he became a believer in God, but he was not a 'pagan saint' before he became a believer in Israel's God.</p>
<p>However, Naaman <em>is</em> an interesting suggestion that, for example, it might not be a sin for formerly-Muslim Christians to go into a mosque to pray because it is socially expected or legally required of them. This would be true especially in a country where it is forbidden to openly be a Christian, provided that they pray to the true God in their hearts. Yet Naaman is still not a Biblical example of someone being saved because they had faith in and worshipped a different god.</p>
<p>Therefore, I do not see any examples in Scripture that could support Pinnock's argument that there are people who can be saved by believing in or worshipping a different god than the true God of Israel, Yahweh, who is known by Christians as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.</p>
<h2>A More Plausible Option: The Prisca Theologia Theory</h2>
<p>Despite the lack of supporting biblical evidence, if Christian inclusivists still want to argue that there is some way for God to reveal himself to unevangelized people through the 'truths' that can be found in other religions or traditions, there is a more plausible way to do so.</p>
<p>For example, Pinnock refers to Moses' father-in-law Jethro, who was the priest of Midian (Exodus 18:1-12). About him, Pinnock says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Jethro had known and worshiped God outside the covenant with Israel before he met Moses, and was delighted to learn how great God was to deliver Israel out of Egypt. He realized that the god he had served was better revealed as Yahweh, and therefore joined in the worship of him with Moses and Aaron.<cite>29</cite></span></p>
<p>So yet again, if this is true, then Jethro was not worshipping a false or 'pagan' god. He simply did not know as much about God as the Israelites did, because of the special covenant that God had made with Abraham and his descendants. But if Jethro was worshipping the true God, then we might ask, how <em>did</em> he know enough about the true God to be considered a priest? The same question also applies for Melchizedek.</p>
<p>A plausible answer may come from the <em>prisca theologia</em> theory, sometimes also called <em>ancient theology</em>. This is the idea that all people groups have had some exposure to the truth about God because of knowledge that had been passed down to them from ancient sources that can be traced back to even before the worldwide Flood.</p>
<p>This idea was used by early Christian apologists such as Phlio, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Lactantius, and Eusibius, in order to argue that the best Greek and Roman philosophers were working with the same truths that were given to the Jews and Christians through Scripture. Jonathan Edwards also made use of this theory to respond to critics of Christianity who said that God was unfair to not give equal divine revelation to all people.<cite>30</cite></p>
<p>I think this theory has some decent potential, and it is compatible with Biblical history. For example, Adam and Eve were told the initial gospel that the "seed" of the woman would defeat Satan, although this savior would be wounded in the process (Genesis 3:15). This verse is usually thought of as the earliest prophecy that the Messiah would be born from a virgin.</p>
<p>The idea of animal sacrifices to temporarily cover sins also goes back to how God created the first clothes for Adam and Eve from animal skins to cover their newfound shame (Genesis 3:21). This is why Abel's sacrifice of a lamb was pleasing to God, but Cain's sacrifice of produce he had grown was not (Genesis 4:4-7).</p>
<p>The idea of animal sacrifice was passed down to Noah, who knew about 'clean' animals that could be sacrificed to God (Genesis 7:1-3, 8:20). What else might Adam and Eve have known about God that they passed down to their sons and daughters, all the way down to Noah? Then Noah and his family could have passed it on to their descendants after the Flood.</p>
<p>What makes the prisca thelogia theory more plausible is to remember that before the Flood, people lived much longer than they do now.</p>
<p>Adam lived to 930 years old, and when the ages of other patriarchs are put on a timeline with Adam, it is amazing to see that Noah was born only 126 years after Adam died! Noah's grandfather Methuselah, and his father Lamech, both lived for about 250 and 50 years, respectively, while Adam was still alive.<cite>31</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, what Adam knew about God could have passed almost directly to Noah with just one or two intermediaries.</p>
<p>Noah and his sons also lived for several hundred years after the Flood, although future generations' lifespans were rapidly decreasing. Shem's lifespan, for example, overlaps with Abraham's, and Shem even <em>outlived</em> Abraham by a few decades!<cite>32</cite></p>
<p>This means that it should have been possible for accurate information about God to have been passed along by Noah and his sons to several future generations after the Flood, with very few intermediaries.</p>
<p>Some evidence for the prisca theologia theory may come from the intriguing suggestion that the basic gospel message is "written in the stars" through the constellations of the zodiac, and that this was known to several different groups of ancient people.</p>
<p>In 1882, Joseph Seiss wrote a book called <em>The Gospel in the Stars.</em> He emphasized that God made the sun, moon, planets, and stars to be signs to humanity, on the basis of Genesis 1:14. Seiss noted how astronomy was very important to ancient cultures such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, and how everyone seems to have learned the same constellations from extremely ancient sources, even dating back to before the worldwide Flood.<cite>33</cite></p>
<p>Because of this, Seiss claimed:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It thus appears that in treating of these starry groupings and pictures we are dealing with something very different from the inventions of paganism and mythology—with something as sacred in origin, as venerable in age, and as edifying in import as anything known to man. Corrupt religion and classic fable have interfered to obscure and pervert their meaning, and scientific self-will has crowded them with impertinent and unmeaning additions; but, in reality, they constitute the primeval Bible—a divine record of the true faith and hope of man, the oldest in human possession.<cite>34</cite></span></p>
<p>Seiss goes into striking detail in his book regarding all the biblical doctrines that he believes can be seen in the constellations. It's really fascinating and encouraging, and I would definitely recommend Seiss' book. If Seiss is right, then the constellations could be one way that ancient people could have been reminded of the gospel message that had been passed down to them from Adam and Eve, through Noah's family.</p>
<h2>Difficulties With the Prisca Theologia Theory</h2>
<p>Yet the difficulty for the prisca theologia theory begins after the Tower of Babel incident. It was then that God sent yet-another judgment on all the people of the world, in order to restrain sinful humanity's ambitions. God confused everyone's languages so that the formerly-unified post-Flood society had to break up into smaller groups and spread out around the world (Genesis 11:1-9).</p>
<p>Presumably, when this separation occurred, some of the knowledge about God that this pre-Babel society had would have gone along with at least some members of each new people group.</p>
<p>For example, many cultures around the world have stories of a worldwide Flood that can be seen as distorted accounts of Noah's ark.<cite>35</cite> The most famous one is called the <em>Epic of Gilgamesh</em>, which mentions how an immortal man survived a worldwide Flood in a cube-shaped ark. Some Bible critics have claimed that the Epic of Gilgamesh was the source of the story of the Flood in Genesis. Yet for a number of reasons, it is clear that the Epic of Gilgamesh is just one more distortion, while Genesis contains the original accurate story.<cite>36</cite></p>
<p>These distorted Flood stories, though, are just one example of how, even if ancient people groups took with them some truths that they had learned about God from Noah and his descendants, this knowledge was lost, distorted, or corrupted as time went by.</p>
<p>Jonathan Edwards argued that this sort of corruption is what eventually led pagan cultures into idolatry and human sacrifice. Yet ingeniously, Edwards also saw these two sinful things as also preparing pagan cultures to hear the gospel.</p>
<p>For example, the idea of a deity becoming connected to a physical idol may have, in a way, prepared these cultures to understand the idea of the incarnation of the Son of God as the human Jesus. Also, human sacrifices done to appease angry gods could have prepared these cultures to understand how Jesus' death on the cross saved all humanity from God's wrath at sin (e.g., Romans 5:8-10, 3:24-26).<cite>37</cite></p>
<p>The prisca theologia theory could also explain the variety of pagan stories that seem vaguely similar to some details about Jesus Christ. In many stories in pagan cultures, there are tales about a special child whose mother was a virgin, and the child would become a savior that would die and return to life again.<cite>38</cite> These could all be seen as variations of Genesis 3:15.</p>
<p>It has also been suggested that human reason might have been one way that God could still reach out to unevangelized people.</p>
<p>For example, Pinnock optimistically refers to how some early church authors like Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others may have thought that as long as people lived their lives according to the 'logos' (in ancient Greek, <em>logos</em> meant 'divine word', 'reason', or 'wisdom') they could be saved, even if they didn't know about Jesus. This is because the 'logos' was actually the Word of God, the second Person of the Trinity, who became incarnate as Jesus Christ (John 1:1-14).<cite>39</cite></p>
<p>Edwards, though, was pessimistic about the role of reason in salvation. He said that people in non-Christian cultures, despite having access to some truths of divine revelation handed down from ancient sources such as Adam or the patriarchs, have denied or distorted these truths through their unregenerate reason.<cite>40</cite></p>
<p>So at least theoretically, it seems possible that all people should be able to know something about God either from what they see in nature, or from the truths of reason, or from whatever knowledge of God may have been passed down to them from Adam and Eve and Noah. Some of these truths may have persisted in otherwise false religions, and if people had believed in these truths, then <em>perhaps</em> God could mercifully consider their faith as being equivalent to having faith in Jesus.</p>
<p>However, because of the corruption of nature and human reason due to sin, and the distortions of the prisca theologia over time into other religions, it is questionable as to how much people can actually learn about God from these sources.</p>
<p>Therefore, I do not believe that this third option is as useful when it comes to creating a persuasive Christian theory of inclusivism.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the idea of the prisca theologia may backfire, and make people worry about the truthfulness of the Bible, and whether the stories contained in it might only be corruptions or distortions of earlier truths, too.</p>
<p>However, there is good reason to trust that this is not the case, and to believe that the Bible is in fact the divinely-preserved record of truth that goes back as far as Adam and Eve. These reasons will now be discussed in the final section of this (admittedly longer than I would prefer) blog post.</p>
<h2>Why We Should Trust That The Bible Is Accurate</h2>
<p>So, why should we believe that the Bible alone contains the uncorrupted truth about God and the world's history, while all other people's traditions and religions are corruptions of it?</p>
<p>A scholar named M. W. J. Phelan proposes a fascinating theory about the origin of the book of Genesis, especially the earliest portions, and how they came to be included in the Torah (i.e., the first five books of the Bible).</p>
<p>Phelan notes that many of the stories in the earlier portions of Genesis end with a phrase saying "these were the generations of [INSERT NAME HERE],", as a sort of sign-off on the portion of Scripture that was written by the person it names. These personal sign-offs are called <em>toledoth</em>.<cite>41</cite></p>
<p>Thus, based on this evidence, we can say that Adam himself wrote up to what is now Genesis 5:1, which includes the genealogy of Cain as far as Adam knew it until Adam died. Noah then inherited these records, and personally wrote up to Genesis 6:9, based on what he was told from his father Lamech and grandfather Methuselah. Noah's sons collectively wrote up to Genesis 10:1, and Shem wrote up to Genesis 11:10, thanks to Shem's long lifespan. Abraham's father Terah wrote up to Genesis 11:27, Then Ishmael and Isaac wrote up to Genesis 25:12 and Genesis 25:19, because Isaac outlived Ishmael. Esau and Jacob wrote up to Genesis 37:2, which is where Moses and Aaron picked it up and continued to Numbers 3:1, when Moses took over writing the rest of the Torah.<cite>42</cite></p>
<p>Phelan suspects that Moses and Aaron were able to access and retrieve records of Joseph's story from the Egyptian records before they left Egypt, and Moses, having been raised as an Egyptian prince, would have had the training to read these documents.<cite>43</cite> Thus, Moses was a Holy-Spirit-inspired collator and editor of all these records, and he passed them down to Joshua when the Israelites entered Canaan. Minor edits to give context for later readers may have been made by Samuel, and the original text may have been converted into the later 'square' style of Hebrew letters by Ezra.<cite>44</cite></p>
<p>In this way, Phelan produces a persuasive counter-explanation to the typical 'scholarly' explanation for the origins of the Torah. The typical explanation is called the <em>documentary hypothesis</em>, and it relies on at least four anonymous editors who worked much later in Israel's history and are referred to simply as J, E, P, and D.</p>
<p>I find Phelan's analysis to be very persuasive because he demonstrates the integrity of all these ancient accounts by analyzing their literary structure, as well as other features of the ancient text, to show that the accounts have not been significantly edited from what was written by the original Holy-Spirit-inspired authors.</p>
<p>The only small question in this theory is: how did the possession of these records pass from Shem to Abraham?</p>
<p>Supposedly, there are Jewish traditions that Melchizedek actually was Shem.<cite>45</cite> The name <em>Melchizedek</em> in Hebrew means "king of righteousness," and it is possible that it was a hereditary position that was passed down the generations from Adam to Shem,<cite>46</cite> who ended up becoming the king/priest of ancient Jerusalem. Thus, Shem could have passed on his family records to Abraham when they met, as described in Genesis 14.</p>
<p>Alternatively, Phelan proposes that the records may have been inherited by Abraham's father Terah, who was a distant descendant of Shem according to Genesis 11:10-26, and Terah then gave them to Abraham.<cite>47</cite></p>
<p>Phelan's theory of how the records passed down also seems to presume that Moses could actually <em>read</em> the sources that went back to Adam, even after the Tower of Babel incident when languages were confused. How can this be explained?</p>
<p>It is claimed that, "There is a predominantly Jewish school of thought which holds, very seriously, that Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, that is, is the original language of mankind (and of God) that was spoken before the Confusion of Tongues and Babel".<cite>48</cite></p>
<p>It's true that in God's providence, God could easily have allowed the Hebrew language to persist unchanged after Babel among select descendants of Shem, where it passed down all the way to Terah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and finally, Moses and Aaron and the rest of the Israelites who left Egypt. Thus, Moses could have been able to read all the ancient sources that had been passed down to him, and compiled them into the Torah, without worrying about having to translate them into Hebrew.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is certainly plausible to believe that, after the Tower of Babel, all the other non-Hebrew-speaking people groups took some of the truth with them as they spread out across the world. The initial members should have known about God and about God's plan to send a redeemer who would be the son of a virgin, and who would die as the ultimate sacrifice for sin. They would also have known the history of the world up to the point of the tower of Babel, including the stories of creation, the fall into sin, and the worldwide flood.</p>
<p>However, all these people-groups eventually corrupted this truth into pagan myths, except for the people who eventually became the Israelites. This is not because the Israelites were any better or less sinful than other groups of people, but was simply because they had access to the divinely-inspired proto-Scriptures that were passed down from Noah.</p>
<p>So it does make sense that from one perspective, it could seem like all the people who make up these other non-Israelite cultures are collectively 'guilty' for losing or corrupting the knowledge of God that they had access to. This knowledge may have included what they had know about God through nature (such as possibly the meanings of the constellations of the zodiac).</p>
<p>Yet it still seems wrong that God would hold all members of these people groups as accountable for this situation, since later generations had no way to recover the knowledge that earlier generations had lost or corrupted.</p>
<p>Furthermore, despite God allowing all non-Israelite cultures to go their own ways for a time (Acts 14:16, 17:26-31), God still wants to save everyone (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4). Therefore, there must be some way that people from these cultures could be saved, even if not through the knowledge they could learn about God through nature, or from their pagan religions and traditions that were corruptions of ancient divine truths.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>This is the end of my series of posts exploring the three main approaches to Christian inclusivism. As mentioned before, I find that the first two (an <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">after-death encounter</a> with Jesus, or judgment based on what <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/">works reveal of a person's heart</a>), both seem much more plausible than the last option which was explored in this post.</p>
<p>In a future post, I want to propose my own theory of Christian inclusivism that I think can explain how everyone who loves Love will accept and believe in Jesus as their Savior, if given an opportunity to do so at the final judgment. In this way, the Bible verses that say that no one will be saved apart from faith in Jesus can be compatible with salvation being truly open to all people, even those who haven't heard the gospel in this life, or who died before they were capable of personally accepting or rejecting Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>However, such a theory also needs to explain why evangelism is still necessary, and the value of becoming a Christian in this life. Such an explanation is possible, and thus, I think a Biblically-sound theory of Christian inclusivism is definitely a possibility. Keep watching for my next blog post!</p>
<p>By the way, in case you haven't heard the incredibly good news of the gospel and how you can have eternal life for free, simply by believing in Jesus, then check out <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">my summary here</a>.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 36-37, referring to George Lindbeck, <em>The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age</em> (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 58.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xMDo2LndqZW8=">"Types,"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings</em>, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 152.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> See Jonathan Edwards’ notebooks <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xMDo1LndqZW8=">"Images of Divine Things,"</a> and <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xMDo2LndqZW8=">"Types,"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings</em>, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008).</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xMDo1LndqZW8=">"Images of Divine Things,"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings</em>, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), no. 28, page 58.</li>
<li><strong>4a.</strong> Mark Harwood, <a href="https://creation.com/earth-has-a-good-neighbourhood">"How good is our neighbourhood!"</a> Creation 39(1): 24–26, January 2017.</li>
<li><strong>4b.</strong> Jonathan Sarfati, <a href="https://creation.com/the-universe-is-finely-tuned-for-life">"The Universe Is Finely Tuned For Life"</a>, Creation Ministries International, 2020.</li>
<li><strong>4c.</strong> Jonathan Sarfati and Michael Matthews, <a href="https://creation.com/refuting-evolution-2-chapter-10-argument-irreducible-complexity"><em>Refuting Evolution 2</em></a>, Chapter 10, Creation Ministries International.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> John Calvin, <em>Institutes of the Christian Religion</em>, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2011), 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6, on pages 47-74.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> John J. Bombaro, <em>Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate</em> (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 68. Bombaro cites Jonathan Edwards,<a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xMDo3LndqZW8=">"Types of the Messiah,"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings</em>, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 192. Here, Edwards seems to imply that the types are made for God’s people or the church to understand, but he makes no mention of the reprobates’ 'blindness' per se.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> David Hume, <em>Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,</em> 1779, <a href="https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/hume1779.pdf">Part 5, 24-26</a>.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Dylan Miller, <a href="https://blogs.dal.ca/openthink/parasitic-wasps-darwins-ultimate-evil/">"Parasitic wasps: Darwin’s ultimate evil?"</a> <em>Open Think</em>, Dalhousie University, July 20, 2021. For example, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyptapanteles">Glyptapanteles wasp</a> lays its eggs inside caterpillars, and then the larvae hatch and feed off the caterpillar until it dies.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Robert Gurney, <a href="https://creation.com/what-about-parasites">"What about parasites?"</a> <em>Creation 31</em> 3 (June 2009): 34–37.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in <em>The Chronicles of Narnia</em> (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 728.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in <em>The Chronicles of Narnia</em> (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 739-740.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in <em>The Chronicles of Narnia</em> (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 744-745.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in <em>The Chronicles of Narnia</em> (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 755.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in <em>The Chronicles of Narnia</em> (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 756-777.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 158.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 158.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 111.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 139-140.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 139.</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 139.</li>
<li><strong>21.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 52, 112-113, 176-178, 265.</li>
<li><strong>22.</strong> T. F. Torrance, <em>The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers</em> (London: Oliver and Boyd, 1948), 54, 77-89, 98-99, 135-136, 139-141. "Grace was the gift of spiritual energy that ranged itself within the heart of the believer, and delivered him from evil by bringing him understanding of truth, power to resist evil and live a holy life" (140). "The Church was regarded as endowed in some way or other with this spiritual power which made the believer godlike, and in fact united him to God. The Church as the body of Christ was looked on as the depository of pneumatic grace, which might be dispensed in sacramentalist fashion after the analogy of the mystery religions" (141).</li>
<li><strong>23.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>Most Moved Mover</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 65-74.</li>
<li><strong>24.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 112.</li>
<li><strong>25.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 22, 26-27, 30, 40.</li>
<li><strong>26.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 111.</li>
<li><strong>27.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 153.</li>
<li><strong>28.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 111-112.</li>
<li><strong>29.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 26-27.</li>
<li><strong>30.</strong> Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, <em>The Theology of Jonathan Edwards</em> (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), 581-585.</li>
<li><strong>31.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 403.</li>
<li><strong>32.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 403.</li>
<li><strong>33.</strong> Joseph A. Seiss, <em>The Gospel in the Stars</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1972), 21-24.</li>
<li><strong>34.</strong> Joseph A. Seiss, <em>The Gospel in the Stars</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1972), 23-24.</li>
<li><strong>35.</strong> Rebecca Conolly and Russell Grigg, <a href="https://creation.com/many-flood-legends">"Flood!"</a>, <em>Creation 23</em> (1), December 2000: 26–30. For much more in-depth research, see Bill Cooper, <em>The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis</em> (The Creation Science Movement, 2011), 160-366.</li>
<li><strong>36.</strong> Jonathan Sarfati, <a href="https://creation.com/noahs-flood-and-the-gilgamesh-epic">"Noah’s Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic"</a>, <em>Creation 28</em> (4), September 2006: 12–17. See also Bill Cooper, <em>The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis</em> (The Creation Science Movement, 2011), 381-389.</li>
<li><strong>37.</strong> Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, <em>The Theology of Jonathan Edwards</em> (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), 584, 586-588. See also Joseph de Maistre, "Elucidation on Sacrifices" in <em>The Collected Works of Joseph de Maistre</em>, where he argues that ancient people had long understood the idea of animal sacrifices as pleasing the gods and taking away guilt, which later turned into the idea of human sacrifice, which was properly fulfilled in Jesus's death.</li>
<li><strong>38.</strong> Joseph A. Seiss, <em>The Gospel in the Stars</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1972), 25-29. See also Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, <em>The Theology of Jonathan Edwards</em> (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), 583, which mentions how in both the Hindu Vedas and Chinese <em>I Ching</em> there are "stories about a hero who expiated crimes by his own sufferings, and that many heathen from different traditions acknowledged a divine incarnation and realized that virtue comes only by an infusion of grace." Edwards also recorded examples of heathen stories about gods and goddesses that he believed could be seen as distortions of Biblical figures (583).</li>
<li><strong>39.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 36.</li>
<li><strong>40.</strong> John J. Bombaro, <em>Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate</em> (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 262. Bombaro cites Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9zZWxlY3QucGw/d2plby4xOQ==">"The Miscellanies: 833–1152"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Vol. 20, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), nos. 959, 986, and 1020 on pages 239, 309–311, and 351, respectively.</li>
<li><strong>41.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 228-229. See also Jonathan D. Sarfati, <em>The Genesis Account</em> (Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International, 2015), 17-22. Sarfati, however, argues the toledoth may be seen as introducing the material which comes after them. This would change the authorship of certain portions of Genesis slightly, but it still supports the view that these accounts were written by eyewitnesses immediately involved in the events, and not later editors.</li>
<li><strong>42.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 212-215, 228-237.</li>
<li><strong>43.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 212-215, 234-235, 255.</li>
<li><strong>44.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 258.</li>
<li><strong>45.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 254.</li>
<li><strong>46.</strong> Verse By Verse Ministry International, <a href="https://versebyverseministry.org/bible-answers/what-is-the-order-of-melchizedek">"Who was Melchizedek and what is the Order of Melchizedek?"</a>, March 7, 2014.</li>
<li><strong>47.</strong> M. W. J. Phelan, <em>The Inspiration of the Pentateuch</em> (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 254.</li>
<li><strong>48.</strong> Bill Cooper, <em>The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis</em> (The Creation Science Movement, 2011), 389.</li>
</ul>Expect The Rapture When Things Are 'Normal'2023-01-10T00:00:00+00:002023-01-10T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2023-01-10:/article/expect-the-rapture-when-things-are-normal/<p>What are your expectations for the new year?</p>
<p>Do you have plans that you are looking forward to? Or are you nervous about all the things that you see in the news, and things that experts have said might be coming this year? Maybe some of both?</p>
<p>One of the …</p><p>What are your expectations for the new year?</p>
<p>Do you have plans that you are looking forward to? Or are you nervous about all the things that you see in the news, and things that experts have said might be coming this year? Maybe some of both?</p>
<p>One of the things I probably spend too much time doing is reading news, in order to keep up to date on events related to the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">signs of the end times</a>.</p>
<p>Personally, I don't have high hopes for this year, at least when it comes to things pertaining to the bigger picture regarding the state of this world. And I'm not the only one. Many other Bible prophecy experts are saying that right now we are seeing everything being set up for the Tribulation, as recorded in the Biblical book of Revelation.</p>
<p>I admit that at times, I start to worry how difficult life might become before <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> happens—when all true Christians will be taken to heaven to escape the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10).</p>
<p>However, I feel less anxious when I remember that there are several pieces of Biblical evidence that the world will be still going along relatively normally right up to the Rapture.</p>
<p>And actually, it's when things seem 'normal' that we should especially be ready for the Rapture to happen. So that's very exciting.</p>
<p>One purpose of Bible prophecy is for God's people to be encouraged. It's a way that God gives us hope and confidence in God's plan for the future, when we see things happening just like God told us they would ahead of time (John 16:33).</p>
<p>Ultimately, we know that everything that's happening in the world is leading to the New Heavens and New Earth, where there will be no more evil, sin, crying, pain, or death (Revelation 21:1-8).</p>
<p>So if we see things in the world today being set up for the Tribulation, then we know the Rapture is even closer than that. The Rapture is something that all Christians should be looking forward to, because it is called our blessed hope (Titus 2:13). Christians are meant to comfort and encourage each other by reminding each other about Jesus's soon return for us (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18).</p>
<p>In this post, I want to reassure you that even though Christians will be able to see the end times approaching, and it might seem that things are getting worse and worse, we can trust that the world will not fall apart before Jesus comes to take us to heaven with him (John 14:1-3).</p>
<p>I know I have talked about this before, but here, I want to go into more detail and analyze all the different pieces of evidence to support my claim. Therefore, it is a slightly longer blog post. (I'm just giving a heads-up that you might want to find a good time to settle in to read it.)</p>
<p>However, I hope this in-depth discussion will help reassure anyone who is feeling nervous about what we see happening in the world today, or who might be worried about what some experts have predicted might occur in 2023.</p>
<p>Hopefully, by the end of this post, you might even become a little excited about how close we could be to Jesus's return for the Church at the Rapture, which could happen anytime.</p>
<h2>The Rapture Will Happen During The Days of Noah and Lot</h2>
<p>The largest clue regarding the approaching end times is how Jesus said that the next time he returns, the world will be like it was when Noah and Lot were alive:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:26-30)</span></p>
<p>A similar passage is found in Matthew:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37-39)</span></p>
<p>If you want to read more, you can find the stories of Noah in Genesis chapter 7 and Lot in Genesis chapter 19.</p>
<p>Now, there are two different features of these stories that give clues regarding what the world will be like as the end times approach:</p>
<ol>
<li>Both Noah's and Lot's societies were becoming increasingly immoral and sinful.</li>
<li>Both Noah's and Lot's societies were going on just like 'normal' until Noah and his family entered the ark and rain started to fall, or until Lot and his family were rushed out of Sodom by the angels.</li>
</ol>
<p>Both of these points provide evidence that the Rapture will happen when our world is characterized by these two traits: becoming increasingly sinful, yet going along 'normally'.</p>
<p>Let's begin with the first point:</p>
<h3>1. Increasing Sinfulness in Society</h3>
<p>Before the worldwide flood, we are told that: "the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5).</p>
<p>Regarding the moral state of Sodom and Gomorrah, we're told: "Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord" (Genesis 13:13). We can see at least some of Sodom's sins based on what the men of the city were trying to do to the undercover angels who came to verify the condition of these cities (Genesis 19:4-11).</p>
<p>Likewise, Paul warned that the last days will be difficult, because people's behavior will become increasingly immoral:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)</span></p>
<p>If you read the news, I doubt you will be able to go a single day without seeing a story related to these traits.</p>
<p>Some end-times commentators will point to the rise of particular sexual sins in our Western societies.</p>
<p>There is a quote attributed to Ruth Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, who said, "If God doesn't punish America, he'll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." Today, we could expand that to include not just America, but many other countries around the world.</p>
<p>And actually, increasing sexual immorality in itself is a form of God's judgment.</p>
<p>Paul explains that God lets people fall into sexual immorality as a punishment for rejecting what they know about God, and for worshipping nature and created things rather than worshiping God who created all things (Romans 1:18-27).</p>
<p>But society goes even further downhill from there:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. (Romans 1:28-32, NLT).</span></p>
<p>The last sentences in the above quote remind me of how Isaiah warned that sinful people will eventually say what is evil is actually good, and what is good is actually evil (Isaiah 5:20).</p>
<p>During these times before the Rapture, Christians will feel like Lot did when he lived in Sodom and was surrounded by sin, and was greatly troubled by it (2 Peter 2:7-8).</p>
<p>We might even be persecuted for holding on to our own values:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:12-13)</span></p>
<p>I believe we are seeing all these things increasing, even in societies that have benefitted from a strong Biblical influence in the past.</p>
<p>Therefore, it seems that the world is ready for God's judgment, and becoming increasingly ready for it each passing day. Yet strangely, even as the world continues to become worse and worse, it will seem to most people that life is going on normally.</p>
<h3>2. Society Will Continue Normally Until God's Judgment Comes Suddenly</h3>
<p>Just as in the days of Noah and Lot, it will seem to most people that everything is continuing along normally. It will seem so normal, in fact, that Christians who warn about God's coming judgment will be scoffed and laughed at:</p>
<p>Peter warned that in the last days, scoffers will say,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. (2 Peter 3:4)</span></p>
<p>However, the scoffers only say this because they ignore the historical fact of the worldwide flood that killed everyone except for Noah and his family (2 Peter 3:5-6). Similarly, the scoffers ignore the warnings about God's future judgment of the world (2 Peter 3:7).</p>
<p>So Peter's prophecy confirms what we've seen so far. It will be like in the days of Noah, before the flood, when most people expected the world to just keep going on like it always has, until the judgment suddenly came.</p>
<p>Some scoffers like to remind Christians who are looking for signs of the end times that "concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32).</p>
<p>And this is certainly true. However, in the verses that come right after this verse, Christians are encouraged to be awake and watchful for their Lord's return (Mark 13:33-37). So there's nothing wrong with watching.</p>
<p>The Bible even promises those who are looking forward to Christ's return a special heavenly reward in the form of a crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8). So don't lose your hope, even if others around you are skeptical about Jesus's soon return.</p>
<p>Even though Jesus says that no one but God the Father knows the exact day or hour that he will be coming back, Paul says that Christians who are watching will have some awareness of the approximate time of Christ's return. Therefore, we won't be surprised like those who weren't watching:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6).</span></p>
<p>The above passage is very interesting, for a number of reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>It confirms that the Tribulation will come upon the world suddenly, like a thief unexpectedly breaking into a house.</li>
<li>It also confirms that people will be saying "peace and security" before the Tribulation suddenly begins, which suggests that the world will be mostly going along like 'normal'. Or it might even seem that things are getting better.</li>
<li>But, despite things being 'normal', somehow, there will still be enough signs so that Christians who are watching should be able to see that Christ is coming back for us soon.</li>
</ol>
<p>How can all of these details be true at the same time? Let's look at Jesus's analogy of the end times being like when a pregnant woman goes into labor.</p>
<h2>The End Times Will Begin Like 'Birth Pains'</h2>
<p>Given all the discussion above, it is interesting that even during the Covid pandemic, people were still carrying on with 'normal' activities: buying, selling, marrying, planting, building.</p>
<p>This fact reassured me that we hadn't yet entered the Tribulation, even though in some ways, some aspects of some of the world's governments' responses to the pandemic foreshadowed the coming Tribulation.</p>
<p>What is even more interesting is that now, as most parts of the world seem to be increasingly returning back to 'normal' life, even average Christians are picking up on the fact that the world is not headed in a good direction.</p>
<p>According to a recent survey done in April of 2022, almost half (47%) of Christians in the USA believe that humanity is now living in the end times. That number increases to almost two thirds (63%) among evangelical Christians in the USA.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Now, in some sense, these Christians are right, because the 'end times' or the 'last days' can be considered to have begun during Jesus' ministry (Hebrews 1:2, 1 Peter 1:20) and at Pentecost (Acts 2:17).</p>
<p>However, if by the 'end times' these Christians mean the last seven years of history before Jesus will return to earth (a.k.a., the Tribulation), then no, the end times have not yet begun, because the Rapture has not yet happened, and things are generally 'normal'.</p>
<p>What these Christians are likely picking up on are the signs of the approaching end times that Jesus said to watch for, which he said will begin like birth pains:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For many will come in my name, saying, "I am the Christ," and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. (Matthew 24:5-8)</span></p>
<p>Luke's version of this passage also includes mention of pestilences/diseases (Luke 21:11). Enough said.</p>
<p>Many end-times watchers like to highlight data that shows that all of these things are increasing around the world. We are now seeing all the signs that we would expect to see before the Tribulation begins, and news stories related to these things are coming at a faster and faster rate.</p>
<p>I've been watching both mainstream news and alternative news for over a decade, and I can say that although I saw some signs back then, there were still a few things that still had not yet fallen into place.</p>
<p>Now, though, everything is coming together far faster and more clearly than I've ever seen before. Many other end-times watchers are also saying the same thing.</p>
<p>Of course, we still don't know how much more we will see before the Rapture. But it's very exciting to finally be seeing things clearly pointing to end-times prophecies all lining up just like the Bible predicts.</p>
<p>Yet there is debate over whether these verses in Matthew 24:5-8 and Luke 21:8-11 describe the state of the world before the Tribulation begins, or whether Jesus was describing the beginning of the Tribulation and the first few divine judgments in Revelation 6.</p>
<p>There are certainly some clear parallels between these verses and the start of the Tribulation, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>the revealing of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> as the ultimate false Christ (Revelation 6:1-2).</li>
<li>the worldwide wars in the second Seal judgment (Revelation 6:3-4).</li>
<li>the terrible famine in the third Seal judgment (Revelation 6:5-6).</li>
<li>the pestilence that is part of the fourth Seal judgment (Revelation 6:7-8).</li>
</ul>
<p>But I think these passages in Matthew and Luke could be dual-references. Before the Tribulation, we should expect to see all these signs increasing in frequency and intensity. But the signs will <em>really</em> become even more intense once the Rapture happens and the Tribulation begins.</p>
<p>Jesus also warned that the Tribulation will come upon the world like a "snare" or "trap" (Luke 21:34-35). This means the onset of the Tribulation will be sudden, without warning, like when someone accidentally steps onto a bear trap. Just like the flood began suddenly in Noah's time, and the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah happened suddenly in Lot's time.</p>
<p>So perhaps the signs of the end times could be compared to how there are some birth pains before a woman's water breaks, but once it does suddenly break, there is no way to stop the labor process, and the pain becomes increasingly intense.</p>
<p>From the above verses, we can say two things:</p>
<ol>
<li>There is no hint that we should expect the signs of the end times to slow down or for them to be put on hold for decades, just like how a woman's birth pains don't slow down or stop once the true labor process begins.</li>
<li>But the signs of the end times will <em>NOT</em> gradually increase to the point where the world enters the Tribulation without knowing it. The first four judgments in the book of Revelation occur in a particular sequence, with definite beginning points, which is why they can be symbolized by men on horses riding out one after the other (Revelation 6:1-8).</li>
</ol>
<p>However, like Paul said, Christians who are paying attention will be able to see the end-times snare or trap being pried open little by little, until it is set and ready to be sprung at the right moment.</p>
<p>I believe that the event which will spring the trap is the Rapture. In the chaos and confusion that the Rapture will cause, all the rest of the prophetic pieces needed for the Tribulation will fall into place.</p>
<h2>Where We Are Today</h2>
<p>Interestingly, today, Christians aren't the only ones who are seeing the world being set up for the Tribulation.</p>
<p>On December 19, 2022, Israel's intelligence ministry put out a report that said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The world is at a transition point analogous to being on the verge of a cliff, after which a series of crises striking simultaneously will reorder the planet’s geopolitics, the place of technology, the economic order and a variety of other disciplines from health to energy.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>To me, that sounds a lot like what will happen during the Tribulation. And I certainly don't think that life will be 'normal' when this occurs.</p>
<p>Personally, I think it seems that the world is now being set up for the first few Seal judgments.</p>
<p>In particular, the second Seal judgment of the outbreak of worldwide wars (Revelation 6:3-4),<cite>3</cite> and the third Seal judgment of worldwide hyperinflation,<cite>4</cite> and/or famine (Revelation 6:5-6),<cite>5</cite> seem like they could be possibly looming just over the horizon.</p>
<p>Progress is also rapidly being made around the world on digital currencies,<cite>6</cite> and digital identification systems.<cite>7</cite> These seem to be at least some of the technologies required to enable total government control over who will be able to buy or sell via the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> (Revelation 13:16-18).</p>
<p>The Psalm 83 war, the Gog-Magog war (Ezekiel 38), and the destruction of Damascus (Isaiah 17) also seem like they could be triggered anytime, based on the precarious state of the Middle East.</p>
<p>These wars would be the perfect set-up for the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> to confirm or strengthen a peace treaty between Israel and 'many' which will last for seven years (Daniel 9:27) and will be the official starting-point of the seven year Tribulation. This treaty could perhaps be something like an expanded and strengthened version of the Abraham Accords that have come about in the last few years.</p>
<p>Just recently, Danny Danon, who was Israel's former ambassador to the UN, said that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It's just a matter of time before courageous leaders step out of the shadows and full peace is achieved between all the children of Abraham.<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>A famous quote that ominously foreshadows the worldwide acceptance of the Antichrist when he will come on the scene was made by the former Belgian Prime Minister Paul-Henry Spaak, who also chaired the first session of the UN General Assembly. He supposedly said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">We do not want another committee, we have too many already. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all people, and to lift us out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man, and be he god or devil, we will receive him.</span></p>
<p>This quote is likely even more true today, given the heightened problems the world is facing in 2023, and the lack of influential leaders who know how to solve anything.</p>
<p>Yet we know that the Antichrist is not revealed to the world until after the Church's 'departure' (Greek: <em>apostasia</em>) according to 2 Thessalonians 2:3. I believe this 'departure' is a reference to the Rapture as I explain in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">here</a>.</p>
<p>These are just a few of the most notable signs of the end-times that I see that suggest Jesus is returning soon. I can't help but agree with another end-times commentator who sees 12 signs that the world is rapidly running out of 'normal'.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>I would say that as we enter 2023, I find myself wondering about not how much longer it <em>will</em> be until the world enters the Tribulation, but how much longer <em>can</em> it be?</p>
<p>However, Christians shouldn't be afraid. Even though we see these things forming up now that will be fulfilled during the Tribulation, God has the ability to restrain things for a little longer, if necessary. And we know God is longsuffering and merciful, and God wants all people to repent rather than face God's judgment (2 Peter 3:9).</p>
<p>Yet as Christians who can see these things coming, it's our job to tell others and warn others about God's coming judgment of this world (Ezekiel 33:1-6). We should be appealing to people we know to turn to Jesus now, before the Rapture, so that they don't have to endure what will be the worst time in human history.</p>
<p>Yet as we watch for the signs and warn others, we can also be encouraged that we know for sure that Jesus will return to take all true Christians to heaven in the Rapture when the world is still 'normal', as I'll explain in the next section.</p>
<h2>The World Will Not Be 'Normal' At Jesus' Second Coming</h2>
<p>The fact that Jesus said the world will be going on like in the days of Noah and Lot the next time when he returns is clear evidence for the Rapture happening before the Tribulation.</p>
<p>It is also evidence that the Rapture is not the same event as Jesus's second coming.</p>
<p>This is because at the end of the Tribulation, when Jesus finally returns to the planet with the armies of heaven to set up his millennial kingdom, the world certainly be anything but 'normal', after having been through all twenty-one of the judgments that are described in the book of Revelation chapters 6 to 19.</p>
<p>The world will also not be 'normal' during even the beginning of the Tribulation, because of how severe the first four Seal judgments will be, which lead to a quarter of the world's people being killed (Revelation 6:8).</p>
<p>(If you're interested, you can read a summary of these judgments in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">my post here</a>).</p>
<p>This argument for the pre-tribulation Rapture is confirmed by how Jesus said that the Tribulation will be the most awful time in the history of humanity:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">This will be the worst time of suffering since the beginning of the world, and nothing this terrible will ever happen again. If God doesn't make the time shorter, no one will be left alive. But because of God's chosen ones, he will make the time shorter. (Matthew 24:21-22, CEV)</span></p>
<p>When people realize they have entered the Tribulation, some people will be so terrified that their hearts will fail (Luke 21:26, NKJV).</p>
<p>So I can't believe that life will be going on as 'normal' at Jesus's second coming in Revelation 19:11-16. I can't imagine that people will then be buying, selling, planting, and marrying, with everything in the world going on like business as usual.</p>
<p>In fact, if we examine Revelation chapter 18, it says that at the judgment of the mysterious end-times entity called "Babylon," the merchants of the world will weep because there is no one who can buy their goods (Revelation 18:11-13). Then there also won't be anyone playing music, or building, or milling grain, or getting married (Revelation 18:21-24). This is just before Jesus returns at the Second Coming in Revelation 19.</p>
<p>So therefore, I'm convinced that when Jesus said the world will be like the days of Noah and Lot the next time he appears, he must have been referring to the state of the world when <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">the Rapture</a> occurs, which will be before the Tribulation begins.</p>
<h2>Further Evidence That The Rapture Will Be The Transition Point Away from 'Normal'</h2>
<p>I have heard many end-times commentators argue over the meaning of the word 'taken' in Matthew 24:40-42 and Luke 17:34-35:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:40-42)</span></p>
<p>Some commentators say it is a reference to the Rapture, but others argue it is talking about people being suddenly 'taken' away (i.e., killed) in divine judgment.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>However, the word translated as "taken" in the above verses is the Greek verb <em>paralambano</em>.</p>
<p>In most contexts in the Bible, this verb means "to take to one's side" or "to receive to one's self". In the passive tense used here in Matthew and Luke, it can mean "to be carried off".<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>But this verb doesn't imply destruction or death. For example, <em>paralambano</em> is the verb used when the angel tells Joseph to go ahead and "take" Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:20).</p>
<p>Interestingly, we also see <em>paralambano</em> used when Jesus promises his disciples that:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 14:2-3)</span></p>
<p>This verse in John is clearly referring to the Rapture, because it fits perfectly with Paul's more detailed descriptions in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-54.</p>
<p>Also, even in John 14:2-3 itself, it's clear that John can't be referring to Jesus's second coming at the end of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>At that point, Jesus comes back to this world with the armies of heaven to fight the battle of Armageddon (Revelation 19:11-16), whereas at the Rapture, people go to be where Jesus is, and where he has been preparing places for us in the Father's house (i.e., heaven). They are two completely different events.</p>
<p>So I would see these verses in Matthew and John as confirming what was said during the prior analysis of the days of Noah and the days of Lot:</p>
<p>Jesus will return suddenly at the Rapture to take (i.e., <em>paralambano</em>—to take to his side, receive to himself, and carry off) all Christians with him to heaven, just like he promised in verses like John 14:2-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, and 1 Corinthians 15:51-54. Everyone else who had never believed in Jesus up to that point will be left behind.</p>
<p>The Rapture will also be the sudden transition point from when things were 'normal' to when the world will face God's judgment during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Yet even more evidence that the world will be 'normal' until the Rapture comes from what the Bible suggests the state of the Church will be like in the last days.</p>
<h2>The Last Church Era Is Laodicean</h2>
<p>There is an interesting theory that some end-times prophecy watchers refer to, which is that the letters to the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 were not written in a random order.</p>
<p>Instead, while these were seven real churches, there is a theory that these churches and their characteristics <em>also</em> foreshadow the spiritual condition of the historical Church in its various stages and forms, beginning from the early church, and continuing until the Rapture.<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>In this theory,</p>
<ol>
<li><u>Ephesus</u> is the early church of the first century, which started off well, but gradually lost its spiritual passion.<cite>13</cite></li>
<li><u>Smyrna</u> is the persecuted church of the second and third centuries, when the Roman Empire martyred and tortured many Christians for refusing to worship the Emperor.<cite>14</cite></li>
<li><u>Pergamum</u> is the church after Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in Rome in 313 AD. Pergamum was generally faithful to Christ and stood up for the truth against various heresies about Jesus. Later, though, it began to compromise with the world and became partly corrupted, bringing in some un-biblical doctrines and a hierarchical structure of authority.<cite>15</cite></li>
<li><u>Thyatira</u> is the church of the middle ages, which further attempted to combine Christianity with pagan philosophy and added even more un-biblical traditions. However, there were also people in this church who truly loved God and tried to serve others selflessly.<cite>16</cite></li>
<li><u>Sardis</u> is the 'spiritually dead' church, although it appeared to be busy doing God's work. Sardis can be compared to the church before the Reformation. Then, only a few leaders rejected false traditions and preached the true gospel of salvation by faith in Christ alone, which is all due to God's grace and not human good works, on the basis of the authority of Scripture.<cite>17</cite> Today, several major Christian denominations that were founded during the Reformation still exist, however, they have been strongly declining in numbers over the last century.<cite>18</cite></li>
<li><u>Philadelphia</u> is a church that has been faithful to Christ and has witnessed to the gospel through missionary activity while facing opposition. Its members are encouraged by Jesus to hold onto their faith, despite their weakness. Philadelphia represents all faithful churches that will exist until the Rapture that have focused on spreading the gospel.<cite>19</cite></li>
<li><u>Laodicea</u> is the last church which has become spiritually lukewarm and disgusting to Jesus. This church was neither spiritually refreshing (cold) nor spiritually medicinal (hot) to its society.<cite>20</cite> It could be described as being full of many people who thought they were saved because of their outer religious activities, but they hadn't truly believed in Jesus for their eternal salvation.<cite>21</cite></li>
</ol>
<p>Now, this theory is not completely perfect, because the last four churches, although they have their separate historical beginnings, all persist in some form until the Rapture.</p>
<p>We know this because Jesus tells the faithful members of Thyatira to "only hold fast what you have until I come" (Revelation 2:25).</p>
<p>Jesus also warns the church of Sardis that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. (Revelation 3:3, NRSV)</span></p>
<p>The language of Jesus coming like a thief parallels nicely with Paul's warning in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-6 that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, which as I showed earlier, is a reference to the Rapture. Peter makes use of the same analogy of the last days coming like a thief in 2 Peter 3:10.</p>
<p>Jesus also promises the church of Philadelphia that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. (Revelation 3:10)</span></p>
<p>This is a clear promise that the church of Philadelphia will still be around at the Rapture. Yet the church of Philadelphia is also described as having only a little strength/power left at this point, although it has been faithful and hasn't denied Christ (Revelation 3:8).</p>
<p>In contrast, the church of Laodicea is the last church of the Church age, and it seems it doesn't think it needs Jesus at all. This church thinks it is rich and successful, but actually, Jesus says it is poor, naked, blind, and pitiful (Revelation 3:17). Jesus is on the outside, knocking to be let in by anyone who wants to have a genuine relationship with him (Revelation 3:20).</p>
<p>Many end-times commentators would argue that the church of Laodicea is found today in churches with leaders who promise Christians that God wants us to be happy, healthy, and rich in <em>this</em> life. And their leaders usually <em>are</em> excessively rich, thanks to how they persuade their listeners to donate to them, while claiming that God will then give the listeners more money.</p>
<p>But becoming rich or successful in this world is not what Christianity is about (1 Timothy 6:5-10, NLT).</p>
<p>Now, if this is a fair interpretation of church history and the general state of large parts of the church in the end times just before the Rapture, then it is more proof that the world will remain generally 'normal' until the Rapture.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Because true Christians who will believe in Jesus after the Rapture won't be able to set up churches that could be mistaken for being rich and successful.</p>
<p>Instead, people who convert to Christianity after the Rapture will likely have to operate like the early church, by meeting secretly in individual homes or other places for worship in order to avoid persecution. In many places around the world where Christianity is illegal or persecuted today, this is how Christians have to meet.</p>
<p>And by the time of the fifth Seal judgment, religious persecution will become so intense around the world that many people will be killed for their faith in Christ (Revelation 6:9-11).</p>
<p>Of course, there will be some 'churches' that continue to operate 'normally' during the first half of the Tribulation. That will be because their leaders and members never had personal faith in Jesus as their Savior, and so they were not raptured.</p>
<p>These left-behind 'churches' will likely become part of the false one-world religion that, for a time, will operate in union with the Antichrist's system and will persecute true Christians (Revelation 17:3-6).<cite>22</cite></p>
<p>However, this false religion will eventually be destroyed by the Antichrist and the ten kings (Revelation 17:16-18). This will probably occur at the halfway point of the Tribulation, when the Antichrist will declare himself to be God and demand that everyone worship only himself (Revelation 13:5-7, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).</p>
<p>This destruction will be done with the help of the False Prophet's miracles and the creation of the Image of the Beast that kills those who won't worship it (Revelation 13:12-15). Eventually, many Christians will be beheaded (Revelation 20:4), and others will have to find ways to survive without taking the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>.</p>
<p>Many end-times watchers have predicted that if the world continues the way it is going, Christian persecution will increase. This will be true even in Western countries, as our governments become less and less favorable to Christian morality. In particular, churches may eventually lose their charitable statuses if they aren't willing to endorse particular sins that our governments believe should be supported.</p>
<p>It's true that some Christian persecution may increase before the Rapture, depending on how much longer Jesus waits before coming back for us. If so, this persecution will contribute to faithful churches feeling even more like they only have a little strength/power left, like in the case of Philadelphia (Revelation 3:8).</p>
<p>But it is also clear that the sequence of these seven churches shows that in general, the faithful church will <em>NOT</em> have to return to operating like the early church did when it was facing massive systemic government persecution.</p>
<p>If anyone is skeptical of this interpretation of these seven churches, other verses confirm the general idea that in the last days, some churches will fall away into false teaching and immorality (e.g., 1 Timothy 4:1-3, 2 Peter 2:1-3). Most notably:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)</span></p>
<p>Thus, Jesus's warnings to be on the lookout for false Christs and deception (Matthew 24:23-27) have always been relevant to the church. These warnings will be especially relevant during the Tribulation because of the false world religion that will arise along with the Antichrist who will attempt to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">impersonate Jesus</a>.</p>
<p>Therefore, while none of this seems positive on the surface, there is actually a positive and encouraging message we can gain from it.</p>
<p>This message is that faithful Christians today can trust in the promise Jesus made to the church of Philadelphia that Jesus will keep us from/out of the time of the Tribulation (Revelation 3:10).</p>
<p>Therefore, we don't have to worry that the Church as a whole will return to the state of the persecuted church of Smyrna, because the Rapture will happen before the last false worldwide religion will appear and begin to persecute true Christians during the Tribulation.</p>
<h2>Conclusion: The Paradox of the Last Days</h2>
<p>In summary, this is what we should expect as we approach the last days:</p>
<ul>
<li>The world will be getting worse both morally and in terms of wars, famines, diseases, earthquakes, and other disasters.</li>
<li>But the world will also be going along relatively normally, and people will be buying, selling, planting, building, marrying, etc.</li>
<li>The signs of the approaching Tribulation will increase in frequency and intensity like a pregnant woman's birth pains.</li>
<li>But most people in the world will be mostly oblivious to the signs of the end times.</li>
<li>Christians who are paying attention will see the Tribulation approaching.</li>
<li>But the Tribulation will begin suddenly, without warning, once the Rapture happens.</li>
</ul>
<p>As I have shown in this post, I believe there are multiple pieces of Biblical evidence that show that life will be 'normal' right up to the Rapture.</p>
<p>The Bible also shows that the world doesn't slowly creep into the Tribulation. Instead, the Tribulation begins with a bang that catches most of the world off-guard. I believe that 'bang' will be the Rapture.</p>
<p>Therefore, Christians today shouldn't be afraid of what we see happening in the world.</p>
<p>We are supposed to be waiting and watching for Jesus's return at the Rapture, who will save us from the coming wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10). We are never told to watch for the rise of the Antichrist or for the onset of God's wrath in the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Yet, depending on how much longer we have before the Rapture, times might become more challenging as the signs of the end times continue increasing.</p>
<p>However, we can be confident that before the Rapture, we will not see any wars that reach the level of the second Seal judgment (Revelation 6:3-4), even though Jesus said we will see various wars and threats of wars increasing (Matthew 24:6-7).</p>
<p>And no matter how bad inflation and food supply problems might become before the Rapture, it won't become so bad that for most of the world, it takes an entire day's wages to pay for a small amount of wheat or barley, perhaps equivalent to a loaf of bread (Revelation 6:5-6).</p>
<p>And there won't be any wars or diseases or famines that wipe out more than a quarter of the world's population before the Rapture happens, either (Revelation 6:8).</p>
<p>So if you are a Christian who is concerned about the future, I hope this post will comfort you. I also hope it will encourage you to keep holding on to your hope in the Rapture (2 Timothy 4:8), to keep watching for Jesus's return, and to do what God is calling you to do for him while we still have time.</p>
<p>In particular, I would recommend writing a letter like <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">this one</a> and putting it in a place where it could be found by anyone who might look for you after the Rapture.</p>
<p>Or, even better—talk to your friends and family right now about Jesus and why they need to believe in him to be saved, both eternally, and from the coming Tribulation.</p>
<p>If you are reading this before the Rapture and you have not yet believed in Jesus, it's very <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">simple to do, and also completely free</a>. Then you can not only have the hope of being saved from experiencing the Tribulation through the Rapture, but you will also gain eternal life, and a personal relationship with God!</p>
<p>There's no time to wait, because Jesus told us that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:28).</span></p>
<p>This verse is not talking about our personal salvation, which is eternally secure the moment we believe in Jesus (Ephesians 1:13-14).</p>
<p>Instead, it's talking about the Rapture, which Paul calls the "redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:23). It is then when we will receive our new, eternal, glorified bodies that will never again age or become sick or weak (1 Corinthians 15:42-49).</p>
<p>And so Christians should be excited, because it seems to me that our bodily redemption and rescue from this sinful world is now very, very near, indeed.</p>
<p>P.S. If you would like some daily encouragement regarding news about the end-times and Jesus's soon return, as well as clear reminders of the truth of the gospel, check out the videos by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@WatchmanRiver/videos">Watchman River on Youtube</a>, also available <a href="https://rumble.com/user/WatchmanRiver">on Rumble</a>. I have watched many of them, and have found his teaching to be quite reassuring, and hopeful, although he preaches the traditional Christian view of hell as eternal torment, while I prefer <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">Annihilationism</a>.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Jeff Diamant, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/12/08/about-four-in-ten-u-s-adults-believe-humanity-is-living-in-the-end-times/">"About four-in-ten U.S. adults believe humanity is 'living in the end times',"</a> <em>Pew Research Center</em>, December 8, 2022. Yet strangely, at the same time, "about seven-in-ten evangelicals say either that they are not sure Jesus will return during their lifetime (50%) or that Jesus will definitely or probably not return during their lifetime (21%)."</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Yonah Jeremy Bob, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-725248">"World order on verge of cliff - first Israeli national intel assessment,"</a> <em>The Jerusalem Post</em>, December 19, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Robert Farley, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/conflicts-that-could-turn-into-world-war-iii-during-2023-2023-1">"5 places World War III could start in 2023"</a>, Business Insider, January 3, 2023.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Brian Evans, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/hyperinflation-crisis-world-war-two-inflation-economic-crisis-elliot-management-2022-11">"The world could face the worst financial crisis since World War II as hyperinflation looms, hedge fund says"</a>, Business Insider, November 3, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Michael Snyder, <a href="https://thewashingtonstandard.com/the-food-crisis-of-2023-is-going-to-be-far-worse-than-most-people-would-dare-to-imagine/">"The Food Crisis of 2023 Is Going To Be Far Worse Than Most People Would Dare To Imagine</a>, October 17, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Ian Smith, <a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/03/09/cbdcs-these-are-the-countries-are-using-launching-or-piloting-their-own-digital-currencies">"Central Bank Digital Currencies: Which countries are using, launching or piloting CBDCs?"</a> Euronews.com, November 3, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> <a href="https://www.trulioo.com/blog/identity-verification/digital-id-populous-countries">"A Snapshot of Digital ID in the 10 Most Populous Countries — Part 1"</a>, Trulioo.com, August 13, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> <em>Middle East Monitor</em>, <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221212-israel-saudi-arabia-to-normalise-ties-within-a-year-claims-former-ambassador/amp/">"Israel-Saudi Arabia to normalise ties 'within a year' claims former ambassador,"</a> December 12, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> <a href="https://www.jonathanbrentner.com/https/jonathan-brentner-g8fgsquarespacecom/config/2022/11/28/12-signs-the-world-is-running-out-of-normal"></a> </li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Hal M. Haller, "Matthew" in <em>The Grace New Testament Commentary</em> Vol. 1 Matthew-Acts, ed. Robert N. Wilkin (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010), 115.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> William D. Mounce, "4161" in <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 1234.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 52.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 59, 64.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 64.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 67-68.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 72.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 73, 81.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Dean R. Hoge, <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/article/1993/03/mainline-churches-the-real-reason-for-decline">"Mainline Churches: The Real Reason For Decline,"</a> <em>First Things</em>, March 1993. Hoge says, "somehow, in the course of the past century, these churches lost the will or the ability to teach the Christian faith and what it requires to a succession of younger cohorts in such a way as to command their allegiance." A new study in 2021 showed that while both mainline and evangelical churches are declining in numbers, the mainline churches are still shrinking faster than evangelical churches: Ryan P. Burge, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/july/mainline-protestant-evangelical-decline-survey-us-nones.html">"Mainline Protestants Are Still Declining, But That’s Not Good News for Evangelicals"</a>, <em>Christianity Today</em>, July 13, 2021.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 83-85.</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> Grant R. Osborne, <em>Revelation</em>, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 205-206. An alternative interpretation is that both hot and cold drinks were enjoyable, but "in contrast, the temperature of a cup of lukewarm water or wine is more like that of its surroundings; it does not distinguish itself to the touch. When applied to the Christians at Laodicea the imagery suggests that their works in no way distinguish them from others in their society": Craig R. Koester, "The Message to Laodicea and the Problem of Its Local Context: A Study of the Imagery in Rev 3.14-22," <em>New Testament Studies 49</em> (2003): 407-424. Accessed March 31, 2012. doi: 10.1017/S0028688503000201.</li>
<li><strong>21.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 89-91.</li>
<li><strong>22.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Revelation</em>, The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, revised and edited by Philip E. Rawley and Mark Hitchcock (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 255. "Her position as a rider indicates on the one hand that she is supported by the political power of the beast, and on the other that she is in a dominant role and at least outwardly controls and directs the beast" (255). She is called Babylon because, "it has been noted by many writers that the iniquitous and pagan rites of Babylon crept into the early church and were largely responsible for the corruptions incorporated in Roman Catholicism from which Protestantism separated itself in the Middle Ages" (256-258).</li>
</ul>Self-Care Is Spiritual Warfare2022-12-12T00:01:00+00:002022-12-12T00:01:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-12-12:/article/self-care-is-spiritual-warfare/<p>(Or alternatively titled, "How To Defeat Satan With A Bowl of Oatmeal.")</p>
<p>It's fairly well known that December can be a tough month for many people.</p>
<p>One survey suggests that 64% of people feel the 'holiday blues', and twenty four percent of people feel these blues quite strongly.
The blues …</p><p>(Or alternatively titled, "How To Defeat Satan With A Bowl of Oatmeal.")</p>
<p>It's fairly well known that December can be a tough month for many people.</p>
<p>One survey suggests that 64% of people feel the 'holiday blues', and twenty four percent of people feel these blues quite strongly.
The blues can include feelings of fatigue, loneliness, sadness, and frustration.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>The holiday blues can also make pre-existing mental health challenges even more difficult:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The holiday season beams a spotlight on everything that is difficult about living with depression.... The pressure to be joyful and social is tenfold.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>However, this isn't to downplay how many people struggle with mental health conditions on a regular basis.</p>
<p>In the past, I have taken advantage of Christian counselling during a time when I wasn't feeling my best. My counsellor would at times remind me about the importance of self-care. Things like getting enough sleep, eating enough healthy food, getting exercise, taking time to relax and rest, and so on.</p>
<p>At the time, it seemed like silly advice. I didn't think that any of these things were going to make me feel better about the issues I was in counselling for, which at times made me feel so bad that I wished I could just die and go to heaven already.</p>
<p>And usually, I just felt guilty when I took naps or spent time relaxing or working on hobbies. I felt that I wasn't doing something productive and useful, and so I was wasting the limited time that God had given me in this life to do good works and earn eternal <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-christians-need-to-talk-more-about-heaven/">heavenly rewards</a>. Then that made me feel even <em>worse</em> about myself.</p>
<p>Lately, though, I've come to realize that the idea of self-care isn't silly at all. I also realized that I shouldn't feel guilty about taking care of myself by taking time to rest, relax, exercise, or eat regularly.</p>
<p>That's because, as I will argue in this post, I believe that self-care is actually an important form of spiritual warfare!</p>
<p>And although it's called 'self' care, which could make it appear to be selfish, I will argue that it isn't, because self-care is also a way of loving others.</p>
<p>Therefore, I think self-care should be something that all Christians keep in mind as one weapon in our spiritual arsenal that we can use to protect ourselves from the enemy's attacks whenever we are feeling stressed or depressed.</p>
<h2>Christians Are Satan's Targets</h2>
<p>When you think of spiritual warfare, probably the first thing that comes to mind is someone who goes around casting out demons, right?</p>
<p>Maybe someone who's like the modern-day spiritual equivalent of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings, who uses special spiritual gifts to stand up against the most evil forces of darkness.</p>
<p>Or at least, we might think of a strong Christian who has a really great prayer life, reads the Bible daily, attends church every week, and who intercedes in prayer for others and for world events.</p>
<p>Or maybe we picture activists who try to peacefully push back against harmful government policies, and whistle-blowers who expose unethical practices in large organizations.</p>
<p>Or we could think more broadly about anyone who <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/have-courage-to-be-disliked/">speaks out</a> and stands up against corruption, mismanagement, injustice, sin, and evil wherever it shows up in the world.</p>
<p>And it's true that all these activities could be examples of engaging in spiritual warfare.</p>
<p>But spiritual warfare also occurs wherever and whenever God's people try to do God's will, even in much smaller or less obvious ways.</p>
<p>Remember that Satan hates anything that is good and loving, because God is love (1 John 4:8). God is also the one who created everything, and so God is the source of all life and goodness (James 1:17). As a result, all that Satan wants to do is to steal, kill, and destroy, wherever and however he can (John 10:10, John 8:44).</p>
<p>As Christians, our mission is to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">love God and love others</a> (Matthew 22:37-40, 1 John 4:21), to do good works (Ephesians 2:10), and to share the gospel with all people and teach them about God and what God wants us to do (Matthew 28:19-20).</p>
<p>If you're a Christian, then no matter who you are, what your job is, or what your spiritual gifts are, there is some way or another that you can do these things. And by doing these things, you are fulfilling God's mission for your life and helping bring about God's purposes for the world. That means you are simultaneously thwarting Satan's plans.</p>
<p>Therefore, Satan wants to stop you from making a difference for God in this world, in whatever ways you are currently doing that.</p>
<p>This means that your life won't be as easy as it would have been if you were not a Christian. You're going to face opposition, difficulties, and challenges that will tempt you to give up on living for Jesus, or to give up your faith.</p>
<p>But remember, just keeping your faith is a victory that will lead to eternal rewards:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)</span></p>
<p>And it is expected that our faith will be tested, to prove how genuine and valuable it is:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7, NRSVA)</span></p>
<p>At times, these difficulties, trials, and challenges might feel so tough that even if you keep your faith, you might be tempted to give up on living altogether.</p>
<p>I've been there too, and so have many significant godly Biblical figures who were tempted to give up on their missions and either wanted to die, wished they had never been born, or struggled with despair. Let's consider:</p>
<ul>
<li>Moses (Numbers 11:14-15)</li>
<li>Elijah (1 Kings 19:4)</li>
<li>Paul (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)</li>
<li>Jonah (Jonah 4:3, 4:8)</li>
<li>Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:14-18)</li>
<li>Job (Job 3:20-22, Job 6:8-9)</li>
</ul>
<p>So just because you're facing difficulties and might be feeling like you can't go on, it doesn't mean you are a failure of a Christian. In reality, it probably means the exact opposite.</p>
<p>I would even say that as Christians, if we aren't experiencing <em>any</em> difficulties in our lives whatsoever, then perhaps we aren't taking our faith seriously or doing what we should be doing for God.</p>
<p>After all, in a war, a smart enemy won't waste resources taking out soldiers who are just sitting around not being effective. Instead, a smart enemy would focus his limited resources on taking out those soldiers who are the biggest threat to his schemes.</p>
<p>So if you're facing challenges while you're faithfully trying to love God and love others, and are using the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christians-are-superheros/">spiritual gifts</a> that God has given you, then you should be encouraged that you're doing something right, and you should keep on doing it.</p>
<p>However, that doesn't mean things will get easier. After all, Jesus said "Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world" (John 16:33, NLT).</p>
<p>As the world approaches the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">end times</a>, we can be encouraged that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> will happen to take all Christians to heaven before the world enters the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">Tribulation</a>. But in the meantime, things will likely become even tougher for the average person around the world, including Christians (Matthew 24:6-8).</p>
<p>Despite this, as long as we are still here, we are told that we should be occupying ourselves with God's work until Jesus comes back (Luke 19:13).</p>
<p>Therefore, self-care will become even more important for Christians as we look forward to the day when Jesus will come back to take us to be with him (John 14:1-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17), because it's one way of keeping ourselves 'in the game' until then.</p>
<h2>Don't Quit: Keep Yourself In The Game</h2>
<p>One end-times commentator whose podcast I listened to compared what Christians experience in this life to playing on a sports team.</p>
<p>It's the final game of the season, and there are only five minutes left on the clock. Our team's score is so high that there's no possible way the opposing team could make up the difference. The timer is counting down to the end of the game, and it's guaranteed that we're going to win.</p>
<p>However, we still have five minutes left to play. Although the opposing team can't win, they could, out of vindictiveness and spite, decide to hit individual players with everything they've got. This would be in order to try to cause injuries that send these players off to the hospital, to keep them from participating in the victory celebration they are anticipating.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>Now, we know that Jesus has already won the victory over sin, death, and the devil when Jesus died on the cross for all sin, rose again, and ascended into heaven (Colossians 2:13–15, Hebrews 2:14–15). But Satan is still attacking Christians with everything he's got until he will be locked up for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-3) and is finally thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).</p>
<p>So in the meantime, our goal is to keep ourselves in the game, by keeping our faith, doing what God calls us to do, and staying alive until God decides it's time for us to go home.</p>
<p>Paul compares the Christian life to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/which-race-are-you-running/">running a race</a> or fighting a boxing match (1 Corinthians 9:24-27, 2 Timothy 4:7-8). In both cases, it's tough, exhausting, and it hurts. It's no wonder that sometimes, quitting seems like the most sensible option.</p>
<p>Paul admitted that he longed to be done with the fight and go home to be with Jesus, which is far better. But he knew that he couldn't give up yet, because he was still useful to God by staying and helping the early churches (Philippians 1:21-24).</p>
<p>There is an inspirational quote I've seen that says "I pray that when I die, all of hell will rejoice that I am out of the fight."<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>I like this. I think it should be each Christian's goal to live in such a way that Satan will be glad when God finally takes us home, whether in the Rapture, or perhaps sooner. Or at least, it's something I want to aim for personally.</p>
<p>However, sometimes the storms of life and the spiritual battle gets so tough that making a difference for God in the world seems impossible. We might be so exhausted and beat up that it feels like all we can do is hunker down and hold on for dear life.</p>
<p>It's during these times that I think self-care is most necessary, and this is when self-care also becomes a completely legitimate form of spiritual warfare.</p>
<h2>How Self-Care Is Spiritual Warfare</h2>
<p>It's easy to assume that 'spiritual' warfare would only involve 'spiritual' activities like:</p>
<ul>
<li>prayer</li>
<li>reading the Bible</li>
<li>going to Bible study</li>
<li>going to church</li>
<li>resisting temptation</li>
<li>overcoming habitual sins</li>
</ul>
<p>And of course, these are all good things to do. These activities can certainly help encourage us, strengthen our faith, and make our Christian lives easier.</p>
<p>But I think spiritual warfare can also include activities such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>eating a snack or a meal</li>
<li>taking a nap</li>
<li>going for a walk outside</li>
<li>reading an enjoyable book</li>
<li>going for coffee with a friend</li>
<li>listening to music that makes you feel happy</li>
<li>wrapping up in a warm blanket</li>
<li>taking a hot shower or a relaxing bath</li>
<li>getting enough sleep at night</li>
<li>working on hobbies</li>
<li>watching sports, tv shows, or a movie</li>
</ul>
<p>Does this sound ridiculous? I don't think so.</p>
<p>Let's look at when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness after his baptism:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. (Matthew 4:1-2)</span></p>
<p>Notice that it's only <em>then</em> that Satan showed up to try to tempt Jesus (Matthew 4:3).</p>
<p>It's like Satan knew that if he tried to tempt Jesus right at the start of the forty days, when Jesus was feeling fresh and well-fed, Satan would have had less of a chance of getting Jesus to give in to his temptations.</p>
<p>So Satan waits until Jesus is physically hungry, thirsty, and probably tired, too. (After all, sleeping out in the wilderness on rocks and scraggly vegetation can't be comfortable).</p>
<p>Now obviously, we're not Jesus, but I think Satan's strategy is still the same when he attacks Christians. He will send his demons to come pester us and try to tempt us when we're at our weakest and most vulnerable, both physically and/or emotionally.</p>
<p>I've noticed this pattern in my own life. Once I realize this, then I can keep a closer watch on it. This is also where self-care can become a form of spiritual warfare.</p>
<p>Because if I realize when the pattern is beginning, then I can also try to do things to address my physical or emotional state in order to keep myself from becoming an easy target for Satan to pick on, as I'll explain below.</p>
<h2>How Spiritual Warfare Shows Up In My Life</h2>
<p>Here's how the above pattern usually works for me:</p>
<p>I start getting stressed for some reason, maybe over a little thing that really isn't a big deal in the big scheme of things, but it's enough to make me start worrying about all the potential negative consequences it could lead to.</p>
<p>Then I begin having negative and pessimistic thoughts about myself or about my personal future.</p>
<p>Then I start comparing my life to how other people's lives <em>appear</em> to be going, or I begin <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/avoid-comparing-ministries-or-gifts/">comparing my ministry</a> to how much others seem to be doing for God.</p>
<p>Since the outcome of that comparison in my pessimistic state of mind is always negative, then I start criticizing myself, and I begin to feel useless and depressed. Or at worst, I feel like I'm a burden who contributes nothing to anyone and is only a drain on others.</p>
<p>That's when I start being tempted to think that things would be easier both for me and for others if I were in heaven. In the moment, it feels like I'm thinking completely objectively, and that everything really is as bad as it feels it is.</p>
<p>However, I've learned that when I get into this frame of mind, usually part of the problem is that I'm either hungry or tired.</p>
<p>And if I do something simple like have a small bowl of oatmeal, I'll usually start feeling better within half an hour or so. Then the negative thoughts disappear or fade at least a little in severity.</p>
<p>Or sometimes, I feel better after I have a nap or a good night's sleep. Or after I take a hot shower to relax. Or after a walk.</p>
<p>Sometimes, I just need to put on a comfy, warm pair of clothes, wrap up in a blanket, put on some good music, and do something fun and creative to relax for a few minutes, or hours, or days, or longer, if I really need to. For example, when writing my dissertation, I once had an entire week when I just had to stop and work on my hobbies before I could get the motivation to get back to it.</p>
<p>But in the past, I used to really hate when this happened. I'd criticize myself harshly for wasting so much time doing things like working on hobbies that are ultimately not really 'useful' in any way to anyone, besides keeping me mentally healthy.</p>
<p>Because like I mentioned earlier, for me, I'm happiest when I feel like I'm making a difference in the world for God, in one way or another. So when I take time to nap, sleep, eat, relax, or do something fun and creative, it feels like I'm no longer making a difference.</p>
<p>That would return me to the cycle of criticizing myself, and I'd again start comparing myself to other people who seem to be making more of a difference than me. Then I'd feel even worse about myself, and the spiral downward would continue.</p>
<p>However, recently, I realized that I shouldn't be so negative about the time I spend on self-care activities.</p>
<p>Because even if during these times I'm not currently 'doing' anything that feels useful, it's better to at least still be here, because then there's at least a <em>chance</em> that once I'm feeling better, I will be useful again.</p>
<p>Whereas if I give in to the temptation to end my life early, then I would cut off all chances of potentially being used by God in this life in the future, and Satan wins.</p>
<p>So therefore, if, through self-care, I can thwart Satan's desire to take me out and so destroy any chance of being useful to God in the future, then self-care becomes a form of spiritual warfare.</p>
<p>And that means I shouldn't feel that it's unproductive or useless, and I shouldn't feel guilty for needing these things. Because really, if I can defeat Satan by something as simple as eating a bowl of oatmeal, then why shouldn't I? It's literally the easiest form of spiritual warfare that I can imagine!</p>
<p>Now, of course, this is just my personal experience. Maybe spiritual warfare shows up differently for you, especially if you have a different personality type that has different weaknesses. If so, then your self-care activities might also be different.</p>
<p>However, that doesn't negate my point that I believe we all have some times when we tend to feel worse than others, and that this is when you become more vulnerable to spiritual attacks. Therefore, it's important for each of us to recognize how this works in our own lives, and have an arsenal of strategies we can use to help us counter the enemy's attacks.</p>
<p>Of course, self-care isn't an excuse to indulge in things that are unhealthy and/or sinful. I could list many examples of these things, but I suspect you already know what I'm talking about. Or if you're thinking of something sinful that you want permission to do under the guise of it being 'self-care', the Holy Spirit will convict you about that.</p>
<p>These sinful things, although they may seem attractive and may feel good in the moment (as sin always does), will only lead you to <em>more</em> misery, and if followed too far, to death (James 1:14-15). That means that sin and excessive unhealthy indulgences are the <em>opposite</em> of self-care, and should be avoided.</p>
<p>Now, one objection that I suspect many Christians might have to the idea of self-care is that it seems to be selfish. However, this is false, because as I will argue below, self-care is a way not only of loving ourselves, but also of loving others.</p>
<h2>Self-Care Is A Way To Love Ourselves</h2>
<p>Let's imagine that one of our friends or family members comes to us and tells us that they aren't feeling well, either physically, or emotionally. If we truly love them, we should want to do what we can to make them feel better.</p>
<p>We might tell them to go rest, while we make them a bowl of soup or a cup of hot chocolate. We might try to cheer them up by watching their favorite movie with them, or doing something to take their mind off their issues. We might take them out for ice cream and let them vent to us.</p>
<p>Hopefully, we wouldn't tell them to just suck it up, or to ignore whatever is troubling them because it's not a real problem. Hopefully we wouldn't tell them that they just need to keep going full steam ahead, even if it feels like they are exhausted and on the edge of burnout.</p>
<p>And I really hope that we wouldn't say that if they take a break to take care of themselves, then they're weak, lazy, unmotivated, selfish, being a burden, and on and on.</p>
<p>But sometimes this is what I tell myself when I'm feeling down. It's like I can have more love and grace for others than I have for myself.</p>
<p>However, God repeatedly instructs us to love others <em>just like we love ourselves</em> (Matthew 22:39, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8).</p>
<p>So this commandment presumes that we <em>should</em> love ourselves. And there's nothing wrong with loving ourselves, because God already loves us so much that he died for us (John 3:16).</p>
<p>Therefore, even if self-care was only a way of loving ourselves, it would still be a valid and good thing to do. However, as unusual as it may sound, self-care is also a way of loving others, as I'll explain in the next section.</p>
<h2>Self-Care Is A Way To Love Others</h2>
<p>Someone might object by saying that in John 15:13, Jesus says that the highest form of love is to be willing to die for someone else. So shouldn't we be willing to do everything we can for others, even if it means that we ourselves are hurt in the process?</p>
<p>If that's what the verse means, then it could seem to contradict the idea of self-care, or of even setting boundaries with others. It would mean we have to give, and give, and give some more, until we have literally nothing left. But I think this is not the best interpretation of John 15:13.</p>
<p>Obviously, Jesus did choose to give up his life to die on the cross for the whole world even though no one was forcing him to, and this is the greatest example of love. (Jesus also knew he would be resurrected, though, and that by going to the cross, he would get what he wanted most: people who will love him eternally. So it was ultimately a victory, not a loss).</p>
<p>Sometimes in this world there are tough situations where someone chooses to die in order to save another person's life because there is no alternative. We can think of bodyguards who take a bullet for the person they are protecting, or parents who feed the last of their food to their child and go hungry themselves.</p>
<p>But in other situations where someone's life isn't at stake, then love doesn't have to look like giving up everything for another person's sake.</p>
<p>Even Jesus took personal time out for himself (Matthew 14:22-23), and prioritized the needs of his disciples over the crowds (Mark 6:31). Jesus didn't heal every single person in the country who needed healing, or feed every person who needed food, even though he did do some miracles for some people. Jesus was also criticized for spending time attending dinner parties as part of his ministry (Luke 5:30-32, Luke 7:34).</p>
<p>In the book <em>Boundaries</em>, Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend argue that setting proper limits with others is actually a way of loving others who otherwise won't take responsibility for their own issues or lives.</p>
<p>Cloud and Townsend argue that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Appropriate boundaries actually increase our ability to care about others. People with highly developed limits are the most caring people on earth.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>Why is that? Because,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Boundary-injured individuals make promises and then do one of two things; (1) they resentfully make good, or (2) they fail on the promise. Boundary-developed people, however, make good [on their promises] freely and gladly. Or they don't promise at all.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>What is more loving: to give to others cheerfully (2 Corinthians 9:7) and follow through on our promises, or to give resentfully and also risk not following through on our promises?</p>
<p>We also need to care for ourselves in order to care for others effectively and in sustainable ways, without becoming people who are then just as needy as those we are trying to help. Cloud and Townsend describe this as "counting the cost" of our helping. They warn that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Following up on guilt-ridden or compliant responsibilities can be quite costly, painful, and inconvenient. The lesson you need to learn is to not promise too much before you have done your spiritual and emotional [or financial] calculations.<cite>7</cite></span></p>
<p>Even if someone is in real need, we all have limits. Townsend and Cloud believe that we should all,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Learn what your limits are, give what you have "decided in your heart" to give, and send other people in need to those who can help them. Empathize with these people's situations. They often need to know that you see their needs as valid and that they really do need help. And pray for them. This is the most loving thing you can do for the pain and needs around you that you can't meet.<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>Townsend and Cloud also say that it's important for us to </p>
<p><span class="blockquote">initiate responsible caretaking for ourselves—as opposed to placing the burden on someone else.<cite>9</cite></span></p>
<p>In fact,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God intends for us to know when we're hungry, lonely, in trouble, overwhelmed, or in need of a break—and then to take initiative to get what we need.<cite>10</cite></span></p>
<p>So sometimes, our limits/boundaries can look like taking time for self-care. And when we do, I believe that self-care is also a way of loving others.</p>
<p>For example, when I'm feeling down, I try to remind myself that if I did give in to the temptation to end my life early, then not only would Satan win, but all the people who love me would also lose.</p>
<p>I know that my loved ones would rather see me take a nap, eat a bowl of oatmeal, watch a movie, work on hobbies, or whatever I need to do to feel better, rather than take myself out of their lives. And I would want the same for anyone who was also struggling with the temptation to commit suicide, even if it meant that temporarily, they weren't available to help me out or contribute anything to the world.</p>
<p>But this is true even in less drastic cases, too.</p>
<p>For example, I can't be a benefit to anyone I love if I'm crying on my bed feeling awful about myself or my future, and wishing I was in heaven instead. And likely, my loved ones wouldn't be happy if I was in this state, either. So in this situation, if I want to love others, the most loving thing I can do is to get up, eat that bowl of oatmeal, and watch some silly cat videos on the internet until I regain a more objective perspective on my situation.</p>
<p>Self-care can also be done proactively, before I find myself falling into that situation where I just want to go cry, and it's still just as loving of an action.</p>
<p>For example, if I can keep myself feeling positive by taking some time off to do something fun and creative for a few hours or a day on a weekend, then those around me benefit from me being at my best, rather than if I were moping around feeling stressed and unhappy. It's more loving to do what I need to so that I can bring the best of myself into my relationships, than to neglect myself until I'm unpleasant to be around and make others worry about me.</p>
<p>Plus, if I'm doing alright both emotionally and physically, then I'm also more able to potentially help others, rather than needing to be helped by others. And then I'm happier. And my spouse is happier. And a happier Christian is a better witness to others than an unhappy or grumpy Christian.</p>
<p>Therefore, I need to remember that self-care is a loving action, and that I shouldn't feel guilty when I take time out for myself. In so doing, I'm loving myself, loving others, and also thwarting Satan's desires to make me miserable and useless to God and to others.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>I hope this post has been helpful or encouraging to you if you also experience times when it feels like you're barely holding on.</p>
<p>Maybe you're even feeling this way right now. If this is where you're at, then just keep holding on, because keeping your faith and not giving in to temptations to prematurely end your mission will be rewarded. And there's nothing you should be ashamed of for just holding on, even if you can't do anything else at the moment.</p>
<p>Jesus encourages Christians who live before the Rapture that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown. (Revelation 3:10-11, NLT)</span></p>
<p>And we're encouraged that if we hold on in the meantime, even if we have to endure suffering, it will all be so worth it in the end:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)</span></p>
<p>This 'light momentary affliction' might not seem so light or momentary in the moment. But this verse promises us that it will seem this way when we look back on our suffering in heaven in comparison to our heavenly rewards which will far outweigh it.</p>
<p>If you want to read more on this theme of suffering and heavenly rewards, check out my post on <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/how-suffering-is-useful-for-Christians/">how suffering is useful for Christians</a>.</p>
<p>And if you would like more encouragement to keep going and doing your best for God, maybe you would like my post about how <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christians-are-superheros/">Christians are superheros</a>.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Luna Greenstein, <a href="https://www.nami.org/blogs/nami-blog/november-2015/tips-for-managing-the-holiday-blues">"Tips For Managing The Holiday Blues"</a>, National Alliance on Mental Illness, November 19, 2015.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> National Alliance on Mental Health, <a href="https://www.nami.org/Press-Media/Press-Releases/2014/Mental-health-and-the-holiday-blues">"Mental Health and the Holiday Blues"</a>, November 19, 2014.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Geoffrey Grider, <a href="https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/4th-quarter-christian-finishing-strong-in-last-days-to-the-fight/">"The NTEB House Church Sunday Service: 4th Quarter Christian, Or Finishing Strong As The Last Days Game Clock Runs Out,"</a> October 22, 2022.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> This quote is often attributed to C.S. Lewis, however, it might actually have come from C. T. Studd. See <a href="https://essentialcslewis.com/2017/01/07/ccslq-31-hell-rejoices/">https://essentialcslewis.com/2017/01/07/ccslq-31-hell-rejoices/</a>.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Henry Cloud and John Townsend, <em>Boundaries</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 107.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Henry Cloud and John Townsend, <em>Boundaries</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 290.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Henry Cloud and John Townsend, <em>Boundaries</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 290.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Henry Cloud and John Townsend, <em>Boundaries</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 256.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Henry Cloud and John Townsend, <em>Boundaries</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 185.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Henry Cloud and John Townsend, <em>Boundaries</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 184.</li>
</ul>Will 'Good' People Be Eternally Saved?2022-11-22T00:00:00+00:002022-11-22T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-11-22:/article/will-good-people-be-eternally-saved/<p>In several of my past blog posts, I have been building a case for why I believe that some sort of theory of Christian inclusivism is necessary if Christians want to believe everything the Bible says about which individuals will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>As a reminder, Christian inclusivism is the …</p><p>In several of my past blog posts, I have been building a case for why I believe that some sort of theory of Christian inclusivism is necessary if Christians want to believe everything the Bible says about which individuals will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>As a reminder, Christian inclusivism is the idea that although Christianity is the only true religion/faith, people who were not Christians and who never heard the gospel can still be eternally saved, because God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly wants to save all people</a>.</p>
<p>However, despite this, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">not everyone will be saved</a>, and so universalism isn't a Biblical option. Inclusivism also denies that all religions lead to the same God or the same heaven, and thus, it is not the same as <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">religious pluralism</a>.</p>
<p>I believe there are three main possibilities for how God will judge people who never heard the gospel (or who died before they had the ability to understand and personally respond to the gospel) that could lead to at least <em>some</em> of those people being eternally saved:</p>
<ol>
<li>Each person has an encounter with God/Jesus after death, giving individuals who have not previously had a chance to accept or reject the gospel the opportunity to make their final decision regarding God's offer of salvation then.</li>
<li>God judges people based on what their earthly actions revealed about their hearts being oriented either toward God or away from God.</li>
<li>God judges people based on how they responded to the truths about God that they did have access to during their lives through nature, or maybe, through otherwise false religions.</li>
</ol>
<p>I have already examined the first option in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">my previous post</a>.</p>
<p>In the rest of this post, I will explore the second possibility in more detail, and make a case for why it could be a compelling, Biblical option.</p>
<p>Before that, though, I need to explain that this second possibility is certainly <em>not</em> the same as saying people can be good enough to be worthy of heaven.</p>
<h2>Will God Accept All 'Good' People Into Heaven?</h2>
<p>If you stop people on the street here in North America, and probably also Europe, and ask them whether they think they will go to heaven when they die, probably many people would say yes. But if you ask them why they think this, I suspect that most would say it is because they are a 'good' person.</p>
<p>If you ask them what being a 'good' person means, they'll probably say it means they haven't murdered anyone, they haven't been arrested for any (major) crimes, they don't cheat on their taxes or on their spouses, they go to church, they try to be kind and helpful to others, and so on.</p>
<p>Especially self-aware individuals might admit that they aren't perfect and have made some mistakes in life. But even they might argue that on the whole, they've done more good than bad in their lives, and so God should be happy enough with their efforts to let them into heaven.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, even some Christians endorse such an idea.</p>
<p>For example, a few years ago, Pope Francis supposedly said that even atheists can go to heaven.</p>
<p>This occurred when the Pope greeted a child who was grieving the loss of his father who was an atheist. The child hugged the Pope and cried while sharing that he was worried his father might be in hell.</p>
<p>As a result, the Pope told the child that his father was a "good man" because his father had his four children baptized, and so God was proud of his father.</p>
<p>Then Pope Francis said, "God has the heart of a father, your father was a good man, he is in heaven with Him, be sure. God has a father's heart and would God ever abandon a non-believing father who baptized his children?"<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>This is an extremely disappointing statement to be made by someone who is supposedly Christ's most well-known representative on earth, and who should be the most theologically-informed Christian on the planet. But as seen in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">my previous post</a> on other religions, such a statement seems to be in line with a number of Pope Francis's other statements which are theologically questionable.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it appears that over one third of senior Christian pastors in the United States also believe that "a person who is generally good, or does enough good things for others, can earn a place in Heaven"!<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>I'm completely shocked by this.</p>
<p>According to the same survey, associate pastors, teaching pastors, and children's pastors tended to have even fewer Biblical beliefs than senior pastors did, although there were no specific statistics given on how they would answer that question. But I presume the numbers would be at least the same as for the senior pastors, if not worse.</p>
<p>So that's really quite scary.</p>
<p>I would very much like to sit down and ask these pastors how they could believe that anyone could be good enough to earn a place in heaven, because it's clearly not what is taught in the Bible.</p>
<h2>A Serious Problem: The Bible Says No One Is Good Enough</h2>
<p>The first problem with the claim that it's possible for someone to be good enough to earn a place in heaven is that it's unclear how many good works or what kind of good works are necessary to be considered a 'good' person.</p>
<p>If individuals keep the Ten Commandments, would they be considered to be 'good' people and worthy of eternal salvation? Or is that too tough, and so a lesser standard is needed, like, say, just trying to be kind and nice to most people, most of the time?</p>
<p>And then, if individuals commit any particularly 'bad' sins, does that outweigh all the rest of the 'good' they might have done in their lives and automatically condemn them to hell?</p>
<p>Fortunately, the Bible clearly answers these questions. According to God's standards, <em>no one</em> is good enough to be worthy of eternal life:</p>
<ul>
<li>"No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one" (Romans 3:10-12, NLT).</li>
<li>"For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment" (Isaiah 64:6, NASB).</li>
<li>"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way" (Isaiah 53:6, NRSVA).</li>
<li>"If we say we have not sinned, we make him [God] a liar, and his word is not in us" (1 John 1:10).</li>
<li>"No one is good except God alone" (Luke 18:19).</li>
</ul>
<p>In fact, the only human who has ever been 'good' enough for God was Jesus Christ, because he is the only person who never sinned (2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15) and that's because Jesus is God incarnate (John 10:30).</p>
<p>So if God will judge everyone according to God's standard of perfection, then the only human who would qualify for heaven is Jesus.</p>
<p>As a result, because all the rest of us are all sinners, good works will never be enough for us to earn eternal life:</p>
<ul>
<li>"For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his [God's] sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20).</li>
<li>"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).</li>
<li>"Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness" (Romans 4:4-5).</li>
<li>"For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood" (Romans 3:23-25, NLT).</li>
</ul>
<p>These verses above make it clear that no good works could ever make a sinner worthy of heaven. Instead, everyone who will ever be saved is saved only because they believe that Jesus died for their sins, so that they could have eternal life.</p>
<h2>An Even More Serious Problem: Why Did Jesus Die If People Can Earn Heaven?</h2>
<p>But perhaps the most serious theological problem with the theory that people can get to heaven simply by being 'good people' is that it would mean there is no need for Jesus to have died on the cross!</p>
<p>When Jesus was praying to God the Father before he was arrested, Jesus asked if there were any way it might be possible for him to avoid going through with his upcoming crucifixion (Mark 14:36, Matthew 26:39-42).</p>
<p>Jesus was so anxious about it that he sweat blood—a rare medical condition called, which is occasionally experienced during extreme stress.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>I think this is enough evidence to say that if there were any other way that God could have solved the problem of all humans being sinners without Jesus having to die for the sins of the world on the cross (1 John 2:2, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 1 Peter 2:24, Hebrews 10:12), then God would have chosen that option.</p>
<p>If there were any way for us to earn our own way into heaven by being good enough or doing enough good works, then Jesus's death would have been completely unnecessary, and I believe he wouldn't have gone through with it.</p>
<p>And we know that Jesus's death wasn't an accident or a senseless tragedy, because Jesus said that he could have prevented his own arrest by calling down angels to protect himself (Matthew 26:53-54). Therefore, Jesus willingly went to the cross because it was the only way to make humanity's salvation possible.</p>
<p>So the Bible is clear that there is absolutely <em>no</em> way to be saved except by having faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior (John 14:6, John 3:16-18, Acts 4:12).</p>
<p>Yet this brings us back to the main question of the post. Since not everyone in all of history has been able to know about Jesus and so believe in him, then how can those people be saved?</p>
<p>The first possibility I explored was whether some people might have a chance to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">believe in Jesus after death</a>. There do seem to be some situations where this possibility seems necessary. But as I noted in that post, there are also some weaknesses with that theory.</p>
<p>So this brings us to the second possibility listed at the start of this post.</p>
<p>In this next section, I'll make a case for why it could be possible for God to judge people for eternal salvation based on their good works, yet without those works being seen as the reason these people are saved.</p>
<h2>Possibility 2: Good Works Reveal People's Faith in God</h2>
<p>Despite the point made in the previous section that the only way to be saved is through faith in Jesus's death for our sins, there are some Bible verses which seem to say that God <em>will</em> judge people based on their works.</p>
<p>These verses also suggest that if people do what is right, it will lead to heavenly rewards and/or eternal life. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>"He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality" (Romans 2:6-11).</li>
<li>"Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:34-35).</li>
<li>"Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:28-29).</li>
<li>"Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done" (Revelation 20:11-13).</li>
</ul>
<p>However, since the other verses we examined earlier clearly deny the possibility that anyone can do enough good works to earn their way into heaven, how do we make sense of these verses?</p>
<p>The most pessimistic interpretation would say that the only reason God will judge people's works is to prove that everyone is a sinner who needs Jesus as their savior.</p>
<p>So in this view, <em>everyone</em> would end up on the 'unworthy' side of the above judgments, and the 'good' outcome would be only a theoretical possibility that is never actually fulfilled by anyone but Jesus (e.g. see again Luke 18:19).</p>
<p>This would be one way to make these verses fully compatible with the earlier verses that there is no way to be eternally saved besides having faith that Jesus died for our sins.</p>
<p>But I don't think we should be so pessimistic, because there is an interesting hint that maybe during this divine judgment of people's works, God might be merciful to them:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse <u>or even excuse them</u> on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16)</span></p>
<p>Did you catch that? It seems that at the final judgment some people may actually be <em>excused</em> for their sins, depending on what was going on in their heart and/or conscience at the time.</p>
<p>No details are given regarding the criteria God will use to determine what sorts of sins might be excused in this way. But this verse wouldn't be in the Bible if it weren't true, since all Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21, 2 Timothy 3:16), and God never lies (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18).</p>
<p>I also don't think we should assume that everyone who will be judged at the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15) will be automatically condemned to hell (despite what the most pessimistic Bible interpreters say).</p>
<p>That's because even though people's works will be judged, as per Revelation 20:11-13, John goes on to say "And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15, NLT).</p>
<p>So what <em>really</em> matters isn't ultimately people's works—it's whether their names are written in the Book of Life.</p>
<p>The Book of Life is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, such as Philippians 4:3 and Revelation 3:5. In these contexts, it seems that the people whose names are written in it (or not blotted out from it) are people who have faith in God/Jesus.</p>
<p>Therefore, one attempt to solve this conundrum of how God will judge people by their works, but people are saved only by faith in Jesus, would be to argue that people's works reveal whether they have truly had faith in Jesus.</p>
<p>But again, what about those who never heard about Jesus? One passage suggests there may be a way for people's names to be written in the Book of Life even though they do not seem to have known of Jesus during their earthly lives.</p>
<p>In Matthew 25, Jesus said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him, saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?" And the King will answer them, "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:31-40)</span></p>
<p>Alternatively, for those who never did these good works, Jesus will say,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">"Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." (Matthew 25:41)</span></p>
<p>The end result is "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:46).</p>
<p>Now it's true that Matthew 25 is a different judgment than Revelation 20, because Matthew 25 occurs at the end of the Tribulation rather than at the end of the Millennial Kingdom like Revelation 20.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>However, it wouldn't be fair for God to judge the group of Tribulation survivors for eternal life or death by using a different standard than he will use to judge many other people at the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15), which will include people who never heard about Jesus.</p>
<p>So in order to reconcile this passage of Scripture with other Bible verses which clearly say that only those who have faith in Jesus will be eternally saved (e.g. John 3:16-18, John 11:25-26), and with the verses that say no one can do enough good works to be saved (as seen earlier), then one potential solution <em>could</em> be to say that everyone who has faith in Jesus <em>will</em> do these sorts of good works.</p>
<p>Or conversely, according to that interpretation, if individuals are <em>not</em> doing enough of these sort of good works, it could imply that they don't really have faith in Jesus.</p>
<p>Such an interpretation might also imply that people who who did these good works but didn't know who Jesus was could still be saved because their works demonstrate some sort of implicit faith in Jesus or God.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>If so, then this could potentially be a way for people who never specifically heard about Jesus or God to still be saved.</p>
<p>God would judge their works, and those who did enough good works or some types of good works would be regarded as effectively having had faith in Jesus, even though they didn't know about him during their earthly lives.</p>
<p>However, there are several potential problems with this interpretation that must be examined before we accepted it as a viable theory.</p>
<h2>Problem 1: How Many Good Works Are Needed To Prove Faith?</h2>
<p>This theory that good works can prove whether a person has faith in God has a similar problem to the theory that good works on their own can earn eternal salvation. That is: how many good works and what sort of good works do individuals need to do to prove that they truly have faith?</p>
<p>In one place, Jesus said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If you receive a prophet as one who speaks for God, you will be given the same reward as a prophet. And if you receive righteous people because of their righteousness, you will be given a reward like theirs. And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded. (Matthew 10:41-42, NLT)</span></p>
<p>Does this mean that as long as someone does <em>one</em> good deed as small as offering someone a cup of water, it's enough to demonstrate his or her faith in God and guarantee that he or she will be eternally saved and rewarded?</p>
<p>(After all, people can't be <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">eternally annihilated</a> while simultaneously receiving eternal heavenly rewards.)</p>
<p>So, if only one small good work is the minimum requirement for demonstrating one's faith in God, then we might imagine that most people would meet this requirement at some point in their lives.</p>
<p>But we need to be careful about what works we say are 'good'.</p>
<p>Remember that Jesus said that even tax collectors (i.e. people who were considered to be traitors and thieves) love those who love them (Matthew 5:46). And parents give good things to their children (Matthew 7:11) regardless of whether the parents are believers in God or not. However, in these instances, Jesus doesn't seem to think these actions are particularly praiseworthy.</p>
<p>Jonathan Edwards explains this by arguing that loving others only because they are our friends or family, or because we benefit from their love in some way, is actually selfish because it is not truly loving others for their own sake. Therefore, it shouldn't be seen as truly virtuous.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>By extension, these forms of love shouldn't be seen as a good indicator of a person's faith.</p>
<p>And most likely, Christians who claim that good works are necessary to prove that someone's faith is genuine would want to set the bar a bit higher than simply loving our friends and family, or giving a single cup of cold water to someone.</p>
<p>But then we're back to the same problem as at the start: where is the list that specifies exactly what kind of good works or how many good works must be done to prove that someone truly has faith in God?</p>
<p>This brings us to the second problem.</p>
<h2>Problem 2: Where Is The Assurance of Salvation?</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, it's common for Christians to claim that the only way for individuals to know that they are really saved is for them to look at their own lives and see if their good works show evidence that they really do believe in Jesus.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Yet that ends up throwing people onto that awful <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/treadmill-theology/">treadmill of constant performance</a> in order to have assurance that they are truly eternally saved.</p>
<p>For example, just read this poor guy's story of how much stress he was under when he tried to rely on good works to prove to himself that he was saved.<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>I can personally say that I was told to follow this approach for many years in the past, and I also discovered it only leads to constant stress. When I felt like I was doing well, then it led to pride. When I wasn't doing well, it led to despair, depression, and fear that I might end up going to hell.</p>
<p>So either way, it doesn't lead to anything good. It also certainly doesn't lead to peace or joy, which should be the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).</p>
<p>Never mind that the idea that we have to constantly keep doing good works in order to keep or prove our eternal salvation is contrary to a number of very clear Bible verses that show we are eternally saved the moment we first believe in Jesus, such as:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In him [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13-14)</span></p>
<p>I make a longer argument and bring up more verses to argue that it is possible for Christians to have assurance of their personal eternal salvation the moment we believe in Jesus in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">here</a>.</p>
<p>So however we relate good works and faith, we should never say that people have to keep doing good works in order to prove that their faith is genuine or to have assurance of their eternal salvation.</p>
<h2>Problem 3: Good Works Aren't the Same As Believing in Jesus</h2>
<p>Another problem is that elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus warns that doing good works is <em>not</em> the same as believing in him!</p>
<p>Jesus warns that at the final judgment,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">On that day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" And then will I declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." (Matthew 7:22-23)</span></p>
<p>So that's kind of confusing then, isn't it? In Matthew 25, Jesus is apparently judging people's good works in regard to their eternal salvation, but in this passage here in Matthew 7, these other apparently 'good' works don't count?</p>
<p>And we also know that elsewhere in Scripture, only one 'work' is necessary to be saved:</p>
<p>People asked Jesus, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent" (John 6:28-29).</p>
<p>After all, the thief on the cross certainly didn't have time to perform any good works after he believed in Jesus, and Jesus still told him "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).</p>
<p>Therefore, these two verses would again mean that ultimately only faith in Christ is what matters for eternal salvation.</p>
<p>But then we're back to the initial problem: what about people who never had a chance to hear about Jesus during their earthly lives?</p>
<h2>A Possible Solution: What If A Person Loves <i>Love</i>?</h2>
<p>So in the end, it appears that the Biblical evidence makes it difficult to determine exactly what actions could count as a demonstration of a person's faith, and which actions don't.</p>
<p>There also seem to be a number of conflicting verses regarding the relationship between belief in God/Jesus and good works, and how both of these are related to a person having eternal life.</p>
<p>Now you might be tempted to say that this is a contradiction in the Bible, and throw up your hands and stop reading this post.</p>
<p>Before you do, I want to reassure you that this is <em>not</em> a contradiction.</p>
<p>Once again, remember that the Bible was fully inspired by the Holy Spirit who is God and never lies (2 Peter 1:21, 2 Timothy 3:16, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18). So we can't say that some of these verses we've seen in this post are wrong and others are right. They must <em>all</em> be true.</p>
<p>So how can that be possible?</p>
<p>I think there may be a way for people who never heard the gospel to be judged by their works as a way of demonstrating whether their hearts are oriented toward God or away from God, which is effectively the same as having faith in Jesus.</p>
<p>As I've examined in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">a different post</a>, there are some interesting verses that make connections between our love for Jesus/God and our obedience to him. I'll recap some of these here:</p>
<ul>
<li>Jesus said, "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:14).</li>
<li>Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).</li>
<li>"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments" (1 John 5:3).</li>
</ul>
<p>So what does God command? There are many commandments in Scripture, but they can all be summed up as:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40, see also parallels in Mark 12:29-31, Luke 10:26-28)</span></p>
<p>So we might say that even if people don't know about Jesus/God, but they still value love as demonstrated by how they try to do what is loving, then in a way, they are still loving God, because God is Love (1 John 4:8).</p>
<p>And since ultimately, heaven will be a world of love between all saved people, holy angels, and the Triune God,<cite>9</cite> then anyone who loves Love would be welcome there, because loving Love is loving God.</p>
<p>Yet because the human heart is sinful, (Jeremiah 17:9, Psalm 51:5, Psalm 58:3, Genesis 8:21, Job 25:4), anyone who loves Love would only do so because they are responding to the Holy Spirit's work in their hearts, who has been drawing them toward God/Love (John 6:44-45, John 12:32, John 1:9). See more about this in my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">here</a>.</p>
<p>However, if individuals have been drawn to love Love by the work of the Holy Spirit, then this love will show up in their actions when they try to act in loving ways, or in their consciences when they feel guilt over how they have not acted in loving ways.</p>
<p>Conversely, if someone does apparently 'good' works without loving Love, then their works are useless to save them or earn eternal rewards:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)</span></p>
<p>Thus, I think that this connection between good works, love, and God, could be the basis for a Biblically-sound theory of inclusivism which makes salvation open to all people, in a way that doesn't downplay the need for Jesus to die for our sins and for every person to believe in Jesus in order to have eternal life.</p>
<p>Here's a short outline of my theory, which I want to go into more detail about in a future post:</p>
<ol>
<li>At the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15), everyone who did not have a chance to know about or believe in Jesus during their lifetimes will have their works and consciences judged by Jesus himself (Romans 2:14-16, Acts 17:30-31).</li>
<li>BUT, is not these people's works that save them or make them worthy of heaven, since all people are sinners who are predisposed to acting in ways that are unloving, and if we have lived long enough, we will all have personally acted in unloving ways at times.</li>
<li>Those who have loved Love during their earthly lives, will, once they meet Jesus face to face and have any remaining misconceptions about God cleared up, also love Jesus, because God is Love, and Jesus is Love incarnate.</li>
<li>Anyone who truly loves Love will also agree with Jesus's negative assessment of their unloving actions. They will agree that God's penalty for sin is just, and that they are personally worthy of eternal death (Romans 6:23).</li>
<li>BUT, those who love Jesus and agree that their sins are worthy of eternal death will love Jesus even more once they hear about how he died for their sins so they can have eternal life (John 3:16). Then, they will believe in Jesus, and so will have their names written into or not blotted out of the Book of Life (Revelation 3:5, Revelation 20:15), and will be eternally saved.</li>
<li>If a person is eternally saved, then God will reward whatever good actions were done out of love.</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, I think points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 of my theory outlined above have some decent Biblical support, based on the verses I've mentioned in this post.</p>
<p>Point 5 is also partly proven, because there are many verses which clearly say that say that a specific belief in Jesus Christ is necessary for eternal salvation (John 3:18, John 3:36, and 2 Corinthians 4:3-4).</p>
<p>The only part that is speculative is my suggestion that after death, after each person's works are judged and shown to be unworthy of heaven and deserving of eternal destruction, each person gets a final chance to hear the gospel and accept Jesus as their eternal Lord and Savior.</p>
<p>However, based on my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/">previous post</a>, I don't think such an opportunity is so far-fetched.</p>
<p>And if we trust that God really does want <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">everyone to be saved</a> (1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9), then I don't see why he wouldn't give everyone every possible opportunity to believe in Jesus, even if it comes at the final judgment.</p>
<p>Therefore, in the end, everyone who is eternally saved will have believed in Jesus, and it will be true that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12, NLT)</span></p>
<p>So if you haven't personally believed in Jesus yet, I would highly recommend it. His offer of eternal life is <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">totally free</a>, and once you believe, you're guaranteed to be eternally saved.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>I hope my post has shown that there does seem to be a way to reconcile apparently-conflicting verses regarding how people will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>It's not our works that save us, because we're all sinners. That's why Jesus had to die for us, and there is no other way to be eternally saved but to believe in him. Yet at the same time, our works will be judged in order to determine our heavenly rewards.</p>
<p>As I've argued here, another potential purpose of the final judgment could be as a way for God to determine the orientation of people's hearts who never heard the gospel, as a precursor for giving the people whose actions and consciences have demonstrated that they love Love a chance to hear the gospel and accept Jesus as their Savior.</p>
<p>In this way, all the above verses I mentioned in this post can be simultaneously true, without conflicting, and without throwing people onto a treadmill of constant performance in order to maintain or prove our faith, or think that we can earn our way into heaven by being 'good' enough.</p>
<p>In upcoming posts in this series on inclusivism, I still plan to address option number 3, and show why although it might have some potential, I think it is inferior to this second possibility I've put forward in this post.</p>
<p>I also plan to give a more detailed version of my argument that I outlined in this post, and explain why evangelism and becoming a Christian in this life is still important. Stay tuned!</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Domenico Agasso Jr., <a href="https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider/en/2018/04/16/news/a-child-cries-for-the-death-of-his-father-the-pope-he-was-a-good-man-he-is-with-god-1.34005494">"A child cries for the death of his father. The Pope, 'he was a good man, he is with God'"</a>, <em>La Stampa, Vatican Insider</em>, April 16, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Ian M. Gatti, <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/third-of-evangelical-pastors-say-people-can-get-heaven-just-by-being-good.html">"Third of senior pastors believe 'good people' can earn their way to heaven: survey"</a>, <em>The Christian Post</em>, Sept. 3, 2022. The survey was done by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, and a .pdf of the results be found <a href="https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/CRC_AWVIRelease_07_Digital.pdf">here</a></li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Valencia Higuera, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/hematidrosis">"Hematidrosis: Is Sweating Blood Real?"</a>, Healthline.com, March 14, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>The Millennial Kingdom: A Basic Text in Premillennial Theology</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1959), 271, 285-288.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> "The works of mercy and compassion of these Gentiles toward Christ will demonstrate that they are believers. Their deeds wll evidence the righteous character of their regenerated nature (v 27; 1 John 3:10)". Hal M. Haller Jr., "Matthew", in <em>The Grace New Testament Commentary</em> Vol. 1, ed. Robert N. Wilkin (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010), 121. However, an alternative reading is that the reason everyone who is eternally saved at the Matthew 25 judgment also did good works is because they are all believers in Jesus who lived during the Tribulation, who did good works to care for the persecuted Jews during this time. It is argued that the reason there are only two groups of people at this judgment (believers who did good works, and non-believers who didn't do good works) is because God allowed all believers who didn't do good works to be killed by one of the judgments during the Tribulation (John Clayes, <a href="https://faithalone.org/journal-articles/matthew-2531-46-salvation-by-works/">"Matthew 25:31-46: Salvation by Works?"</a>, <em>Grace Evangelical Society</em>, September 1, 2017.)</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjYud2plbw==">"Dissertation II: The Nature of True Virtue"</a>, in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em> Vol. 8, Ethical Writings, edited by Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University, 2008), 555-556, 579, 583-584. He says this is so because if we only love our friends/family but not others, it will actually lead us to being opposed to others when there is a conflict between others' good and our family/friends' good (584). E.g. we can imagine how in a desperate situation, someone might murder another person in order to provide food for their own child.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> "In this book I have tried to show that God wants us to know that we are secure with Him, just as we want our beloved to know they are secure with us. That assurance is not found by remembering a prayer that you prayed, however, but by continuing in the posture of repentance and faith that you began at your conversion. Jesus said that those who repent and believe will be saved. Repentance and faith are postures you begin in moment but maintain for a lifetime. Those who persist in that posture can be assured that they are saved, and their lives will bear spiritual fruits that further prove their regeneration." J. D. Greear, <em>Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How To Know For Sure You Are Saved</em> (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2013), 109. Elsewhere, Greear says "Perhaps you have only undergone some religious ritual like 'asking Jesus into your heart,' without ever really repenting and believing. The lack of change in your life proves you have not experienced him, and these doubts are God's way of waking you up to bring you to a living faith" (Greear, 110-111). Obviously, I think Greear is confused and is saying two different things at the same time, and I wouldn't recommend his book. For a more 'scholarly' book that argues that good works are an essential component of true faith, see Thomas Schreiner, <em>Faith Alone: The Doctrine of Justification</em>, The Five Solas Series, ed. Matthew Barrett (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 191-206, but again, I can't recommend it.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Paul Carpenter, <a href="https://faithalone.org/grace-in-focus-articles/assurance-by-works-my-road-to-ruin/">"Assurance by Works: My Road to Ruin"</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog, January 1, 2016.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjQ6MTUud2plbw==">"Heaven Is A World of Love"</a>, <em>The Works of Jonathan Edwards</em> Vol. 8, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 366-397.</li>
</ul>Can People Choose To Believe In Jesus After Death?2022-11-09T00:00:00+00:002022-11-09T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-11-09:/article/can-people-believe-in-jesus-after-death/<p>In my past several posts, I have been building a case for why I believe that some sort of theory of Christian inclusivism is necessary if Christians want to believe everything the Bible says about which individuals will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>As a reminder, Christian inclusivism is the idea that …</p><p>In my past several posts, I have been building a case for why I believe that some sort of theory of Christian inclusivism is necessary if Christians want to believe everything the Bible says about which individuals will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>As a reminder, Christian inclusivism is the idea that although Christianity is the only true religion/faith, people who were not Christians and who never heard the gospel can still be eternally saved, because God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly wants to save all people</a>.</p>
<p>However, despite this, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">not everyone will be saved</a>, and so universalism isn't a biblical option. Inclusivism also denies that all religions lead to the same God or the same heaven, and thus, it is not the same as <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/">religious pluralism</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that a theologically sound theory of inclusivism could be an option for Christians who might otherwise be tempted to endorse universalism. It could also resolve the negative consequences for God's character that can be implied by exclusivism.</p>
<p>A good theory of inclusivism could also reduce the anxiety that Christians may feel regarding the eternal destiny of our neighbors, friends, and family members who don't currently believe in Jesus, or who died without accepting Jesus, despite our best efforts to witness to them.</p>
<h2>Three Possibilities For Christian Inclusivism</h2>
<p>There may be historical precedent for Christian inclusivism, as demonstrated by the behavior of the earliest Christians.</p>
<p>It is suggested that Christians in the early church believed that God was at work in all people, and so these Christians could live with "a subtle combination of relaxation and urgency in relation to non-Christians. On the one hand, they do not seem obsessed about the fate of the majority of pagans among whom they lived, yet on the other hand they still engaged in vigorous mission activity among them."<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>So although I'm convinced that some form of Christian inclusivism seems to be biblically necessary, and it might even have historical precedent, the challenge is to explain how it works.</p>
<p>That is, Christian inclusivists need to explain on what basis God will judge people who never heard the gospel (or who died before they had the ability to understand and personally respond to the gospel) that could lead to at least <em>some</em> of those people being eternally saved.</p>
<p>There are several possibilities I have heard Christians propose, including:</p>
<ol>
<li>Each person has an encounter with God/Jesus after death, giving individuals who have not previously had a chance to accept or reject the gospel the opportunity to make their final decision regarding God's offer of salvation then.</li>
<li>God judges people based on what their earthly actions revealed about their hearts being oriented either toward God or away from God.</li>
<li>God judges people based on how they responded to the truths about God that they did have access to during their lives through nature, or maybe, through otherwise false religions.</li>
</ol>
<p>A disclaimer: I haven't read every book or article on Christian inclusivism that exists. However, it seems to me that most proposals for Christian inclusivism would fall into one of these categories, or might make use of a combination of these basic but distinct claims.</p>
<p>In the rest of this post, I will explore the first possibility in more detail, and discuss some potential benefits it may have, and also some difficulties for it.</p>
<p>Future posts will address the second and third possibilities.</p>
<h2>Possibility 1: Some People Can Make Their Final Choice After Death</h2>
<p>Probably the easiest answer for inclusivism would be to say that no matter who someone was or when they lived, after every person dies, he or she meets Jesus/God face to face.</p>
<p>There, they will have to make a final choice for or against Jesus/God if they have not believed in Jesus/God during their lifetime.</p>
<p>Gregory Boyd thinks that something like this must be a possibility because of the nature of love. He writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But if love indeed <em>requires</em> choice, and if heaven is defined as participating in God's love, then it follows by logical necessity that people who never made a choice for love <em>cannot</em> participate in heaven, regardless of why it is that they did not or could not make that choice. Nor can such individuals participate in hell, for the state of rejecting love also must be chosen.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>Therefore, he says that although it's speculative,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">I argue that those who hold to the free-will defense should logically consider the possibility that those who were unable responsibly and decisively to choose for or against God's Kingdom <em>before</em> death must somehow be given an opportunity to do so <em>after</em> death.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>Boyd uses his proposal to lead into his argument for why he believes there is a need for a place like purgatory, where people can mature and grow until they can make such a choice.</p>
<p>However, I disagree with and refute Boyd's argument regarding purgatory on the basis of Boyd's own logic of sanctification <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/protestant-purgatory/">in my post here</a>.</p>
<p>Yet I can agree with Boyd that love requires a free choice. That is why I reject both <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">double predestination</a> and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">universalism</a>. In both theories, no one has any real free will to say yes or no to God's love, because God has pre-chosen what each person's response will be.</p>
<p>And I do somewhat agree with Thomas Talbott when he suggests that individuals can't properly make a choice for or against God until they have a correct knowledge of God:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In this life, of course, we rarely, if ever, choose in a context of full clarity. We all emerge and start making choices in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and illusion, where God remains at least partly hidden from us. But that merely makes matters worse.... For insofar as God remains hidden from us and we do not fully understand the true nature of God or the consequences of separating ourselves from him, we are in no position to reject the true God at all. We may reject a caricature of God, as frequently happens in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and misperception; but we are in no position to reject the true God until our ignorance has been removed and our misjudgments have been corrected.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>Although I don't believe that having our misperceptions of God corrected will guarantee that everyone will choose to love God in the end. After all, Satan and the fallen angels were formerly in the full presence of God in heaven, yet somehow, they still rejected God. (I want to write about how this rejection may be possible in a future post).</p>
<p>But if everyone must make a personal choice either to love God or not, in order to avoid the negative implications of both universalism and double predestination, then I agree that logically, if that choice can't be made in this life, it has to be made after death.</p>
<p>However, there are some potential difficulties with this theory about a post-mortem opportunity for personal choices for or against God.</p>
<h2>Problem 1: Would Deceased Children Also Need A Choice?</h2>
<p>One of the first questions that might come to mind is whether this post-mortem opportunity also applies to people who died as infants or children.</p>
<p>Let's imagine that a child of Christian parents dies before being able to make a personal choice to believe in Jesus as his or her Savior.</p>
<p>A common pastoral response to this situation is to reassure the parents that their child is now with God in heaven. The pastor might even quote 2 Samuel 12:23 as support for this idea. In this way, the Christian parents can mourn their loss while looking forward to seeing their child again someday.</p>
<p>Randy Alcorn, the author of the popular Christian book titled <em>Heaven</em>, hopes for such a possibility.</p>
<p>Alcorn speculates that perhaps when children are resurrected, they will be at the same age as they were when they died (or maybe just a little older, for those who died before birth). Then, their resurrected, glorified bodies will still 'grow up' as God intended, and so children who die prematurely would not miss out on childhood or the necessary process of maturing.</p>
<p>Its not clear whether Alcorn pictures these resurrected children growing up during the earthly Millennial kingdom that Jesus will establish after the Tribulation, or only later in the New Heaven and New Earth.</p>
<p>But in either case, if these children's parents are saved, then Alcorn suggests the resurrected parents could be a major part of raising their own resurrected children as they grow up.<cite>5</cite> Alcorn proposes that the above could also apply to children who died through miscarriages or abortions.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Alcorn's theory is attractive, because then children who die prematurely ultimately do not lose out on anything. In fact, they may be more blessed to get to grow up in a world free of sin.</p>
<p>Parents who are grieving can then have hope that they will be reunited with their children in heaven and won't miss out on the joys of being a parent. People who never got the opportunity to become parents in this life might also get a chance to help raise some of these children, too.</p>
<p>This all sounds nice, and I agree it fits well with God's loving character, and how God likes to redeem and restore what is lost (e.g. Joel 2:25). It also fits with how Jesus demonstrated a special love for parents with deceased children by raising these children from the dead (e.g. Luke 7:11-17, Luke 8:49-56).</p>
<p>However there are both ethical issues and theological issues to consider before we affirm this possibility.</p>
<h2>Salvation of Children and Infants: Ethical Issues To Consider</h2>
<p>Sometimes Christians make use of the idea that all children who die instantly go to heaven as a way to defend God's goodness despite how children experience suffering and death in this fallen world.</p>
<p>For example, John Piper (a Calvinist) presumes that all children who suffer horribly and/or die prematurely are elect (i.e., they are predestined to heaven apart from their personal beliefs or actions). In heaven, he asserts these children will be repaid "ten-thousand fold" for their suffering.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Piper justifies this claim by appealing to 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, Romans 8:18, and Matthew 5:11-12, which all talk about how suffering earns eternal rewards.<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>I don't find Piper's interpretation completely convincing, though, and that's not only because I disagree with him on predestination. I also question his supporting Bible verses, because in their contexts, these verses refer to rewards that are given to Christians in exchange for suffering persecution.</p>
<p>Although it is true that, for everyone who ends up being eternally saved, God will wipe away all our tears and we will never experience any suffering ever again (Revelation 21:4).</p>
<p>Sometimes, the idea that all children who die go instantly to heaven is used to justify the instances in the Bible when children are killed due to God bringing divine judgment on their societies.</p>
<p>We might think of the children who were alive during Noah's flood, or who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah when these cities were destroyed. It seems like a loving thing to say that all these children are now with God.</p>
<p>In his book <em>Is God a Moral Monster?</em>, Paul Copan highlights God's command to the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites. This included instructions to kill Canaanite children, such as when God said to slaughter everything that lives in Jericho (Joshua 6:17-21). One way to deal with this apparent problem for God's goodness is to argue that God has the right to determine how long anyone lives, and that any children who were killed immediately went to be with God in heaven.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>However, there are potentially negative ethical consequences that could arise from the idea that all children instantly go to heaven when they die. I touched on this idea slightly in my previous post on exclusivism <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">here</a>. However, it's worth considering again now in more detail.</p>
<p>Alcorn fears that this view that all children who die automatically go to heaven could be used to justify abortion. He wonders if God intentionally didn't tell us in the Bible what happens to babies or children who die, because in our twisted logic, we would end up thinking we are doing these children a favor by killing them.<cite>10</cite> Indeed, some emotionally troubled people have thought this way in the past, with tragic consequences.<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>Alcorn also worries that such a belief might reduce the concern that Christians should feel for children who are dying from malnutrition in non-Christian cultures around the world. The idea might seem to imply that if we try to save these children's lives, they might grow up to reject God and end up in hell, and so it's better for them to die young because then they will go to heaven.<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>But beyond the moral issues involved, there are also some difficult theological issues with the claim that all children who die go to heaven.</p>
<h2>Salvation of Children and Infants: Theological Issues To Consider</h2>
<p>Many theories that claim all children who die prematurely automatically go to be with Jesus rely on the concept of an 'age of accountability'. Supposedly, after children reach this age, they become personally responsible to believe in Jesus for salvation.</p>
<p>However, there is disagreement over what this age is. Some think it could vary depending on the child, as some children might hear the gospel before others and be able to make a choice at a younger age, while others remain unaccountable for longer.<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>By extension, some people with mental disabilities might never reach an age when they could be held properly 'accountable' by God for their personal beliefs.</p>
<p>However, as much as Alcorn wants to say that all deceased children go to heaven, he admits that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Scripture makes no reference to an age of accountability, nor does it even seem to imply one. (It is an assumption based on the premise that children are born saved and the attempt to then explain how and when they could become lost.)<cite>14</cite></span></p>
<p>Alternatively, I've heard some speculation that the idea the age of accountability could be as high as twenty years old!</p>
<p>This claim is made on the basis of Numbers 14:29, when the Israelites grumbled against God and feared to enter the land God wanted to give them. As a punishment, only Israelites who were twenty years and younger (plus Joshua and Caleb) would be left alive to enter the promised land after forty years of wandering in the wilderness.</p>
<p>But effectively, Alcorn is right that we can't know for sure what the age of accountability is, or if there is one. The twenty year limit in Numbers 14:29 might have been just for that particular biblical event. It was also related to entering the promised land, which isn't the same as eternal salvation.</p>
<p>So, if pastors want to reassure Christian parents that their children are in heaven, it seems these pastors need to have some sort of insight into the child's personal age of accountability. But since that insight is impossible, pastors shouldn't honestly be able to make such a promise to the child's grieving parents.</p>
<p>However, there is an additional and even more significant theological issue with the idea that all deceased children automatically go to heaven.</p>
<p>It involves the inconsistent claim that some people receive eternal life <em>without</em> ever having personal faith in Jesus, while other people who reach a certain age or level of ability <em>do</em> need to make such a choice to have personal faith in Jesus.</p>
<p>Theologically, the Bible says that despite being made in the image of God, ever since Adam and Eve sinned, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-made-in-image-of-God/">all humans are born sinners</a> (Psalm 51:5, Psalm 58:3, Genesis 8:21, Job 25:4). That is except for Jesus, who is a special case since he is also <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-jesus-must-be-fully-divine/">fully divine</a>.</p>
<p>We see in Genesis 2:16-17, Romans 5:12-14, Romans 6:23, and James 1:15 that death is <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">God's righteous punishment</a> for sin. Thus, if infants and children die, they must be sinners, or it would be unjust for God to let them experience death.</p>
<p>And if even infants and children are sinners, then, Alcorn is correct when he says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If children are saved, it cannot be because of innocence, because while they are cute and adorable and a pleasure, they are not innocent. For any person to be saved, it must be through the work of Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). Unless someone is born again he can’t enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3). How can a child be born again without consciously choosing Christ?<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>Despite this, Alcorn says he still hopes that God's special love for children means that all children who die will be eternally saved, even if he doesn't understand how it might work.</p>
<p>In the rest of his article, Alcorn wrestles with some additional verses and discusses some other possible problems with this idea which you may want to read. Yet in the end, he admits that he can't prove his idea with Scripture.<cite>16</cite></p>
<p>So if we want a sound, theologically and biblically persuasive answer to this question, we need to be more rigorous.</p>
<p>One attempt to theologically support the theory that all children and infants who die before some 'age of accountability' (despite the problems with that idea), is made by F. Leroy Forlines.<cite>17</cite> Here's my summary of his argument:</p>
<ol>
<li>There is a difference between 'personal guilt' which we gain when we personally sin, and 'racial guilt' that we all inherit from Adam and Eve, although we didn't sin like they did (Romans 5:12-14).</li>
<li>Children before the age of accountability only have 'racial guilt', although children's inherited sinfulness still manifests in their behavior (temper tantrums, selfishness, etc.).</li>
<li>Children are not yet fully-developed persons capable of assuming all rights, privileges, and responsibilities of being a person. Therefore, it is not a negation of their free will for God to save them by atoning for their 'racial guilt' before they can personally consent to it.</li>
<li>Jesus atoned for humanity's 'racial guilt' by identifying with humanity and Adam's sin, which meant that Jesus could pay the penalty for it, and now, God transfers Jesus's righteousness to all people to cover their 'racial guilt'.</li>
<li>Thus, children who die before they reach their age of accountability have already had their 'racial guilt' paid for on the basis of Jesus' death on the cross. Since they never personally sinned, they have no 'personal guilt', and thus, there is no reason for God to not accept these children into heaven.</li>
<li>Once a child reaches the age of accountability in this life, then they are responsible for their personal sins, and must place faith in Jesus as their personal savior to be eternally saved.</li>
</ol>
<p>Now I'm not fully convinced by Forlines' explanation, but it's the best one I've come across if someone does want to argue that all children and infants who die always go to heaven.</p>
<h2>My Case For The Salvation of Children and Infants</h2>
<p>Personally, though, I think it's easier and simpler to agree with Gregory Boyd that all individuals must make their own free choices to respond to God's love either positively or negatively, including people who die as infants and children.</p>
<p>That avoids any of the questionable interpretations and speculations that Christians like Forlines and Alcorn make to justify their position. It also means that children and infants are not a special case who get treated differently from all other sinful humans.</p>
<p>Yet I admit that this position is perhaps less comforting to the parents of these deceased children.</p>
<p>After all, if the deceased child has free will in order to make the child's love of Jesus/God real and valuable, then there must be the possibility that the child could choose to freely reject God's love and offer of salvation.</p>
<p>And if this is the case, there would be no way for a pastor to know what the child personally chose the moment the child came face to face with Jesus, in order to reassure the child's parents.</p>
<p>So if each deceased child will have to make their own choice to love God or not, then what do we say regarding the pastoral desire to comfort grieving parents?</p>
<p>First, I think we should be honest with them. Now, I'm not a pastor (and you might think that's a good thing), but if I were, I would say something like:</p>
<p>"I'm so sorry you lost your child. Because I believe that our love for God is only valuable to God if we freely choose to give it, I believe that your child will have the opportunity to make his or her own choice to respond to God's love and accept <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">his free offer of eternal life</a>, or reject God and face <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">eternal destruction</a>. So if you have believed in Jesus, there is a possibility that you will see your child again, but it isn't guaranteed."</p>
<p>Despite this, I think we can still reassure Christian parents that there is a high possibility that their deceased child will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>That is because I suspect that the number of deceased children and infants who would freely choose to reject God's love is very, very small.</p>
<p>Here is my argument:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Because humans are made in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-made-in-image-of-God/">the image of God</a>, it means we are made for the purpose of participating in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">loving relationships</a> with <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">God and with others</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Yet we all develop mistrust, selfishness, cynicism, and skepticism about God's love due to our negative experiences with other sinful people, which become ingrained in our physical brains, and impact how we think and behave. (If you want more details about this idea, check out my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/protestant-purgatory/">here</a>.)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Adam and Eve first developed these traits when they chose to doubt God's love and goodness when they believed the serpent's lie and ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden (Genesis 3). After this, their new traits were passed down to all the rest of us, and can lead us to struggle with trusting God and loving God and others.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>However, a deceased child or infant will have had much less experience of this fallen world, and thus, less time for these traits to develop and become ingrained in their personalities. Therefore, I doubt that the souls of deceased children or infants would have much or even <em>any</em> motivation to reject God's perfect love for them, especially since they would surely feel this love and want to accept it when they meet Jesus face-to-face.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Yet there still has to be the theoretical possibility that even the soul of a deceased infant could choose to reject God, if the infant truly has free will, which is necessary or else their love for God would become meaningless.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>That's not something we like to think about, but I think it is a compelling reason to believe that an after-death encounter with Jesus is a possibility for deceased children and infants, if we don't want to say (for the various reasons given earlier) that children and infants who die automatically go to heaven.</p>
<p>And if deceased children and infants need to have the opportunity to accept or reject God in the afterlife, then this would also be true for people who were not mentally capable of making that choice in this life.</p>
<p>By extension, I think it's reasonable to propose that <em>everyone</em> who didn't get the chance to make that choice in this life will get it after death.</p>
<p>But there are some potential problems with this theory, which I'll explain in the next two sections.</p>
<h2>Problem 2: Where is the Biblical Evidence?</h2>
<p>A major problem for this theory that at least some people will get to make their final choice about God's offer of salvation after death is that there's no blatantly clear evidence for it in the Bible.</p>
<p>Yes, there are verses that talk about the final judgment and of judgment for heavenly rewards which both take place after this life is over. But there is no verse that directly says that people can choose to believe in God/Jesus after they die.</p>
<p>Yet there are a few small portions of the Bible that might still be relevant.</p>
<h3>The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man</h3>
<p>The parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) is often cited as evidence that after death, there is no chance for anyone to change their mind and repent of their sins. Because if the rich man was in fiery torment and could have repented to get out of it and go to be with Abraham in paradise instead, then why didn't he do so?</p>
<p>However, there is debate over how literally we should take the details of Jesus' parables.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilationist</a>, Edward Fudge argues that this parable was Jesus' modification of a common rabbinical tale, and so it shouldn't be read as if it provides literal details about the afterlife.</p>
<p>Instead, Fudge argues that Jesus told this story in order to prove a point to the Pharisees about their current rejection of God's word, and to prophesy about their upcoming rejection of Jesus's claim to be the Messiah after Jesus would die and come back to life.<cite>18</cite></p>
<p>Like Fudge, I would prefer to say that the main point of the parable is stated in Luke 16:31, which is that if people have an attitude that is hostile to or dismissive of God's word in this life, then even if they saw Jesus's death and resurrection first-hand, it wouldn't convince them to change their minds.</p>
<p>So at worst, this parable could be evidence that at the moment of death, the orientation of people's hearts becomes set and unchangeable, so that those who rejected God during their earthly lives will not change their minds even if they experience unpleasant consequences in the afterlife.</p>
<p>However, this parable is not much use when it comes to answering the question of what happens to people who never had a chance to learn about God in their lives, because both the rich man and his family <em>did</em> have that opportunity.</p>
<p>So as far as a theory of Christian inclusivism goes, this parable doesn't really relate to the question.</p>
<h3>Jesus Preaching to Spirits in Prison</h3>
<p>On the other hand, there are two rather obscure and difficult verses that may hint at the possibility of believing the gospel after death:</p>
<ul>
<li>"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water" (1 Peter 3:18-20).</li>
<li>"For the gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as people, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God" (1 Peter 4:6, NASB).</li>
</ul>
<p>Taken together, if these are referring to the same event, it could imply that after Jesus died and before he was resurrected, Jesus may have gone to preach to the spirits of dead people who were not yet in heaven proper (John 3:13).</p>
<p>And I can't help but wonder: is there any reason for Jesus to preach to the spirits of dead people who Jesus knows can't or won't ever change their minds?</p>
<p>So this might be the <em>tiniest</em> clue that maybe, <em>maybe</em>, people can hear the gospel and change their minds after death.</p>
<p>However, I've heard some interpreters claim that a better approach to these verses is to say that Jesus simply proclaimed his victory to the demonic spirits that have been in supernatural jail since the time of Noah. Presumably, these demonic spirits would be the ones referred to as 'sons of God' who may have married human women and produced the Nephilim/giants (Genesis 6:1-4, Jude 6, 2 Peter 2:4).<cite>19</cite></p>
<p>And it seems that other demons do fear being condemned to "the abyss" ahead of their time (Luke 8:31), which could correspond with this same concept of supernatural prison for demonic spirits in 1 Peter 3:18-20.</p>
<p>In this interpretation, after Jesus's death, he might have gone to tell these disobedient spirits about his victory over sin, death, and the devil, and rubbed it in their faces. Then he left them there to continue rotting away in dread of the final judgment, where they will be condemned to the lake of fire that God prepared for them (Matthew 25:41, Revelation 20:10, James 2:19).</p>
<p>I'd say, though, that this interpretation doesn't really seem like the sort of thing that the Jesus I know would do. Never mind that it also seems rather pointless, since the demons already know who Jesus is (Luke 4:41, Acts 16:16-17). The demons also know that they have lost and that divine judgment will come to them, because they lived in fear of this even before Jesus died on the cross (Luke 8:28-31).</p>
<p>But the idea of Jesus going to preach the good news of his victory over sin and death, and offering the spirits of deceased <em>people</em> a final chance to believe and go to paradise with him (Luke 23:43) would be much more in line with Jesus's character and God's grace and mercy.</p>
<p>However, I don't feel comfortable claiming that this is definitely what these verses mean, because there are many different interpretations that commentators give to these verses.</p>
<p>In the end, these verses might have made more sense to the early church and the first recipients of this letter. Peter could have been referring to something he taught these Christians in person, or perhaps he was making reference to a common cultural or religious belief that has since been lost.</p>
<p>At best, I'll say that these are the only Bible verses I can think of that someone could use to claim that it is possible for people to hear the gospel and believe in Jesus after death. But these verses might not mean this, and there isn't enough evidence elsewhere in Scripture to back up this interpretation.</p>
<h2>Problem 3: It Could Discourage People From Accepting The Gospel Now</h2>
<p>Another reason why Christians might not want to promote the idea that it is possible for people to believe in Jesus after death is because it could give unbelievers the impression that they can put off <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">accepting Jesus's free offer of eternal life</a> until later.</p>
<p>However, there are some important Biblical warnings to consider on this topic.</p>
<p>First, there are no guarantees about how long we have before we will die:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Look here, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13-15, NLT)</span></p>
<p>Jesus also told a parable that says it's foolish to presume how long we will live, and so we shouldn't become so wrapped up in earthly concerns that we neglect God (Luke 12:16-21).</p>
<p>Therefore, if we <em>do</em> hear the gospel in this life, it's very important to seriously consider it and respond as soon as possible:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7)</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">That is why the Holy Spirit says, "Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts
as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness." (Hebrews 3:7-8, NLT)</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)</span></p>
<p>We can also recall the earlier discussion about Jesus's parable about the rich man, who seems to have had clear knowledge about God in his life and rejected it until it was too late, leading to an unpleasant and apparently unchangeable outcome in the afterlife (Luke 16:19-31).</p>
<p>Therefore, while I have made an argument that everyone will get a chance to personally believe in Jesus either in this life or the next, it doesn't diminish the importance of believing the gospel if we hear it in this life.</p>
<p>Thus, a good theory of inclusivism should never say that evangelism is unnecessary. It also shouldn't let people think they are safe when they intentionally put off the decision to believe in Jesus after they do hear the gospel.</p>
<p>Yet as I discussed in my previous post on <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">exclusivism</a>, I don't think that God writes people off after they hear the gospel the very first time and don't respond to it right then and there.</p>
<p>Instead, I believe the Holy Spirit is continually at work in every person's heart, trying to draw us closer to God throughout our entire lives. Sometimes it takes a long time and repeated attempts of sharing the gospel with someone to break through misconceptions about God, or undo the negative impressions that still-sinful Christians may have made on these people.</p>
<p>This final decision could only be made after each individual has a chance for all their misunderstandings about God to be clarified, which if it doesn't occur in this life, would need to take place in a face-to-face encounter with Jesus/God after death.</p>
<p>Thus, in the end, however it works out, I believe it will be only those people who intentionally and knowingly <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">opt-out of salvation</a> who will face the second death.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>In this post, I believe I have shown that there is a case to be made for the possibility that at least <em>some</em> people will get an opportunity to believe in Jesus and accept his offer of salvation after death.</p>
<p>In particular, I believe this must be true for people who die as infants or children, or who were mentally incapacitated, and so didn't get a chance to believe in this life.</p>
<p>And if that possibility exists, then I don't see why God couldn't also give this opportunity to people who never had a chance to hear the gospel during their lives, since God truly wants everyone to be saved.</p>
<p>And because God wants everyone to be saved, I also think that an after-death encounter with Jesus could make sense as one final chance to correct misunderstandings and misperceptions of God that kept people from believing the gospel during their earthly lives.</p>
<p>However, I admit there is no clear evidence in Scripture to support the idea that people do meet Jesus after death and get one last chance to believe in him.</p>
<p>Therefore, I don't want to have to rely only on this possibility of after-death repentance to support an entire theory of Christian inclusivism.</p>
<p>Yet because I'm convinced that love requires free will, I still think that to avoid the pitfalls of universalism or exclusivism, we must affirm what C.S. Lewis wrote:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">All that are in hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.<cite>20</cite></span></p>
<p>Logically, such a choice <em>must</em> be made either before death, or after death.</p>
<p>Yet perhaps there are ways that people can make this choice in this life even without directly hearing the gospel. This would be the case in the other two possibilities for Christian inclusivism that I listed at the start of this post.</p>
<p>I will explore both of these other possibilities in future posts, before combining all three of these possibilities in my own theory of Christian inclusivism.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Clark Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 36-37, referring to George Lindbeck, <em>The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age</em> (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 58.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), 381.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Boyd, <em>Satan and the Problem of Evil</em>, 381.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Response by Thomas B. Talbott" in <em>Perspectives on Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 144.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 298.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em>, 356.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds. <em>Suffering and the Sovereignty of God</em> (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 231-232.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Piper and Taylor, <em>Suffering and the Sovereignty of God</em>, 93-95.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Paul Copan, <em>Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 189. Copan then has to make it clear that this is not an excuse for killing children in order to make sure they make it to heaven, as such actions would go against God's command not to murder, and is therefore a sin (Copan, 194).</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em>, 356. See also Randy Alcorn, <a href="http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/5/do-infants-go-heaven-when-they-die/">"Do Infants Go to Heaven When They Die?"</a>, Eternal Perspective Ministries, January 5, 2010, and Randy Alcorn, <a href="http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Mar/26/if-unborn-baby-better-gods-presence-then-why-do-ch/">"If an Unborn Baby Is Better off in God's Presence, Why Do Christians Consider Abortion a Crime Against the Unborn?"</a>, Eternal Perspective Ministries, March 26, 2010.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Cynthia Mcfadden, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130284">"Yates: I'm Saving My Kids From Hell"</a>, <em>ABC News</em>, June 14, 2002. See a fuller background on Andrea Yates and her issues that led to this sad incident in Suzanne O'Malley, <a href="http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/andrea-yates-a-cry-in-the-dark">"A Cry in the Dark,"</a> <em>O</em>, The Oprah Magazine, February, 2002.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <a href="http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/5/do-infants-go-heaven-when-they-die/">"Do Infants Go to Heaven When They Die?"</a>, Eternal Perspective Ministries, January 5, 2010.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> F. Leroy Forlines, <em>Classical Arminianism: A Theology of Salvation</em>, J. Matthew Pinson ed. (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publishers, 2011), 240-241.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Alcorn, <a href="http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/5/do-infants-go-heaven-when-they-die/">"Do Infants Go to Heaven When They Die?"</a>.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Alcorn, <a href="http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/5/do-infants-go-heaven-when-they-die/">"Do Infants Go to Heaven When They Die?"</a>.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Alcorn, <a href="http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/5/do-infants-go-heaven-when-they-die/">"Do Infants Go to Heaven When They Die?"</a>.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> F. Leroy Forlines, <em>Classical Arminianism: A Theology of Salvation</em>, J. Matthew Pinson ed. (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publishers, 2011), 236-246. For the use of Romans 5:14, see Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 137.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes</em>, Third Edition, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 149-152.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle, <em>Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up</em> (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2011), 161.</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> C.S. Lewis, "The Great Divorce," in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 506.</li>
</ul>But Don't All Religions Lead to Heaven?2022-08-29T00:00:00+00:002022-08-29T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-08-29:/article/dont-all-religions-lead-to-heaven/<p>In my previous two posts, I've focused on answering the question of who will ultimately experience eternal life in the New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21:1).</p>
<p>Already, two options have been eliminated:</p>
<ol>
<li>That <em>only</em> those few people who specifically heard and believed in Jesus during their earthly lives …</li></ol><p>In my previous two posts, I've focused on answering the question of who will ultimately experience eternal life in the New Heaven and New Earth (Revelation 21:1).</p>
<p>Already, two options have been eliminated:</p>
<ol>
<li>That <em>only</em> those few people who specifically heard and believed in Jesus during their earthly lives will be saved (i.e., <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">exclusivism</a>).</li>
<li>That <em>everyone</em> will be saved, eventually (i.e., <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">universalism</a>).</li>
</ol>
<p>So if I don't want to affirm either of the above points, then it seems I must accept the idea that <em>at least some</em> people who never heard the gospel during their earthly lives will end up having eternal life.</p>
<p>The only question then is how does this happen.</p>
<h2>Is Religious Pluralism A Good Answer?</h2>
<p>John, who wrote the book of Revelation, was given a vision of heaven by God:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" <span class="blockquote-verse">(Revelation 7:9-10. See also Revelation 5:9-10)</span></span></p>
<p>If we take the words "all" and "every" in the above verse literally (and I see no reason not to), then this group of people who John sees standing in heaven before God, praising God for saving them, must include <em>at least one person</em> from each tribe and nation that has ever existed. </p>
<p>This must include people from tribes and nations that disappeared before Jesus was born, and before Christian or Jewish missionaries were able to cross the oceans to other continents to tell the people there about God.</p>
<p>It must also include people who are living today who are isolated from the rest of the world, such as the people on North Sentinel Island.</p>
<p>Therefore, one answer to the question of how some people from every tribe and nation will be saved might be religious pluralism.</p>
<p>Advocates for religious pluralism say that all religions teach the same truths and can lead people to the same God and/or the same heaven. So there can be pluralists in many different religions. Pluralists might also argue that all religions teach the same core values, and so the differences between them don't really matter.</p>
<p>Today in Western cultures, religious pluralism is common. Even way back in 2008, a study by the Pew Research Center discovered that 7 out of 10 religious Americans believe that many religions can lead to eternal life. And this includes Christians:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">A majority of all American Christians (52%) think that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>Religious pluralism is even being endorsed by some influential Christian leaders. Thus, it's worth considering whether religious pluralism is true, and if it's not, then Christians should know how to refute it.</p>
<p>It also means that if religious pluralism isn't a Biblically persuasive answer to my question, then we'll need another solution, such as inclusivism. But I'll talk more about that later, after we look at religious pluralism.</p>
<h2>The Appeal of Religious Pluralism</h2>
<p>On the surface, religious pluralists can appear to be tolerant and open-minded. In contrast, those who reject religious pluralism might be seen as narrow-minded or judgmental.</p>
<p>For example, some people might say:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Belief in Jesus Christ as the only Savior of sinners is not fair or equal treatment. It is prejudicial and promotes intolerance to believe in a God like that. It is not politically correct.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In this climate any diversity of choice is tolerable except one: the mentality that some choices are right and others wrong, some beliefs true and others false. That cannot be tolerated.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, because our Western culture claims to strongly value tolerance, religious pluralism could seem like an attractive position to endorse.</p>
<p>Religious pluralism could be especially appealing in contrast to the negative portrayals of God's character that can be found in exclusivism, especially those versions of exclusivism that rely on <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-predestination/">double predestination</a>.</p>
<p>And no wonder! I don't see how anyone who believes in a perfectly good and loving God could accept the idea that God has eternally chosen to condemn most of humanity to eternal suffering in hell, without considering any individual's free choice in the matter.</p>
<p>It's even worse when these proponents of double predestination argue that God acts this way because God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">needs most people to suffer eternally in hell</a> in order to fully reveal God's glory to the few lucky people that God chooses to save.</p>
<p>So I totally agree with the late Baptist theologian Clark Pinnock, who said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">This negative control belief is what drives certain Christians straight into theological pluralism. They are led to extremes in their revising of Christian doctrine chiefly because they cannot accept God, as revealed by Jesus, as one who would consign most people to hell and deny them access to salvation. Theological liberalism reacts sharply and correctly to such a cruel and incoherent reading of the gospel that has all too often marred the orthodox tradition and assassinated God's character. Speaking boldly, pluralists are right on this point; insofar as certain of its representatives have presented God as a cruel and arbitrary deity, orthodox theology badly needs revision and correction.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>Religious pluralism might also appear to be supported by instances of interfaith cooperation and dialogue.</p>
<p>For example, the Abrahamic Family House that's being built in the United Arab Emirates will open in late 2022.<cite>5</cite> It includes a church, a mosque, and a synagogue, as well as an educational center. In Berlin, Germany, there is also a project underway called the House of One, which will include a church, mosque, and synagogue, all under one roof.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>By having three religious institutions on one site, it could appear to people who don't know much about Christianity, Islam, and Judaism that there really isn't much difference between them, or that they all worship the same God.</p>
<p>This impression is strengthened when influential religious figures like Pope Francis say things like:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">We are all children of God, all, even the unbaptized ones, yes, even those who believe in other religions, or those who have idols.<cite>7</cite></span></p>
<p>On February 4, 2019, Pope Francis and The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, co-signed a statement titled "A Document On Human Fraternity For World Peace And Living Together". One line of the statement says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>This line in the statement was theologically criticized by Thomas Weinandy, an influential Catholic scholar, who wrote that:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">By implication, it [this statement] not only devalues the person of Jesus, but it also, and more so, strikes at the very heart of God the Father’s eternal will. Thus, such studied ambiguity undermines the very Gospel itself.<cite>9</cite></span></p>
<p>Unfortunately, even after this criticism, and as recently as 2021, Pope Francis said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If in the past, our [religious] differences set us at odds, nowadays we see in them the richness of different ways of coming to God and of educating young people for peaceful coexistence in mutual respect.<cite>10</cite></span></p>
<p>So to summarize, in only the past few years, Pope Francis has said that all religions are just "different ways of coming to God", that the diversity of religions is actually willed by God, and that every person is a "child of God" regardless of what he or she believes.</p>
<p>It certainly seems like Pope Francis is endorsing religious pluralism, rather than upholding the uniqueness of Christianity. I don't see how he could say these things and still believe what the Bible teaches about the need for everyone to come to faith in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation, as I'll explain later in this post.</p>
<p>But, if anyone wants to get nit-picky, perhaps there are ways that faithful Christians could endorse the Pope's statements in a qualified way.</p>
<p>Because yes, all humans are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27, 9:6) whether they believe in God or not.</p>
<p>But this is not the same as being a child of God, since the Bible says that only those people who believe in Jesus and thus receive the Holy Spirit are born again and become children of God (John 1:12-13, Romans 8:16-17, John 3:5-8, 1 Peter 1:3). So I couldn't agree that all people are "children of God" in this proper, Biblical sense, because doing so would endorse universalism, which has several theological problems as I've discussed <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">here</a>.</p>
<p>And it's true that everything that God allows to occur in the world <em>is</em> willed in some way by him, including the existence of other religions, just as God allows evil, sin, and suffering to also exist in the world. If God truly didn't will that these things temporarily exist, they wouldn't, because God would eliminate them.</p>
<p>But the fact that God allows other religions to exist temporarily in this sinful world doesn't mean that God approves of every religion equally.</p>
<p>God certainly disliked many past religions that involved the worship of idols, temple prostitution, and sacrificing of children. The Old Testament is full of God's condemnation for these activities and for the worship of false gods. God also criticized the Israelites when they turned their own God-given religion into a system of legalistic rules that promoted self-righteousness (e.g., Hosea 6:6, Matthew 9:13, Luke 11:42, Micah 6:8).</p>
<p>And as will be discussed in my next blog post, I would agree that there may be some hints of divine truth in other religions which the Holy Spirit can make use of to draw people toward God.</p>
<p>But that doesn't mean the truth about God is equally clear in every religion, or that truth itself is relative and subjective. The Bible says that while in the past, God allowed people to follow false religions,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Acts 17:30-31)</span></span></p>
<p>The man referred to in the verse above is obviously Jesus. This is why, after Christ's resurrection, God gave the great commission to the Church to go to all nations and teach the gospel and baptize people into faith in Christ (Matthew 28:18-20).</p>
<p>So I don't believe that Christians should endorse religious pluralism, or get involved with other religions in ways that make it appear that we all worship the same God or that other religions can also lead to eternal life.</p>
<p>However, it shouldn't only be Christians who have problems with religious pluralism. Anyone who truly values tolerance should also have a problem with the claims of religious pluralists, because religious pluralism is actually an <em>intolerant</em> ideology!</p>
<h2>Problem 1: Religious Pluralism Is An Intolerant Ideology</h2>
<p>Yes, you read that correctly. But why is this the case?</p>
<p>As Clark Pinnock notes, the problem with religious pluralism is that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It rules out people's most precious beliefs in things normative. It asks Muslims, in effect, to deny that the Koran is central to God's purpose. It asks Jews to deny that God spoke definitively through Moses. It asks Christians to deny that Jesus is the Incarnation of God in history. Is that a reasonable or even a practical thing to ask people to do? Obviously, it is not.<cite>11</cite></span></p>
<p>And it's not just <em>unreasonable</em> to expect religious believers to deny the most central and distinctive features of their own belief systems, but it's also <em>intolerant</em>:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The suggestion that Christians or Buddhists [or people of any faith] should give up their most precious beliefs for the sake of politeness is a form of intolerance on the part of the people who claim to be so tolerant. No one is in the position to refuse religious communities the right to hold distinctive convictions.<cite>12</cite></span></p>
<p>After all,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Religions do not simply say the same things as one another about God, humanity, salvation, and hope. To say that they do is intellectual dishonesty. There are intractable differences of doctrine, and therefore choices to be made. To wave a wand over religions and declare that they are saying the same thing is nonsense. This is sloppy pluralism, false tolerance, and indifference to truth.<cite>13</cite></span></p>
<p>How ironic, then, that religious pluralism can't tolerate the claim that not all religions lead to the same God.</p>
<p>It's like how some people claim they value tolerance for all sorts of different ideologies and lifestyles, but then these same people often become extremely <em>intolerant</em> of anyone who they judge to not be as 'tolerant' as they themselves claim to be!</p>
<p>But what's the origin of the claim that it's intolerant for religious believers to believe that their own religion is true while other religions are false?</p>
<p>Pinnock traces religious pluralism to the modern, Enlightenment-era claim that "it would be unfair for truth not to be equally and simultaneously present to everyone."<cite>14</cite></p>
<p>In the 1700s, philosophers reacted against the idea that the truth about God that was necessary for salvation was found only through Scripture or the Christian tradition, because then many other people would not have had access to it. In response, many philosophers turned to look for what they could learn about God from reason or nature, because they thought that both reason and nature were universally accessible sources of knowledge about God.<cite>15</cite></p>
<p>Yet again, I wonder if this accusation that it's unfair for truth to not be equally available to all people was partly a reaction to traditional Christian theories of exclusivism and double predestination. Because even Christians might wonder how it could be fair for God to send some people to hell, just because these people lived at a time or in a place where they didn't have access to the truth.</p>
<p>Perhaps, then, a good, solid, Biblical theory of inclusivism could help reduce the appeal of religious pluralism, at least, for those who want to uphold the truth of Christianity.</p>
<p>However, there will always remain people who don't want to accept the idea that one religion is more true than others. For these people, I suspect their religious pluralism might just be a way for them to reject the clear, Biblical claim that faith in Jesus is the only way to have eternal life, as we'll see in the next section.</p>
<h2>Problem 2 : Jesus Is The Only Way to Salvation</h2>
<p>Among evangelical Christians, I've sometimes heard people say that we should emphasize the common ground with people of other religions as a starting point for evangelism.</p>
<p>For example, a Christian talking to a Muslim might mention the idea that there is only one true God, or compare the Koran to the Bible. Or, Christians might emphasize similarities regarding Christian and Islamic concepts of the afterlife. Or perhaps try to find some agreement in areas of ethics, or the importance of prayer, charity, modesty, fasting, etc. Islam even mentions Biblical figures such as Jesus, Mary, Abraham, and Ishmael, and so there is some overlap there.</p>
<p>This isn't quite religious pluralism, but I think it's the same logic that paves the way for pluralism. What we should be emphasizing is the differences between Christianity and other religions we encounter, rather than the similarities.</p>
<p>Sure, Muslims believe in one God, but that's not enough for salvation (James 2:19). There are also Bible verses that say that the gods and idols of other faiths are actually demons (Deuteronomy 32:17, Psalm 106:36-38, Revelation 9:20, 1 Corinthians 10:19-20). Thus, it's difficult if not dangerous to say that all religions worship the same God.</p>
<p>There is also one major point that makes Christianity and Islam completely incompatible:</p>
<p>The Koran says that God has no Son, in a number of verses.<cite>16</cite> That means that to Muslims, Jesus was just a human prophet, and not God's Son incarnate. So worshipping Jesus would be a major sin, according to Islam.</p>
<p>Similarly, non-Messianic Judaism denies the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. (The doctrine of the Trinity is that there are three distinct divine persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—within the single being of God). The Old Testament clearly says there is only one God, and that it is a sin to worship anyone or anything that isn't God (Exodus 20:3-5, Deuteronomy 5:7-8).</p>
<p>This would mean that to non-Messianic Jews, Christians are idolaters and blasphemers when we worship Jesus, who we believe was the second person of the Trinity incarnate. This is what the Apostle Paul thought about Christians before his conversion, and it was why he passionately pursued Christians to have them arrested (Acts 8:1-3).</p>
<p>But as I've talked about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-jesus-must-be-fully-divine/">here</a>, if Jesus wasn't truly the Son of God incarnate and fully divine, then there is no way for Jesus to fully reveal God to humanity, or reconcile humanity with God.</p>
<p>If Jesus wasn't the Son of God incarnate, it would also make Jesus a liar, because he claimed to be God (e.g., John 10:30). If Jesus weren't God, it would make his disciples idolaters, because they worshipped Jesus, and the early church prayed to Jesus and in the name of Jesus.</p>
<p>But because of who Jesus was and how he died on the cross for the world's sins (Hebrews 7:27, Hebrews 10:12, 1 John 2:2), the New Testament is incredibly clear that there is no way to have eternal life other than <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believing in Jesus</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'." (John 14:6)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." (John 3:16-18)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"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)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith." (Romans 3:22-25, NRSVA)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Jesus, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:6-11)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>All of these verses are a significant challenge to the claims of religious pluralism. They will also be very important to address in any Biblically-sound theory of Christian inclusivism.</p>
<h2>How Christians Can Respond to Religious Pluralists</h2>
<p>So, how can Christians respond to someone who claims that all religious truth is relative or subjective?</p>
<p>Ask them what basis they have for that belief. Because if they truly believe in relativism, then even their belief in relativism must itself be relative. Their belief in relativism is also ultimately a form of religious faith, since there can be no evidence given to definitively support it.</p>
<p>What if they claim that "all religions are varied responses to ineffable divine reality?" Then we can ask them "if in fact the divine is so ineffable and unknowable, how does one know any path is valid?"<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>We can ask these people to think about what if their belief is wrong and objective truth actually exists? Would they want to know it? And how would they know when they have found it?</p>
<p>Once again, I agree with Clark Pinnock when he writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Truth claims in religion... must be viewed like claims in science or philosophy or medicine. In those areas, [ideally] there is no leveling down, no denial of real differences, no overlooking of bad mistakes. Instead, there is a concern for truth and a willingness to search it out in the midst of disagreements.<cite>18</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, the way to be truly respectful of different religions would be to take all of the world's different religious claims seriously, then admit that many of these claims are are mutually incompatible, and attempt to discern which religious claims are actually true, and which are false.</p>
<p>That's why it's great to spend some time <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-read-theology/">reading theology</a> to learn what we believe and why we believe it, while being open to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/being-open-to-changing-our-minds/">changing our minds</a> if, in the process of searching for truth, we come across a better argument.</p>
<p>Because ultimately, all truth will lead to Jesus, who is <em>the</em> Truth (John 14:6).</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>As a result of the reasons I've laid out here and in my two previous blog posts, I'm convinced that none of the options we have examined so far (exclusivism, universalism, or religious pluralism) are fully compatible with the Biblical evidence regarding the question of who will ultimately have eternal life.</p>
<p>That means the only theological position left which can be compatible with all the different verses that we've examined thus far is some sort of Christian inclusivism.</p>
<p>In my next post, I will examine a few different proposals for how Christian inclusivism might work, and some concerns I have with some of them.</p>
<p>This will be the set-up for the final article in this series, where I'll lay out my own theory of Christian inclusivism.</p>
<p>I hope to explain how these difficult verses above about salvation depending on faith in Christ alone can be compatible with saying that eternal salvation is truly open to all people, even those who didn't hear the gospel in this life, or who died before they were capable of having personal belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Pew Research Forum, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2008/12/18/many-americans-say-other-faiths-can-lead-to-eternal-life/">"Many Americans Say Other Faiths Can Lead to Eternal Life"</a>, December 18, 2008.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 11. See also 69-70.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 9-10.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 19.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> <a href="https://www.forhumanfraternity.org/abrahamic-family-house/">"About the Abrahamic Family House"</a>, Abrahamic Family House </li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> <a href="https://house-of-one.org/en">House of One</a></li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Leonardo De Chirico, <a href="https://evangelicalfocus.com/vatican-files/3461/do-atheists-go-to-heaven-pope-francis-says-yes">"Do Atheists go to Heaven? Pope Francis says yes"</a>, <em>Evangelical Focus</em>, May 1, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Pope Francis and Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/travels/2019/outside/documents/papa-francesco_20190204_documento-fratellanza-umana.html">"A Document On Human Fraternity For World Peace And Living Together"</a>, The Vatican, February 2, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Thomas G. Weinandy, <a href="https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/06/02/pope-francis-the-uniqueness-of-christ-and-the-will-of-the-father/">"Pope Francis, the uniqueness of Christ, and the will of the Father"</a>, Catholic World Report, June 2, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Thomas D. Williams, <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2021/10/05/pope-francis-religions-all-different-ways-coming-god/">"Pope Francis: Religions Are All ‘Different Ways of Coming to God’"</a>, Breitbart News, October 5, 2021.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 70.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 71.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 70-71, see more on 72.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 70.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Alister E. McGrath, <em>Christian Theology: An Introduction</em>, Sixth Ed. (Chicester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2017), 59-60, 128-129.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Some relevant verses can be seen in English translations of the Quran, <a href="https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=17&verse=111">"Chapter (17) sūrat l-isrā (The Night Journey)"</a>. More verse are listed by Matt Slick, <a href="https://carm.org/islam/islam-by-topic-son-of-god/">"Islam by topic: Son of God"</a>, CARM.org, June 10, 2016.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 72-73.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 71, also see more on 134-136.</li>
</ul>Will God Save Everyone?2022-06-29T00:00:00+00:002022-06-29T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-06-29:/article/will-god-save-everyone/<p>In my previous blog post, I explained why I think that God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly wants to save everyone</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the fact that the Bible says that God clearly <em>wants</em> to save everyone doesn't necessarily mean that God actually <em>will</em> save everyone.</p>
<p>But why not? If God truly loves everyone, and if …</p><p>In my previous blog post, I explained why I think that God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">truly wants to save everyone</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the fact that the Bible says that God clearly <em>wants</em> to save everyone doesn't necessarily mean that God actually <em>will</em> save everyone.</p>
<p>But why not? If God truly loves everyone, and if God is all-powerful, then it seems like God should save everyone, right?</p>
<p>It seems like a nice thought, at first. But not only do I believe that the Bible warns again and again about the very real possibility of people being eternally destroyed, but I'm also convinced that the exact reason why God specifically <em>won't</em> save everyone is precisely because God is Love.</p>
<p>Now, that seems like a funny answer. In this post, I'll explain why actually, the most loving thing for God to do is to let people reject him if they want to, thus leading to their own eternal destruction.</p>
<p>Or in other words, I don't think that universalism is true, and I'm glad that it isn't. I hope by the end of this post, you'll also be glad that universalism isn't true.</p>
<p>And if universalism isn't true, but God still wants to save everyone—including people who have never heard about Jesus or the gospel—then it seems there are only two options remaining:</p>
<ol>
<li>Some sort of religious pluralism that says all religions ultimately lead to the same God.</li>
<li>A theory of Christian inclusivism where somehow, sooner or later, everyone will get the chance to accept or reject the gospel.</li>
</ol>
<p>I'll talk about these two options in upcoming blog posts. But before we get to those, I need to explain the problems that I see with universalism, and why I reject it.</p>
<h2>The Argument for Universalism</h2>
<p>Universalists believe that everyone will be saved, eventually. So this idea is called universalism, as in, the whole universe and every creature or person in it will one day be reconciled to God, and will live forever with God in the new heaven and new earth.</p>
<p>The most optimistic universalists would say that even Satan and his demons will finally change their minds, repent, and be reconciled with God.</p>
<p>Some universalists say this final reconciliation with God might happen for some people after they undergo some sort of experience like a temporary hell that is effectively a sort of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/protestant-purgatory/">purgatory</a>.</p>
<p>For example, Thomas Talbott argues that, based on 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, everyone will eventually voluntarily submit their wills to God's will, although God allows people to temporarily rebel.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>As a result of this temporary rebellion, we suffer in this life from the misery that sin always causes, and we might also suffer in the afterlife. This is because, Talbott claims,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">that is how God works with us as created rational agents. He permits us to chose in the ambiguous contexts in which we first emerge as self-aware beings, and he then requires us to learn from experience the hard lessons we sometimes need to learn. So in that way the consequences of our free choices, both the good choices and the bad ones, are a source of revelation; they sooner or later reveal—in the next life if not in this one—both the horror of separation from God and the bliss of union with him. And that is why the end is foreordained: all paths finally lead to the same destination, the end of reconciliation, though some are longer and a lot more painful than others.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>But as Jack W. Cottrell argues, this would mean that in the opinion of universalists like Talbott,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Salvation thus is a process of <em>purification</em> accomplished by the "consuming fire" of God's "purifying love," "when God finally perfects our love for others." This view falls far short of the biblical teaching of the cross as a work of redemption and propitiation (Romans 3:24-26).<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>Basically, if we can get to heaven by having ourselves be purified of sin in hell/purgatory, then why did we need Jesus to die on the cross for our sins?</p>
<p>Additionally, in Talbott's view, as Cottrell points out, our free choices</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">affect the <em>way</em> we get to heaven, but "all paths finally lead to the same destination...though some are longer and a lot more painful than others." But if this is the case, we may legitimately question the nature of the "love" that Talbott says determines everything God does. If we are all destined for the same end, why does God give us just enough "freedom" to make the journey miserable?....[And why does God] subject some of his elect to an undefined, indeterminate post-mortem gauntlet before the end is finally achieved[?].<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>So there are some theological problems with the concept of universalism right from the start, even for universalists like Talbott who try to allow for some amount of human free will in the process of universal salvation.</p>
<p>However, some Bible verses seem like they could endorse universalism. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>Jesus "is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world" (1 John 2:2, NLT).</li>
<li>Jesus is also called "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), by offering his own blood as the perfect payment for all sin (Hebrews 7:27 and 10:12-13).</li>
<li>"Therefore just as one man’s [Adam's] trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s [Jesus Christ's] act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all" (Romans 5:18, NRSV). See also 1 Corinthians 1:30, 15:22, and Romans 11:32 for similar verses.</li>
<li>"For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross" (Colossians 1:19-20, NLT).</li>
<li>"In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19).</li>
<li>Jesus is described as "The true light, which gives light to everyone" (John 1:9).</li>
<li>Jesus said "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32).</li>
</ul>
<p>Taken together, these verses could imply that if Jesus has died for everyone's sins, then everyone is forgiven, and Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, will eventually draw everyone into the light of his truth that they are now reconciled with God.</p>
<p>Universalists would likely read this sort of interpretation into Philippians 2:6-11, which says that Jesus,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (NLT)</span></p>
<p>Another fancy theological name for universalism is <em>apocatastasis</em>, or 'universal reconciliation'. It is claimed that a few early Christian theologians argued for this idea, possibly including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa. I haven't read these theologians on this issue, so I won't comment directly on their theology.</p>
<p>But I have spent some time studying Karl Barth, who is an example of a famous Christian theologian who admitted to at least hoping for universalism, even if at times he warned against presuming upon it.<cite>5</cite> Barth has also been called the "greatest Protestant theologian of the 20th century",<cite>6</cite> and his modification to the Reformed doctrine of predestination has been very influential in Reformed circles of thought.</p>
<p>However, when I read Barth's understanding of predestination, it seems to imply universalism. Then, when I read sections of his <em>Church Dogmatics</em> volume 4.1, I'm convinced that Barth is outright arguing for universalism.</p>
<p>There are several other major scholars who also think that Barth leaned toward universalism, even if Barth might have made a few statements here and there that could make it appear like he denied it.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Yet because Barth is very hard to read, right now, I'll only summarize what I interpret him to be saying. If you want to read my more detailed interpretation along with supporting quotations from Barth, then check out the Appendix at the bottom of this post.</p>
<p>What I believe Barth argued regarding predestination and universalism goes something like this:</p>
<ol>
<li>God doesn't predestine individuals to heaven or hell. Instead, the only person who was predestined was Jesus, who was both elected by God to be the Messiah, and rejected by God when he died on the cross for everyone's sins.</li>
<li>Jesus really did die for everyone who has ever lived. Jesus also had faith in God on behalf of everyone. Therefore, everyone who has ever lived is already forgiven of their sins, and are in a right relationship with God.</li>
<li>The old, sinful, unbelieving people that everyone used to be are now effectively destroyed, so the only possible future that remains for everyone is to become people who believe in Jesus and live in a loving relationship with God and others.</li>
<li>The only difference between non-Christians and Christians are that Christians recognize what God has done for us, and we get to witness to God's grace and love to the rest of the world. We also get to enjoy the peace and joy that comes from knowing that God loves us and has reconciled us with himself, and we participate in the loving community of all other Christians (a.k.a, the Church).</li>
<li>But eventually, at some point in the future, God will reveal the truth of what Jesus has accomplished for everyone to everyone, and everyone will then believe in Jesus and love God.</li>
</ol>
<p>Such an interpretation might even seem to be suggested in the Bible, when Paul writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" (2 Corinthians 5:18-20, NLT).</span></p>
<p>What I don't understand in Barth's theory, though—maybe because I haven't come across the section where he talked about it—is why then God bothers prolonging human history and all the misery that unbelief and sin cause in this world, when God could simply reveal to everyone the truth about themselves, and bring everyone to faith?</p>
<p>Or in other words, what did Barth think God is waiting for? Why wouldn't God just turn everyone on the planet into Christians right now, and then continue history without all the sin and the suffering that sin causes?</p>
<p>Furthermore, there are two major problems with Barth's theory, which are also the same problems with any theory of universalism—even those that claim to allow for some amount of human free will.</p>
<h2>Problem 1: The Bible Says Not Everyone Will Be Saved</h2>
<p>As I've talked about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">elsewhere</a>, Jonathan Edwards' theology could actually have fit quite nicely with a theory of universalism.</p>
<p>As a short recap, Edwards said that God created the world so that people could know God and love God, and knowing God and loving God makes people truly happy and holy and glorifies God, which makes God happy.<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, Edwards said that heaven will be a world of love between God, angels, and those people that God eternally chose to save. These 'elect' individuals will rejoice in God and be truly happy, and they will also rejoice over anyone else who is also holy and happy.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>Edwards also affirmed that God has the ability to save whoever God wants to, because God can simply choose to give any individual the Holy Spirit, which will illuminate this person's mind and cause him or her to love God and believe the gospel.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, it seems that logically, Edwards should have said that, in order to maximize God's glory and the eternal happiness of the elect in heaven, God should save everyone.</p>
<p>However, Edwards was convinced by his reading of Scripture that the majority of people throughout history will end up in hell. This forced him to explain why God would predestine only a small number of people to heaven while everyone else is predestined to hell (a.k.a, <em>double predestination</em>).</p>
<p>But when Edwards tried fit double predestination into the rest of his theological system, it led to a number of major problems and contradictions. I explored and analyzed these issues in my dissertation, which you can download for free as a .pdf by clicking <a href="/file/Zeeb_Janelle_L_202205_PhD_thesis.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<p>Yet I would agree with Edwards that the Bible says quite clearly that not everyone is going to be eternally saved. There are far too many warnings about eternal death/destruction/<a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a> throughout Scripture for me to think that it is only a theoretical possibility that won't actually happen for at least some people.</p>
<p>Furthermore, God even told his prophets that at least some people will be eternally destroyed:</p>
<p>Isaiah says that in the new heavens and new earth, everyone will worship God (Isaiah 66:23). But these people will also be able to go out and look on the dead bodies of other people who were eternally destroyed for rebelling against God (Isaiah 66:24).</p>
<p>The book of Revelation also contains a prophecy that after the final judgment, everyone whose name isn't written in God's Book of Life will be thrown into the lake of fire and eternally destroyed (Revelation 20:12-15).</p>
<p>Now, this verse doesn't clearly specify an exact number of people that this will happen to, and I am hopeful that that number will be small. But I don't think it's zero, since we know that at least Satan, his demons, the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>, and the False Prophet all end up being condemned to the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). So are those who take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> (Revelation 14:9-11).</p>
<p>I also deny that Satan or the demons will ever be reconciled with God, because they are not human and so Christ did not die for their sins, as I talk about in this post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-made-in-image-of-God/">here</a>. Jesus even said that the lake of fire/eternal destruction is the final destiny for Satan and his fallen angels (Matthew 25:41).</p>
<p>Therefore, I think even this small sample of verses is clear enough to show that not everyone will finally be redeemed and reconciled to God. That in itself should be enough to disprove universalism.</p>
<p>I also think these verses are enough to disprove the idea that God will eternally extend the offer of repenting and coming to heaven to people who are in hell, as suggested in in C.S. Lewis's story <em>The Great Divorce</em>.<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>Thus, although I appreciate Lewis's story as an interesting theological thought-experiment, due to how it explores a number of possibilities for why people might reject God's mercy, I would caution that Christians shouldn't take it as a literal description of how the afterlife actually operates.</p>
<h2>Problem 2: Love Can't Be Forced</h2>
<p>What I find interesting is that universalism and double predestination actually share the same problem: irresistible grace.</p>
<p>Irresistible grace is the idea that God, through the Holy Spirit, can work in a person's heart so effectively that a person is guaranteed to believe in Jesus and be saved. The only difference between double predestination and universalism is the number of people that God decides to give this irresistible grace to.</p>
<p>Karl Barth clearly endorsed the idea of irresistible grace when he wrote, "He [God] proves Himself to be the stronger by the irresistible awakening power of His Holy Spirit. In the strength and in this proof he calls them [sinners] to faith".<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>And if everyone will be brought to faith by the irresistible power of the Holy Spirit, then Barth said that the Holy Spirit will also irresistibly cause everyone to love God, because faith is always inseparable from love for God.<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>So basically, the only freedom that Barth said anyone has, is the freedom to eventually choose "what has already been chosen and actualized for him [or her]" by God, which is to believe in Jesus, obey God, and love God.<cite>14</cite></p>
<p>However, this is precisely the biggest problem with universalism, because universalists deny that people have the possibility to ultimately reject God.</p>
<p>Universalists argue that although people might fight it for a time, God effectively says to everyone: "You will love me. You have no choice. I've chosen for you. Resistance is futile—you will be assimilated."</p>
<p>(Oops, sorry, some Star Trek crept into my theology there).</p>
<p>But if love can be forced, is it really love? C.S. Lewis famously wrote:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>For example, let's imagine if a scientist were able to covertly insert a microchip into the brain of a man who she had a crush on, which allowed the scientist to make the man act in a loving way towards the scientist. Even if the microchip made the man feel like he was voluntarily loving the scientist, he would not actually be doing so, for he is fully controlled by the scientist. In effect, the scientist would simply be loving herself by manipulating the man like a puppet, and the man’s love for the scientist would not be genuine.<cite>16</cite></p>
<p>So we can see why, at worst, and in line with Lewis's quote above, at least one theologian has compared the idea of irresistible grace to divine rape. Yet, "God is love. True love never forces itself on anyone. Forced love is rape, and God is not a divine rapist!"<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>Again, C.S. Lewis puts it nicely:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The Irresistible and Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo.<cite>18</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, because we need the ability to say 'no' to God in order to protect God's truly loving character, I also reject the idea that God's glory is so amazing or beautiful that everyone who truly sees it will be compelled to 'freely' love God. After all, Satan had a full view of God's glory, and Satan still rebelled, and managed to convince a third of the angels to rebel also (Revelation 12:1-5).</p>
<p>So as strange as it might seem, God must give us the freedom that we can actually say no to him in the end, if we so choose. This is even though God knows that some people that he loves so much that he would die for them will exercise their freedom to reject him, and so they will finally be eternally destroyed. Because having the ability to freely say no to God's love is necessary for the genuine love of God to be a possibility.</p>
<p>This idea is also supported by Scripture, because Jesus also says that no matter how much he wants to draw people to himself, people are free to resist his desires for them (Matthew 23:37, Luke 7:30, Luke 13:34, Acts 7:51, and the parable of the wedding in Matthew 22:1-14).</p>
<p>So while it's alright to hope that many or even most people will finally be persuaded and wooed by God's love, God absolutely can't force anyone to love him. Therefore, I must agree with C.S. Lewis once again:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "<em>Thy</em> will be done." All that are in hell, choose it.<cite>19</cite></span></p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>However, you might still be wondering about all those verses I listed near the beginning of this post. If Jesus really did die for everyone, then shouldn't that mean that everyone will be saved?</p>
<p>I'll have to write more about how I interpret these verses in a future post. But at this point, I believe I've been able to plausibly argue two main points:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>It's not true that Jesus only died for a specific group of people—either those that God predestined to be saved, or those that God perfectly foreknew will be saved. This is because I reject double predestination and exclusivism, since these positions are incompatible with the idea that God actually <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">wants to save everyone</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I've also shown in this post why I can't believe that any theory of double predestination or universalism is true, because the idea that God's grace is irresistible is incompatible with God's desire for people to freely love him, and the Bible seems to clearly say that not everyone will be saved.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>These two points mean that however I interpret the verses at the start of this post, I have to say that at the very least, they mean that Jesus's death was enough (in theory) to atone for the sins of every single person who has ever lived, but that not everyone will actually choose to take Jesus up on his offer to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believe in him to have eternal life</a>.</p>
<p>So if both exclusivism and universalism are eliminated, then it comes down to the choice between religious pluralism and inclusivism.</p>
<p>In my next post, I'll aim to show why I don't think pluralism is the best option, and so that means we need some sort of Biblically-supported theory of Christian inclusivism.</p>
<h2>Appendix: Support For My Interpretation of Karl Barth</h2>
<h3>A Disclaimer About Interpreting Karl Barth</h3>
<p>At the start, I need to give a disclaimer: interpreting Karl Barth is a rather difficult task.</p>
<p>He wrote in German, which was translated by others into English, which adds a layer of potential misunderstanding for people who aren't reading his original words in German. His major work <em>Church Dogmatics</em> is also extremely long, at over nine thousand pages and six million words, split into thirteen different books, and it was still unfinished when he died.<cite>20</cite></p>
<p>On top of this, Barth's writing style is notoriously difficult to read. This is partly due to his love of long sentences, but it's also because:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Barth tends to argue in a somewhat circular manner. He takes an idea, text, or question. He offers a proposal. He chews on it, unpacks it, argues it. He considers objections and counterproposals. He then circles back round to the proposal, extending it somewhat. Again he wrestles, re-engages, reconceptualizes. Over and over he extends his initial statement until he has come finally at the issue from every side. Thus Barth cannot be interpreted as if he writes in strictly linear fashion.<cite>21</cite></span></p>
<p>Additionally,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Rather than a strict logic that moves from point A to point B and then a conclusion, Barth believed deeper truth always stood in a dialectic. One example: Jesus is God and man. Another: God is both judge and savior. These truths are not easily reconciled but are better understood as existing in some tension. Barth used this method fruitfully to explore many mysteries of the Christian faith.<cite>22</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, it's recommended to read Barth in long sections to get the gist of what he argued, and to compare what he said in one place with what he wrote elsewhere.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many people don't have the time or patience to read everything that Barth wrote, and I admit, I'm one of them. I also think that, given the volume of his writings, it's not unexpected that there would likely be some contradictions here and there.</p>
<p>In fact,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">There is a very famous story — I don’t know if it is apocryphal or not — in which somebody wrote to Barth and said: Professor Barth, I have discovered the following contradictions in your writings, what do you say about these contradictions? And Barth ostensibly wrote back and said: Well, here are some others. And lists a few more contradictions. Yours faithfully.<cite>23</cite></span></p>
<p>So it's hard to know what Barth actually thought about some things, or if <em>he</em> even fully knew what he thought about some things! This keeps scholars busy interpreting his writings and arguing with other scholars about what Barth really meant.</p>
<p>Personally, I'd prefer to invest my limited time in studying and interpreting God's <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/">inerrant words</a> that are found in the Bible, rather than studying a <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/trusting-the-experts/">fallible human expert</a> like Barth who didn't appear to put logical consistency high on his list of priorities.</p>
<p>However, I did read enough of Barth's work for my doctoral comprehensive exams that I think I get what Barth is trying to say, at least on this topic. So I don't think my interpretation of his theology is unwarranted, and as I noted earlier (see footnote 7), there are other very well-respected scholars who also think Barth was arguing for universalism.</p>
<p>Also, I just wanted to briefly note that in the quotations I'll use from Barth, the terms "man" and "men" generally refer to each individual person and all humanity, respectively.</p>
<h3>Karl Barth's Modification of the Doctrine of Predestination</h3>
<p>Barth is quite famous for his rejection of the traditional scheme of double predestination, and I do appreciate Barth's criticisms of it.</p>
<p>If you're not familiar with it, the traditional doctrine of double predestination teaches that before God created anything, God chose (or "elected") that only some people ("the elect") would end up having eternal life in heaven, while most people would be condemned for their sins and eternally destroyed in hell.</p>
<p>In this view, people don't have any free will to change their eternal destinies, and the purpose of sending most people to hell is so that God's justice and wrath are demonstrated and can be eternally praised by God's elect people.</p>
<p>I've talked more about this view in my blog posts <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">here</a>, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-predestination/">here</a>, and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">here</a> in relation to Jonathan Edwards' view of predestination, which I studied for my dissertation.</p>
<p>Barth argued that the traditional doctrine of double predestination (as put forth by Jonathan Edwards and others) ends up being a "mixed message of joy and terror, salvation and damnation".<cite>24</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, double predestination has very negative consequences for God's character. If predestination is interpreted as God saying Yes to some people but No to others, then,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">it will be hard to distinguish His [God's] freedom from caprice or His mystery from the blindness of such caprice. It will be no less hard to maintain His righteousness in any form except that of mere assertion. It will then be difficult to make it clear that God is not merely a tyrant living by His whims, that He is not merely blind fate, that He is something other than the essential inscrutability of all being.<cite>25</cite></span></p>
<p>Basically, Barth thought that proponents of double predestination depict God as an arbitrary tyrant who says Yes to some people, but No to others, for no clear reason. But then these proponents claim that God is still righteous and just when God predestines people to hell, even though the people who are predestined to end up there can't do anything to avoid it.</p>
<p>The problem is that if God does say both Yes and No to different groups of humanity, then "the No should become much the stronger and ultimately the exclusive note," which is the opposite of the gospel, and so Barth said this idea "should be repudiated with horror".<cite>26</cite> I totally agree.</p>
<p>Barth also believed that the traditional interpretation of predestination was un-Biblical.</p>
<p>For example, as Roger E. Olson notes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In light of New Testament passages such as John 1:9, 1:29, 3:17, 8:12, 9:5, 11:9, and 12:46, [Barth said] 'We cannot follow the classical [Reformed] doctrine and make the open number of those who are elect in Jesus Christ into a closed number to which all other men are opposed as if they were rejected. Such an assumption is shattered by the unity of the real and revealed will of God in Jesus Christ'.<cite>27</cite></span></p>
<p>As an alternative, Barth said that the doctrine of predestination must be put forth in a way that the grace of God stands out as the entire message, or else predestination should not be preached. Thus, Barth argued that "we must not seek the ground of this election anywhere but in the love of God".<cite>28</cite></p>
<p>Barth is well known for how he put forth a revised doctrine of double predestination which portrays Jesus as simultaneously both elected by God (to be the Messiah) and rejected by God (by going to the cross to die for humanity's sin), which Barth argued for on the basis of Scripture.<cite>29</cite></p>
<p>Thus, Barth said that God’s loving election/predestination of Jesus to be the savior of the world is the gospel:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">He [God] is for this man Jesus, and in Him for the whole race, and therefore for the world. That God wills neither to be without the world nor against it can never be stated more clearly or forcibly than when we speak of His election. At bottom, then, to speak of the election means necessarily to speak of the Gospel.<cite>30</cite></span></p>
<p>I admit that his approach is a huge improvement over the traditional view of double predestination, and many Reformed Christians find Barth's approach quite attractive.</p>
<p>However, Barth’s view of predestination has been criticized as leading to universalism.</p>
<p>I'll summarize why I think Barth is arguing for universalism the next section, and then I'll explain why I think the problem with Barth's theory of universalism demonstrates the problem with universalism in general.</p>
<h3>Barth's Theology of Predestination Implies Universalism</h3>
<p>Given the difficulties noted earlier in interpreting Barth, some scholars claim that it is not entirely clear whether in Barth’s view, all humanity is therefore elect "in Christ," which could imply universalism, or whether at other times Barth argued for "conditional election whereby humans are elect-in-Christ until or unless they opt out of this elect status".<cite>31</cite></p>
<p>If the latter is all that Barth argued, then I think this idea has a lot of potential, and I've argued for something similar <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">here</a>.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Barth argued that after the election of Christ, it was the community of Israel and the Church who are elect "in Christ," instead of individual believers. Individual believers are elect only by inclusion in this elect community, whether in some sort of opt-in or opt-out fashion.<cite>32</cite></p>
<p>If so, this would also be something I could go along with.</p>
<p>However, when I read what Barth writes in his <em>Church Dogmatics</em> volume 4.1, I'm convinced that Barth is making a case for deterministic universalism, which means that no one will ultimately be able to opt-out of experiencing eternal life with God. And that's a major problem.</p>
<p>For example, Barth said that "in Jesus Christ God has demonstrated... that He loves the world, that He did not will to be God without it, without all men, without each individual man in particular".<cite>33</cite></p>
<p>As a result, Barth frequently speaks about the "necessity" of faith, and not just in the sense that having faith in Jesus Christ is necessary if we want to have eternal life, which is what the Bible teaches.</p>
<p>Instead, Barth seems to imply that everyone will <em>necessarily</em> come to faith in Jesus as their savior, and thus, there is no possibility that anyone will <em>not</em> have faith in Jesus:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It is not for man to choose first whether he himself will decide (what an illusion!) for faith or for unbelief. Faith makes the solid actuality of unbelief an impossibility. It sweeps it away. It replaces it by itself. It does not build a bridge over the gulf. It closes it. It has already closed it. This takes place in the necessity of faith in the strength of which the only act which remains for a man is the genuinely free act of faith.<cite>34</cite></span></p>
<p>So if the decision to have faith in Jesus isn't up to individual people to decide, then who does make this decision?</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But this necessity of faith does not lie in man. It does not lie even in the good nature of man as created for God, let alone in his being as the sinner who in denial and perversion of his good nature has turned away from God and in so doing deprived himself already of the possibility of faith It does not even lie in faith in itself and as such. It is to be found rather in the object of faith. It is this object which forces itself necessarily on man and is in that way the basis of his faith. This object is the living Lord Jesus Christ, in whom it took place, in whom it has taken place for every man, in whom it confronts man as an absolutely superior actuality, that his sin, and he himself as the actual sinner he is, and with his sin the possibility of his unbelief, is rejected, destroyed and set aside, that he is born again as a new man of obedience, who now has the freedom for faith, and only in that faith his future. In this destroying and renewing of man as it took place in Jesus Christ there consists the necessity of faith, because beyond this destroying and renewing there remains for sinful man only faith in the One in whom it has taken place. In the death of Jesus Christ both the destroying and the renewing have been revealed as valid for all men in His resurrection from the dead. Therefore, objectively, really, ontologically, there is a necessity of faith for them all.<cite>35</cite></span></p>
<p>In summary, Barth argues that Jesus has effectively had faith in God on behalf each and every individual person. This means that the possibility of unbelief has been destroyed, and all people are now born again as new people who only have the freedom to believe in Christ and obey God. The old, unbelieving, sinful person has effectively been destroyed and renewed, just as Jesus died and was resurrected on the sinner's behalf.</p>
<p>So because of Jesus's death for all people, it is now impossible for any person to choose to <em>not</em> come to faith.</p>
<p>And this is not a one-off statement by Barth, either. According to another shorter summary of the same idea, Barth argues that God has acted "without us and against us and for us," such that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">what He [God] has done is not just something which applies to us and is intended for us, a proffered opportunity and possibility. In it He has actually taken us, embraced us, as it were surrounded us, seized us from behind and turned us back again to Himself.<cite>36</cite></span></p>
<p>Basically, God has decided that everyone has been reconciled to God, and God has turned everyone back to a right relationship with God, whether they recognize it or not, whether they choose it or not, and whether they even currently <em>want</em> it or not. Their old selves who rejected God or were hostile to God are effectively destroyed as much as if they were annihilated:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In and with the man who [died on the cross and] was taken down dead on Golgotha [i.e., Jesus], man the covenant-breaker [i.e., the sinner] is buried and destroyed. He has ceased to be. The wrath of God which is the fire of His love has taken him [i.e. the sinner] away and all his transgressions and offences and errors and follies and lies and faults and crimes against God and his fellowmen and himself, just as a whole burnt offering is consumed on the altar with the flesh and skin and bones and hoofs and horns, rising up as fire to heaven and disappearing. That is how God has dealt with the man who broke covenant with Himself.<cite>37</cite></span></p>
<p>So since all people have died with Christ and been destroyed, then</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">the existence of man as a sinner and all his transgressions are now behind him. Whatever else he may be, he will no longer be this man, the transgressor.... The being of the new man reconciled with God in Jesus Christ is one in which man has no more future as sinful man.<cite>38</cite></span></p>
<p>But then, why doesn't everyone currently believe in Jesus? Barth says it's not because they aren't justified or sanctified by God, because Barth claims:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Jesus Christ was born and died and rose again for all. The work of atonement, the conversion of man to God, was done for all. The Word of God is spoken to all. God’s verdict and direction and promise have been pronounced over all. To that extent, objectively, all are justified, sanctified, and called [by God].<cite>39</cite></span></p>
<p>In this above quotation Barth is alluding to Romans 8:30. So it seems to Barth that the reason everyone isn't currently a Christian is only because they lack awareness of what God has done for them, and so they can't confess the gospel or be obedient to the Holy Spirit:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It is not that they lack Jesus Christ and in Him the being of man reconciled to God. What they lack is obedience to his Holy Spirit, eyes and ears and hearts which are open to Him, experience and knowledge of the conversion of man to God which took place in Him, the new direction which must correspond to the new being given to them in Him, life in and with His community, a part in its ministry, the confession of Him and witness to Him as its Lord and as the Head of all men. For that reason the being of man reconciled to God in Jesus Christ is not—yet—reflected in them.<cite>40</cite></span></p>
<p>Although in the meantime a person "can still rebel and lie and fear, but only in conflict, in impotent conflict, with his most proper being".<cite>41</cite></p>
<p>But if so, then what benefit does Barth think it is to be a Christian?</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">[Christians] have over the rest of the world the one inestimable advantage that God the Reconciler and the event of reconciliation can be to them a matter of recognition and confession, until the day when He and it will be the subject of His revelation to all eyes and ears and hearts, and therefore of the recognition and confession of all men.<cite>42</cite></span></p>
<p>So it seems Barth thinks that at some point, God will reveal the truth to all people that they are already justified, sanctified, called, and reconciled to God.</p>
<p>Yet right now,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">[Christians exist] as examples, as the representatives and predecessors of all other men, of whom so long as their ears and eyes and hearts are not opened we can only say definitely that the same being in Jesus Christ is granted to them and belongs to them in Him. But Christians know and can declare what it is that belongs to them and all other men in Jesus Christ. And by the existence of the Christian we can make this clear. The being of man reconciled with God in Jesus Christ is reflected in the existence of the Christian. That is something we cannot say of others.<cite>43</cite></span></p>
<p>Therefore, in my reading of Barth, it seems the only difference he sees between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians recognize what God has done for us, and so we get the benefit of experiencing God's love, joy, peace, and so forth in our lives now. We also have the privilege of serving God as ambassadors to share this good news with others who don't know it yet (2 Corinthians 5:20).</p>
<p>I could have chosen to reference dozens more quotes from Barth that say basically the same things as these ones, because he repeats these ideas over and over in different ways throughout his <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1 §58. These are just some of the clearest and most concise examples that I found while reading for my comprehensive exams.</p>
<p>So as much as some fans of Barth might want to deny that Barth wasn't a universalist, I can't read Barth's doctrine of predestination and this very long section of his <em>Church Dogmatics</em> and not come to the conclusion that Barth was arguing for universalism. I don't think it's the case that myself or the other scholars who think likewise are only misinterpreting one or two unclear sentences of his.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 252-254.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 258-260, quote from 259.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Jack. W. Cottrell, "Response to Thomas B. Talbott" in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 276-277.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Jack. W. Cottrell, "Response to Thomas B. Talbott" in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 277.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Wyatt Houtz, <a href="https://postbarthian.com/2016/08/18/karl-barth-rejection-of-universalism/">"Karl Barth’s Rejection of Universalism,"</a> <em>The PostBarthian</em>, August 8, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Mark Galli, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/october-web-only/what-to-make-of-karl-barths-steadfast-adultery.html">"What to Make of Karl Barth's Steadfast Adultery,"</a> <em>Christianity Today</em>, October 20, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Some of the scholars who argue that Barth's doctrine of election implies universalism include Paul K. Jewett, <em>Election and Predestination</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), 51-54; Geoffrey W. Bromiley, <em>Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 97; Alister E. McGrath, <em>Christian Theology: An Introduction</em>, 6th ed. (Hoboken: Wiley, 2016), 348–349, citing Emil Brunner, <em>The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics</em>, Vol. 1, trans. Olive Wyon (London: Lutterworth Press, 1949), 346–351.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjU6Mi53amVv">"Dissertation 1: Concerning the End for Which God Created the World"</a>, <em>The Works of Jonathan Edwards</em> Vol. 8, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 443 and 533–536.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjQ6MTUud2plbw==">"Heaven Is A World of Love"</a>, <em>The Works of Jonathan Edwards</em> Vol. 8, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 366-397.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xNjoyMDoxLndqZW8=">"A Divine and Supernatural Light"</a>, <em>The Works of Jonathan Edwards</em> Vol. 17, ed. Mark Valeri (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 408-425.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> C.S. Lewis, “The Great Divorce,” in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 498-506.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> "He [God] proves Himself to be the stronger by the irresistible awakening power of His Holy Spirit. In the strength and in this proof he calls them [sinners] to faith. And in so doing He creates the presupposition on the basis of which the sinful man can and actually does believe.... When it is this One who closes the circle around him, a man can and must do that which he does in faith." Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §63 section 1, 752-753.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> "The obedience of faith is followed by the obedience of love — in practice, of course, it may sometimes precede, but it always accompanies it as a second form of the particular being of the Christian in Jesus Christ, which cannot be separated from the first but is quite distinct from it." Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 2, 102.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 2, 100.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity," in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 48. Clark Pinnock said something similar: "God desires us to reciprocate his love and gives us freedom to make this possible. But with free will comes the possibility that humans may fail to receive God's grace but instead reject it. Because love cannot be forced, it is possible that some will reject it—even ultimately and finally." (Clark Pinnock, "Response to Thomas B. Talbott," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 261.)</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, "God Limits His Control," in <em>Four Views on Divine Providence</em>, eds. Stanley N.Gundry and Dennis W. Jowers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 188-189.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Norman Geisler, "God Knows All Things," in <em>Predestination & Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty & Human Freedom</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1986), 69.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> C.S. Lewis. "The Screwtape Letters," in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), letter 8, 207.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> C.S. Lewis, "The Great Divorce," in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 506.</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> R. Michael Allen, <em>Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics: An Introduction and Reader</em> (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2012), 9.</li>
<li><strong>21.</strong> R. Michael Allen, <em>Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics: An Introduction and Reader</em> (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2012), 10.</li>
<li><strong>22.</strong> Mark Galli, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/october-web-only/what-to-make-of-karl-barths-steadfast-adultery.html">"What to Make of Karl Barth's Steadfast Adultery,"</a> <em>Christianity Today</em>, October 20, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>23.</strong> Justin Taylor, <a href="https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/what-should-evangelicals-make-of-karl-barth/">"What Should Evangelicals Make of Karl Barth?"</a>, <em>The Gospel Coalition</em>, February 22, 2016. Taylor attributes this quote to D.A. Carson. Another <a href="https://www.douglasdouma.com/2021/11/24/a-buswell-bite-on-barths-contradictions/">source</a> also appears to validate this story.<!--which quotes J. Oliver Buswell in "The Bible Today", June-September 1950, p. 261-262, where he said "Barth is always changing. My friend, Professor Samuel Hamilton, wrote him some years ago in the interests of a graduate student. The inquiry had to do with certain apparent contradictions in Barth’s commentary on Romans. Barth replied, 'Ja mein Herr Professor, that is so, I do contradict myself; so ist das Leben, Life is that way.' And he proceeded to point out a number of other contradictions in the same book! Changes and contradictions are characteristic of the Barthian literature from start to finish."--></li>
<li><strong>24.</strong> Karl Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 2.2, eds. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1957), 13.</li>
<li><strong>25.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 2.2, 25.</li>
<li><strong>26.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 2.2, 18.</li>
<li><strong>27.</strong> Roger E. Olson, <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/03/was-karl-barth-a-universalist-a-new-look-at-an-old-question/">"Was Karl Barth a Universalist? A New Look at an Old Question"</a>, Patheos.com, March 10, 2013. He cites several passages from Barth's <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 2.2, and this quote is from p.422, but Olson doesn't provide the publication info of the particular edition he was using.</li>
<li><strong>28.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 2.2, 18, 25.</li>
<li><strong>29.</strong> R. Michael Allen, <em>Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics: An Introduction and Reader</em> (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2012), 71.</li>
<li><strong>30.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 2.2, 26.</li>
<li><strong>31.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, "The Election of Jesus Christ," <em>Journal of Reformed Theology 2</em>, no. 2 (2008): 148.</li>
<li><strong>32.</strong> Geoffrey W. Bromiley, <em>Introduction to the Theology of Karl Barth</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979) 91.</li>
<li><strong>33.</strong> Karl Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, eds. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 2004), §58, section 2, 103.</li>
<li><strong>34.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §63 section 1, 746.</li>
<li><strong>35.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §63 section 1, 747. See also page 748, where he says again, "And it is the awakening power of the Holy Spirit that this impossibility as such and this necessity as such so confront a man and illuminate him that he does the only objective, real and ontological thing which he can do, not omitting or suppressing or withholding but necessarily speaking the Yes of the free act which corresponds to it, choosing that for which he is already chosen by the divine decision, and beside which he has no other choice, that is to say, faith."</li>
<li><strong>36.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 1, 88-89.</li>
<li><strong>37.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 2, 94. Thomas Talbott argues something similar when he says, in reference to Romans 9:22-23, that "a vessel of wrath just <em>is</em> the old person, even as a vessel of mercy just <em>is</em> the new creation in Christ....just as a new creation in Christ requires the absolute destruction of the old person, so every vessel of mercy represents the absolute destruction of some vessel of wrath."(Thomas B. Talbott, "Universal Reconciliation and the Inclusive Nature of Election," in <em>Perspectives On Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 245.)</li>
<li><strong>38.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 2, 94.</li>
<li><strong>39.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 4, 148. See also page 101 where he cites 1 Corinthians 1:30 as support for this idea that all people are justified and sanctified in Christ.</li>
<li><strong>40.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 2, 92-93.</li>
<li><strong>41.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 1, 91.</li>
<li><strong>42.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 4, 149.</li>
<li><strong>43.</strong> Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1, §58 section 2, 92-93.</li>
</ul>Does God Really Want To Save Everyone?2022-06-20T00:00:00+00:002022-06-20T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-06-20:/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/<p>If you have ever attended a Christian church, I hope that you would have heard things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).</li>
<li>"God shows his love for us …</li></ul><p>If you have ever attended a Christian church, I hope that you would have heard things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).</li>
<li>"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).</li>
<li>"God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins" (1 John 4:9-10, NLT).</li>
</ul>
<p>These are some of the clearest verses in the Bible that say that God's <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">offer of eternal life</a> is open to everyone and is free to accept, simply by believing that these verses are actually true. This is the core message of Christianity, also called the gospel, a.k.a. the "good news".</p>
<p>But does God really want to save <em>everyone?</em> If we say yes, then does that mean that everyone will be saved? Or if not everyone will be saved, is there something that prevents God from saving everyone? And what happens to people who never heard the gospel before they died?</p>
<p>These are challenging questions. If you are a Christian, you have probably either wondered about them, or been asked about them by someone else.</p>
<p>These questions have important implications for how Christians understand the gospel and how we share the gospel with others. Our answers to them will both affect and reflect our understanding of God's good and perfect character, and thus, this topic is related to the question of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-theodicy/">theodicy</a>, which has been something I've been focused on studying for the past eight years of my theological education.</p>
<p>After writing my PhD dissertation on Jonathan Edwards' understanding of predestination, I think I've finally solidified my answer to these questions. In my next few blog posts I will try to explain my answer in more detail.</p>
<p>I hope you'll find my answer to be encouraging, Biblically-sound, theologically persuasive, and that it will give you a passion to share the gospel with others, while still having hope for those who never heard it in their lifetimes.</p>
<h2>My Answer: Christian Inclusivism</h2>
<p>To get right down to business, I'll give you my shortest answers to the four questions I asked earlier:</p>
<ol>
<li>Does God want to save everyone? Yes, the Bible says so.</li>
<li>Will God save everyone? Not according to Scripture.</li>
<li>Why can't God save everyone? Because God is Love.</li>
<li>What about people who never heard the gospel before they died? They will get an opportunity to hear it and believe it at some point.</li>
</ol>
<p>In essence, this means I want to advocate for a position called Christian <em>inclusivism</em>. Inclusivism is only one of several possible answers that Christians may give to these questions. The alternatives to inclusivism are <em>exclusivism</em>, <em>universalism</em>, and <em>pluralism</em>.</p>
<p>Here's how I would briefly describe each of these positions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Exclusivism</strong>: only people who believed in Jesus and/or the only true God during their earthly lives will be eternally saved.</li>
<li><strong>Inclusivism</strong>: Christianity is the only true faith, but non-Christians can still be saved even if they didn't know about Jesus or believe in him during their earthly lives.</li>
<li><strong>Pluralism</strong>: all religions lead people to the same God and teach the same core values, so any religious person can be saved.</li>
<li><strong>Universalism</strong>: everyone will be saved, eventually.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Bible teaches that after death, people will only experience one of two possible outcomes: eternal life in a <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-christian-hope-of-resurrection/">resurrected body</a>, or eternal destruction that causes them to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">cease to exist</a>. Thus, Christians should care very much about the destiny of our friends and family members.</p>
<p>Regarding the question of whether God will save everyone, I believe that Christians end up taking one of the above four positions, whether we're fully aware of it or not. Yet as I will explain over the next few blog posts, I think that exclusivism, universalism, and pluralism all have more significant theological problems than inclusivism does.</p>
<p>Accepting some form of inclusivism can also give Christians a sense of hope and peace as we continue to witness to and pray for our loved ones who have not yet believed in Jesus. Furthermore, in order for Christians to take all the verses in the Bible seriously and to uphold God's perfectly good and loving character, I think we actually <em>need</em> to have some sort of theory of inclusivism.</p>
<p>For now, in the rest of this post I want to explain why I reject exclusivism due to a number of practical and theological problems. In my next post, I'll take on universalism, and after that, I'll discuss pluralism. Finally, in a future post I'll give an outline of my own theory of Christian inclusivism.</p>
<h2>Does God Want To Save Everyone?</h2>
<p>The first question we need to answer is whether God truly <em>wants</em> everyone to have the possibility of being eternally saved. How we answer this question will significantly influence our theology, and the range of possible answers effectively divides Christians into two main groups:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Those who say yes, God does want to save everyone and so everyone truly has the opportunity to be saved. The only reason that anyone comes to believe in Jesus is due to the continual working of the Holy Spirit in their hearts to draw all people to Jesus, but people can <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">choose to resist</a> this supernatural influence, thus rejecting God's offer of salvation.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Those who say no, God does not want to save everyone. Instead, God only wants to save a special group of people (a.k.a. "the elect"), and usually, it is claimed that this special group of people is only a small group when compared to all people who have ever lived. Supposedly, Jesus only died for the sins of this special group of people. God then makes sure that these special people will hear the gospel and believe it through the work of the Holy Spirit, who will guarantee that these people come to believe in Jesus at some point in their lives. People who are not specially chosen by God will never believe the gospel, and so they will face the eternal consequences for their lack of faith.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Generally, Christians who agree with point number 1 tend to uphold the role of human free will as being the deciding factor in why some people are saved and others are not. Often, these Christians identify as Arminians or open theists, but they may also be Catholics, Wesleyans, Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostals.</p>
<p>Alternatively, Christians who agree with point number 2 will strongly emphasize God's sovereign choice as being the deciding factor for why some people are saved and others are not. This idea is called double predestination, and Christians who uphold this idea often identify as followers of John Calvin, Martin Luther, or the early church theologian Augustine, and are often found in the Reformed and Lutheran branches of Christianity, but also among some groups of Baptists.</p>
<p>As I've talked about in a few past blog posts <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">here</a> and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-predestination/">here</a>, I believe that there are too many problems with the theory of double predestination for me to accept it as the reason for why some people will be eternally saved while others are not.</p>
<p>Additionally, if we go back to the original question of whether God really wants to save everyone, I think the Bible provides an incredibly clear answer:</p>
<p>God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:3-4). God "does not want <em>anyone</em> to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent" (2 Peter 3:9, NLT).</p>
<p>But surely, <em>everyone</em> doesn't include extremely bad people, right?</p>
<p>"Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign Lord. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live" (Ezekiel 18:23, NLT).</p>
<p>Can we confirm this?</p>
<p>"As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live" (Ezekiel 33:11, NLT).</p>
<p>How much more clear does God have to be that he definitely does not want <em>anyone</em> to be eternally destroyed?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, some Christian theologians like Jonathan Edwards have taught that God wants to send most sinners to hell, which is the exact opposite of what these verses above say.</p>
<h2>Jonathan Edwards Rejected The Idea That God Wants to Save Everyone</h2>
<p>At the end of his book <em>Freedom of the Will</em>, Edwards concluded that although,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Christ in some sense may be said to die for all, and to redeem all visible Christians, yea, the whole world by his death; yet there must be something particular in the design of his death, with respect to such as he intended should actually be saved thereby. As appears by what has been now shown, God has the actual salvation or redemption of a certain number in his proper, absolute design, and of a certain number only.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>Yet in my research on Edwards, I couldn't find any instances where he attempted to explain or reinterpret any of the verses like the ones above that blatantly contradict his statement.</p>
<p>This is particularly strange given that Edwards has been called “the most formidable defender of Calvinism in the history of North America”.<cite>2</cite> Is the <em>best</em> defender of Calvinism in North America really unable or unwilling to explain how he understood these verses? That seems to be a major red flag that there's a serious problem with his theology.</p>
<p>Edwards certainly was aware of these verses, since he cited 1 Timothy 2:3-4 and 2 Peter 3:9 a few times in some of his writings.<cite>3</cite> Yet in these instances he didn't attempt to explain these verses in any further detail. Thus it is unclear what Edwards actually thought these verses meant.</p>
<p>Of course, I've seen various other Calvinistic authors attempt to explain these verses in ways that are compatible with double predestination. However, the only way they can do this is by reinterpreting "all", "everyone," and "anyone" to actually mean only "some people" or even "only a few people". However, I don't see any justification for these interpretations in these verses themselves.</p>
<p>An example of such an unusual interpretation is found when Edwards tried to refute John Taylor’s universalistic interpretations of Romans 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 which seem to say that Christ died for everyone. To do this, Edwards said that the word "all" in these verses doesn't really mean <em>all</em>. Instead, Edwards made a distinction between "all" who are "in Adam" (i.e., every human) and "all" who are "in Christ" (i.e., only those people who are saved).<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>Yet Edwards' approach is ironic, because elsewhere Edwards protested when Taylor suddenly interprets a word in a different sense than he interpreted it earlier in the same verse, although this is precisely what Edwards just did here.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>Edwards also flip-flopped on the issue of whether Christ truly died for everyone within a single sermon!</p>
<p>In "The Many Mansions," Edwards first said that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">There is mercy enough in God to admit an innumerable multitude into heaven: there is mercy enough for all. And there is merit enough in Christ to purchase heavenly happiness for millions of millions, for all men that ever were, are, or shall be. And there is a sufficiency in the fountain of heaven’s happiness to supply, and fill, and satisfy all: and there is in all respects enough for the happiness of all.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Sounds good, right? But then suddenly, a few paragraphs later, he said that "when heaven was made, it was intended and prepared for all those particular persons that God had from eternity designed to save."<cite>7</cite> I.e., not everyone.</p>
<p>Then at the end of his sermon, Edwards evangelistically appealed to sinners to "seek heaven" for "there is suitable provision there for you." He argued that because God invites sinners to believe in the gospel, then each person is actually so invited, for God cannot lie.<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>Yet if double predestination is true, then God actually <em>hasn't</em> genuinely invited everyone to believe the gospel, because advocates of double predestination claim that God only gives the ability to believe and accept his offer to the elect people that God wants to save.</p>
<p>Or at best, God's offer of salvation to the non-elect would be as genuine as a party host who silently displays an invitation to a blind man who cannot read it, yet the host still claims that the blind man was properly 'invited' to the party.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>Edwards' sermon here shows the contradictions that preachers who believe in double predestination face when they try to be evangelists.</p>
<p>Ultimately, I believe that Edwards' statement that God only wants to save a certain number of people was based not on Scripture, but on his philosophical assumptions about God's sovereignty and God's foreknowledge. From these assumptions, Edwards thought that God controls absolutely everything, and so there is no room for human free will to explain why some people are saved and others aren't.</p>
<p>Thus, Edwards reasoned that if not everyone is saved, that's because God doesn't want to save them, since "we may justly infer what God intends by what he actually does, because he does nothing inadvertently, or without design."<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>Based on the extremely clear Bible verses that we looked at earlier, though, I am not convinced that Edwards' view is Biblically accurate. I also think his claim that God wants to send most people to hell is the biggest contradiction in his theology, which I discuss <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">here</a>.</p>
<p>However, the problem that Jonathan Edwards faced about whether God truly wants to save everyone is also faced by Christians who identify as exclusivists. That's because even if exclusivists don't overtly claim to believe in double predestination, I think it is actually implied in their theology, as I'll explain in the next section.</p>
<h2>The Problem With Exclusivism</h2>
<p>If inclusivists say that non-Christians can still be saved even if they didn't know about Jesus or believe in him during their earthly lives, then exclusivism is the exact opposite. Christian exclusivists say that everyone who never believed in Jesus during their lifetimes are automatically destined for hell.</p>
<p>A short case for exclusivism could be made by appealing to the Biblical statement that "each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27, NLT).</p>
<p>Jesus' parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) might also appear to be evidence for this position if it is taken literally. In this parable, once once the rich man died, there was no way out of the fire he found himself stuck in, and all he cared about was that his living family members would change their minds so they wouldn't end up in the same place.</p>
<p>Other instances where the Bible talks about individuals facing God's final judgment and hell are often read similarly by exclusivists to imply that after death there is no chance for anyone to repent or change their eternal destinies.</p>
<p>The strictest proponents of exclusivism would also say that individuals who accept the gospel in their lifetimes have to continue believing in Jesus until they die. If they fall away from faith, they will also end up in hell. (I would strongly <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">disagree</a>, though.)</p>
<p>Exclusivists do make exceptions for people who died before Jesus was resurrected, provided that these people knew something about the only true God and had faith in him. Some of these people are listed in Hebrews 11, such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham. Job is another example, because even though he didn't know all the details, he confessed that "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God" (Job 19:25-26).</p>
<p>Many exclusivists also make exceptions for children who died before they were able to make a personal decision to believe in Jesus. Exceptions are also usually made for people who never had the mental capacity to understand and respond to the gospel. However, exclusivists' arguments for why God can make exceptions for these sorts of people are not always theologically persuasive.<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>For example, when talking about the salvation of children, some Christians argue that as long as children die before they reach the 'age of accountability', these children will be saved.<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>But this raises questions about exactly at what age someone reaches this age of accountability, or how much mental capacity is necessary to understand and believe the gospel. Some exclusivists might argue that only God knows these things for certain, since they could be different for each person.</p>
<p>The practical problem with this idea is that if a Christian's child dies, it would be difficult for a pastor to reassure the parent that they will see their child again in heaven, since no one but God can know if the child was past his or her personal 'age of accountability' or had the mental capacity to believe in Jesus.</p>
<p>Even worse, this idea could lead to the mistaken belief that it could be a loving thing to kill a child before they reach the age of accountability in order to ensure that the child will go to heaven.<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>So already, it seems there are some major questions and difficulties for Christian exclusivism.</p>
<p>One possible benefit of exclusivism is that it can strongly encourage evangelism. If we truly believe that every person who doesn't personally profess belief in Christ in this life is going to face eternal destruction, then it seems that Christians should be constantly preaching to every non-Christian we come across that they need to believe in Jesus. Otherwise, aren't we all horrible people who don't care that someone might drop dead at any moment without having had a chance to accept the gospel?</p>
<p>I used to think this way, and I often felt guilty because I wasn't sharing the gospel with everyone I knew. I felt I was selfish because I usually cared too much about what someone might think of me to risk ruining their impression of me by sharing the gospel with them. I worried that if my friend, unbelieving family member, or even a random person I passed on the street would die without ever hearing the message that I could have shared with them, then God would hold me accountable for why that person ended up in hell. I thought this way of thinking was supported by verses like Ezekiel 33:8-9.</p>
<p>However, an even more serious problem for exclusivism is that if it were true, then everyone who lived in times or places where they weren't able to know anything about the only true God or the gospel would seem to be automatically condemned to hell.</p>
<p>If so, then it seems that we're back to double predestination, because it is God who chooses when and where groups of people will live (Acts 17:26). Yet how could God justly eternally destroy such people for not believing in Jesus, when they never had a chance to hear about him?</p>
<p>Exclusivists often reply to this question by claiming that all people have had access to 'general revelation', which is the knowledge about God that everyone should be able to gain from looking at nature, as Paul says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Romans 1:19-21)</span></span></p>
<p>Based on this verse, exclusivists argue that general revelation is only enough to condemn people and not enough to save them, because nature can't teach anything about Jesus or the gospel (a.k.a. 'special revelation').<cite>14</cite></p>
<p>But the problem for exclusivists is even more difficult, because they also need to account for everyone who might have heard the gospel but who didn't understand it or who rejected it prematurely. For example, Thomas B. Talbott argues,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In this life, of course, we rarely, if ever, choose in a context of full clarity. We all emerge and start making choices in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and illusion, where God remains at least partly hidden from us. But that merely makes matters worse.... For insofar as God remains hidden from us and we do not fully understand the true nature of God or the consequences of separating ourselves from him, we are in no position to reject the true God at all. We may reject a caricature of God, as frequently happens in a context of ambiguity, ignorance, and misperception; but we are in no position to reject the true God until our ignorance has been removed and our misjudgments have been corrected.<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>I think Talbott raises a good point here. Many Christians know of people who have been turned away from Christianity by seeing negative Christian examples in the world, or who might have been personally hurt by someone who identified as a Christian. Some of these people's negative impressions of the gospel or of Christians could be so strong that it permanently turns them away from ever reconsidering their need for Jesus and his amazing <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">free offer of eternal life</a>.</p>
<p>How could it be fair for a Christian who hurt someone or presented the gospel badly to be eternally saved, but the person who they hurt or turned away from Jesus is eternally destroyed?</p>
<p>We might also picture the scenario of a woman who has never heard the gospel. She arrives in Toronto, and happens to walk by a street preacher in a busy downtown square. Over the megaphone, she hears John 3:16. Yet as she steps out onto Yonge street, she is hit by a city bus and is killed instantly. Would it be right for God to eternally destroy her because she didn't immediately respond to the gospel the very first time she heard it?</p>
<p>Thus, exclusivism not only puts a lot of pressure on Christians to share the gospel, but also pressures us to make sure we share the gospel perfectly, and also live perfect lives in order to make sure we never do anything that might turn someone against Christianity or the gospel.</p>
<p>But since Christians will always still be imperfect in this life (Romans 7:14-25), and nobody has all of their theology perfectly straightened out (1 Corinthians 13:12), then it seems that God is expecting perfect performance from imperfect people. Our failures then lead Christians to worry that we might be the reason why someone who God wants to save will be eternally destroyed.</p>
<p>An easy way to get around all this guilt and fear would be to say that if God truly wants these people to be saved, then he'll get through to them somehow before they die. If not, then maybe God doesn't want to save them after all, and they really <em>are</em> predestined to be eternally destroyed in hell?</p>
<p>Yet because of the verses shown earlier, we know this conclusion can't possibly be true.</p>
<h2>A Critique of William Lane Craig's Appeal to Middle Knowledge</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, double predestination is implied even by exclusivists like William Lane Craig who advocate for free will, unlike Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, and Martin Luther who rejected the idea of free will and argued for double predestination.</p>
<p>When Craig attempts to explain why it is that not everyone will be saved by appealing to the concept of God's 'middle knowledge', Craig also ends up advocating for a theory of double predestination.</p>
<p>Middle knowledge is the idea that God knows exactly what each of us would freely do in any situation we might be placed in. So Craig asks:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Why God, if he desires all people to be saved, should create a world in which so many people are lost and eternally damned. For by his middle knowledge, God knew under what circumstances any person he might create would freely receive Christ. So why did he not plan his creation of persons and circumstances in such a way that everyone would freely be saved?<cite>16</cite></span></p>
<p>Craig's answer is that perhaps it is impossible for God to create a world where everyone freely believes in Jesus, because there might be some people who would never freely receive Christ in any circumstance.</p>
<p>Basically, he says that in any world God could create, "some people, no matter how much the Spirit of God worked on their hearts, no matter how favorable their upbringing, no matter how many times or ways they heard the gospel, would still refuse to bow the knee and give their lives to Christ."<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>But if God truly wants everyone to be saved, then why would God create these people that God knows will never accept the gospel? Craig argues that it might be impossible for God to create a world where no one would reject God's offer of salvation. Or, if God could create such a world, there might be very few people in it.</p>
<p>So Craig theorizes that God might have decided that it's better to create a lot of people, in order to maximize the number of people who God knows will be saved, even if it means that God also has to create many people who God knows will never accept Christ in any circumstance.<cite>18</cite></p>
<p>However, if God really knows through his middle knowledge who will freely accept him and who won't, then if God chooses to create people that God knows will never accept him, God is effectively predestining them to hell. Thus, Craig ends up indirectly arguing for double predestination. this is why I think the idea of middle knowledge is ultimately deterministic even if it acknowledges free will, as I've talked about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/open-theism-and-bible-prophecy/">here</a>.</p>
<p>(A a side note, Arminians who believe in God's perfect foreknowledge of everyone's free choices also have a similar problem, because if God perfectly foreknows that some people definitely will never accept the gospel, but God creates them anyway, then God is effectively predestining those people to hell.)</p>
<p>But as difficult as Craig's theory already is, Craig goes on to make things even worse. This happens when he suggests that:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It is possible that God in his providence so arranged the world that those who never in fact hear the gospel are persons who would not respond to it if they did hear it. God brings the gospel to all those who he knows will respond to it if they hear it. Thus the motivation for the missionary enterprise is to be God's ambassadors in bringing the gospel to those whom God has arranged to freely receive it when they hear it. No one who would respond if he [or she] heard it will be lost.<cite>19</cite></span></p>
<p>This part of Craig's argument is troubling, because for large portions of history the gospel was mostly limited to certain parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.</p>
<p>Does Craig really think that the Incas, Australian Aborigines, and the ancient Chinese, among others, were entirely composed of people who would have rejected the gospel in any possible circumstance? What about people living today on North Sentinel Island—an extremely isolated tribe of people who are hostile to all outsiders?</p>
<p>Yet the Bible says that in the new heavens and new Earth, there will be people from <em>every</em> tribe, nation, language, and people group (Revelation 5:9-10, 7:9). This must include people who lived in times or places where Christians or Jews had not yet sent missionaries, and who had no access to the Bible.</p>
<p>Exclusivism seems to deny that such a situation is possible, and so it fails because it cannot handle all the Biblical evidence. Craig's theory about middle knowledge fails for the exact same reason.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Therefore, as much as I love the passion that exclusivists often feel to share the gospel with others, I think exclusivism isn't the best position for Christians to take. It has too many practical problems, and isn't compatible with the Biblical truths that God wants to save all people, and that at least one person from every single tribe, nation, language, and people group will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>The only alternatives to exclusivism are either universalism, pluralism, or inclusivism. For this reason, Christians who believe that God truly wants to save everyone might be drawn to these options.</p>
<p>However, both universalism and pluralism have their own problems, as I will talk about in future blog posts. As a result, I think that Christians need to have some sort of Biblically-supported and theologically-sound theory of inclusivism. This is a challenge which I hope to make an attempt at in a future blog post.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em>, in <em>The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 1, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 435. In the rest of these footnotes I will refer to <em>The Works of Jonathan Edwards</em> as WJE, followed by the volume number and omitting the editors, for brevity. All of these sources can be found online at Yale's Jonathan Edwards Center <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/research/browse">website</a>.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Mark A. Noll, “Edwards, Jonathan,” in <em>The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought</em>, ed. Alister E. McGrath et al. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) 145.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> These are found in Jonathan Edwards' sermon "The Dreadful Silence of the Lord," in WJE 19: 111. He also mentions 2 Peter 3:9 in passing in "End of Creation," in WJE 8: 504 and “Miscellanies,” no. 669 in WJE 18: 214.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Original Sin</em>, in WJE 3: 322–325.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Original Sin</em>, in WJE 3: 331.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, "The Many Mansions," in WJE 19: 739.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, "The Many Mansions," in WJE 19: 740.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, "The Many Mansions," in WJE 19: 742–743.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Does God Love Everyone?: The Heart of What is Wrong with Calvinism</em> (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 19.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, "End of Creation," in WJE 8: 427.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <a href="https://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/5/do-infants-go-heaven-when-they-die/">“Do Infants Go to Heaven When They Die?”</a> <em>Eternal Perspective Ministries</em>, January 5, 2010.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> F. Leroy Forlines, <em>Classical Arminianism</em> (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publishers, 2011), 236-246.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> If we think no parent would act like this, it actually happened in the sad example of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children because she believed it would save them from going to hell. Cynthia Mcfadden, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130284">"Yates: I'm Saving My Kids From Hell"</a>, <em>ABC News</em>, June 14, 2002.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle, <em>Erasing Hell</em> (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2011), 158-161.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Thomas B. Talbott, "Response by Thomas B. Talbott" in <em>Perspectives on Election: 5 Views</em>, ed. Chad Owen Brand (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2006), 144.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> William Lane Craig, <em>The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom</em> (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2000), 145.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> William Lane Craig, <em>The Only Wise God</em>, 147.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> William Lane Craig, <em>The Only Wise God</em>, 147-150.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> William Lane Craig, <em>The Only Wise God</em>, 151.</li>
</ul>Have the Courage To Be Disliked2022-01-25T00:00:00+00:002022-01-25T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-01-25:/article/have-courage-to-be-disliked/<p>If there's one trait that I think we need in order to be strong Christians in our world today, it's the courage to be disliked. At worst, we might even need the courage to be outright <em>hated</em>.</p>
<p>Of course, no one wants to be disliked or hated. That's why peer …</p><p>If there's one trait that I think we need in order to be strong Christians in our world today, it's the courage to be disliked. At worst, we might even need the courage to be outright <em>hated</em>.</p>
<p>Of course, no one wants to be disliked or hated. That's why peer pressure is so strong. But if we always go along with the crowd just so that others will like us or accept us, then there's a chance that we'll end up in places we don't want to be.</p>
<p>For example, you might be familiar with a poem that was written by Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor who lived in Nazi Germany:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>The same idea is effectively summed up in the saying that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."</p>
<p>However, the easiest thing to do is to speak out against evil before it reaches the point where greater action becomes necessary. In this post, I hope to encourage you to speak out against evil, even if it means that you might face criticism, rejection, or even persecution for it.</p>
<h2>Christians Need To Speak Out Against Evil</h2>
<p>Today, we look back with admiration at people like Niemoller and others who stood up against evil, even if they suffered for doing so. But just because some forms of evil were overcome in the past doesn't mean that we no longer need to be on our guard.</p>
<p>Indeed, some astute observers of politics and history worry that a majority of people in our supposedly-tolerant Western societies are being psychologically formed and indoctrinated right now, to get them to go along with yet-another scheme of persecution against a new minority of people. These commentators worry that government-backed persecution of this new minority group could be right around the corner, and the indoctrinated majority will go along with it, possibly leading to new atrocities.</p>
<p>This possibility is certainly worrying, but it shouldn't be surprising.</p>
<p>Satan still wants to do what he has always wanted to do: steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Our sinful human nature also means that we're all inclined to act in selfish ways, even at the expense of others.</p>
<p>Additionally, Paul warns us that as time goes on, "evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy 3:13). Increasing deception is thus a sign of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">approaching end-times</a>.</p>
<p>After all, Paul warns us about the "man of lawlessness" (a.k.a, the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>) who will rise to power during the future Tribulation, after the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">Rapture</a> occurs. This man will deceive the world by declaring himself to be God in the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). His powerful religious supporter will convince most people to worship an image of the Antichrist, and to take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> that will allow those who do take it to buy and sell (Revelation 13:11-17). Then, persecution of Christians and others who refuse the Mark will become so severe that many will be beheaded (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<p>But Paul says that currently, someone is restraining the Antichrist from making his appearance on the world stage (2 Thessalonians 2:7-8). Many Biblical end-times commentators speculate about who this "restrainer" could be. Two frequent suggestions I've read are that the restrainer could be the Holy Spirit, or maybe, the Church. Maybe both are correct, since, in this age, the Holy Spirit is especially at work in the world through the Church, comprised of all true believers in Jesus who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit.</p>
<p>This interpretation fits well with how Jesus says that Christians act like salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Through our actions and prayers, we preserve the world from decaying faster into sin than it already is (like how salt preserves raw meat), and our witness to the truth helps God hold off the spiritual darkness that wants to overcome it (like how light banishes darkness). Supporting verses for this interpretation could include John 1:4-5 and Luke 22:53. Thus, it seems clear that Christians have a role to play in helping God promote righteousness and resist evil in the world.</p>
<p>But once the Church is removed from this world in the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">Rapture</a>, then evil will quickly reach its ultimate peak. It will result in the Tribulation, which is described in the Bible as seven years of suffering that will be so bad that if Jesus didn't shorten it, no one on earth would survive (Matthew 24:22).</p>
<p>So as Christians, we need to be on the lookout for evil so that we can stand against it. Otherwise, evil will only grow worse and worse. Therefore, there will come times when we must speak out, even though doing so won't be popular, easy, or even safe. When that time comes, we'll need courage.</p>
<p>In the rest of this post, I want to highlight some Bible verses that can encourage us all to do what's right and speak out on behalf of the truth and for righteousness, even if some people dislike us for it, and even if it makes us potential targets for criticism, rejection, or persecution.</p>
<h2>Following Jesus Won't Make People Like You</h2>
<p>It's important to remember that as Christians, our goal isn't to make everyone like us. Our calling is to follow Jesus, and to fulfill the great commission (Matthew 28:19-20) by telling everyone that they can have eternal life only by <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believing in Jesus</a>. So if we're following Jesus, then all we have to do is to look at how people treated Jesus, and we'll know what sort of treatment we should expect.</p>
<p>Jesus said "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24, NRSV).</p>
<p>Back in Jesus' time, death by crucifixion wasn't just extremely painful, but it was also humiliating, and so it was reserved for the worst criminals. So when Jesus tells us that we'll have to take up our own crosses in order to follow him, we shouldn't expect it to be easy, and we shouldn't think that we'll never be criticized, disliked, or hated for it.</p>
<p>In fact, Jesus told his followers "If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:19).</p>
<p>Thus, Christians shouldn't expect any better treatment from the world than the world gave to Jesus when he was here. Jesus said he was hated for no good reason (John 15:25), and so he consoles us with the reminder that "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you" (John 15:18).</p>
<p>The world's hatred of Christ will overflow into outright persecution of Christians, for Jesus said "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:20). Note how Jesus says here that they <em>will</em> persecute us, not that they only <em>might</em> persecute us.</p>
<p>Therefore, I am very suspicious when the world seems to celebrate and revere certain Christian leaders today (e.g., the Pope). I think that if these influential Christians were really doing their job and were preaching the true gospel, the world wouldn't love them nearly as much as it seems to.</p>
<p>After all, Jesus warns: "Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets" (Luke 6:26).</p>
<p>The world loves to hear things that make it feel good, as Paul warned Timothy: "The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths" (2 Timothy 4:2-4).</p>
<p>That's just a little encouragement to look carefully at any Christian that the world seems to celebrate. Pay attention to what they're teaching, and be discerning about whether it lines up with the Bible or not. Because if we're preaching the real gospel, history tells us that we should expect to face opposition.</p>
<h2>Biblical Examples of Persecution For Preaching The Gospel</h2>
<p>So if Jesus said that his followers would be persecuted and hated, how did that work out for the early church?</p>
<p>Well, pretty much right away after Jesus ascended to heaven, the disciples started getting in trouble with the religious authorities in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>In one incident in Acts chapter 5, the High Priest had a bunch of the disciples arrested and put in jail. But God sent an angel to free them, and told them to go back to preaching in the temple like they had been doing.</p>
<p>When the High Priest found out about their miraculous escape, he wasn't happy, and so he had the disciples arrested again and brought in front of the Sanhedrin. The High Priest asked them why they were continuing to preach when they had been told not to.</p>
<p>Peter simply replied "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).</p>
<p>As a result, the Sanhedrin</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they [the disciples] left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Acts 5:40-42)</span></span></p>
<p>It definitely took courage for the disciples to disobey the most important religious leaders in their country, and go right back to doing what had gotten them in trouble in the first place. Like Peter said, the only reason they had the courage to do this was because they knew that obeying God is more important than pleasing people.</p>
<p>Paul also was persecuted as he went around preaching and founding new churches across the Roman Empire. Yet he said something very similar: "just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts" (1 Thessalonians 2:4).</p>
<p>Even back in the Old Testament times, people who preached God's true word and called out society on its sin were persecuted for it.</p>
<p>Stephen asked the Pharisees, "Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it" (Acts 7:51-53).</p>
<p>Of course, saying this certainly didn't make the Pharisees happy, and they stoned Stephen to death (Acts 7:54-60). Ironically, their doing do only proved Stephen's point.</p>
<p>This incident with Stephen might remind us of how the author of Hebrews discusses some of the great 'heroes of the faith' in Hebrews chapter 11. This list ends with a summary of many others who were persecuted because of their faith:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Hebrews 11:35-38)</span></span></p>
<p>One of the most famous examples of such a person was the prophet Elijah. At the end of Elijah's ministry he felt like a failure because he had to flee through the desert and hide in a cave, in order to save himself from being killed for the things he said to the evil king and queen.</p>
<p>He complained to God that "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away" (1 Kings 19:10).</p>
<p>Another example was John the Baptist, who was executed as a result of how he spoke out against the immorality of how Herod married the wife of Herod's own brother (Mark 6:17-28).</p>
<p>So all these examples show us that in general, people who speak God's word accurately to the world and who condemn sin won't be popular. At worst, speaking truth to those in power can result in torture and/or death, as it did for many people who followed God in the past.</p>
<p>However, it's worth standing up for God's truth and for righteousness, not only because doing so can help push back against evil, but because God promises us that we'll be rewarded if we suffer for His cause.</p>
<h2>You'll Be Blessed If You Suffer For Doing What's Right</h2>
<p>The apostle Peter has a reminder for Christians when we're afraid of speaking out because of what others might say about us:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 Peter 4:12-14)</span></span></p>
<p>So Christians shouldn't be surprised when we face opposition and persecution. And yes, that does mean <em>when</em> we face persecution, not <em>if</em>, even though the persecution we face may be as minor as having someone dislike us because of something we said in defense of the truth.</p>
<p>Also, in the above verse, Peter actually says that we should <em>rejoice</em> when we suffer for Christ by being insulted by others, because of how we know we'll be rewarded when Jesus finally appears.</p>
<p>Paul showed a similar attitude, when he said, "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).</p>
<p>Jesus himself said that when we're called names or slandered or misrepresented for his cause, we can trust that we'll be eternally rewarded for it:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Matthew 5:11-12)</span></span></p>
<p>Or, to the same effect,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Luke 6:22-23)</span></span></p>
<p>Who would've thought that we could earn eternal rewards by simply being disliked for speaking the truth? Maybe we should want this to happen a little more frequently! However, that's provided that we're treating those who disagree with us rightly, so that we don't give them a <em>legitimate</em> reason to dislike us.</p>
<h2>How Should Christians Treat Those Who Dislike Us?</h2>
<p>Just because we will face persecution by some people, though, doesn't mean that we have an excuse to mistreat the people who dislike us. Thus, as we speak out for truth and righteousness, let's remember to keep in mind what the Bible says about how we should treat those who persecute us:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust"</em> (Matthew 5:43-45).</li>
<li><em>"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them"</em> (Romans 12:14).</li>
<li><em>"But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame"</em> (1 Peter 3:15-16).</li>
<li><em>"Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless"</em> (1 Peter 3:8).</li>
<li><em>"A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap"</em> (2 Timothy 2:24-26, NLT).</li>
</ul>
<p>So, by acting in these ways, we're not only earning heavenly rewards and demonstrating God's love to those who are persecuting us, but we might also win over our opponents and gain an ally. In all three of these ways, then, we win.</p>
<h2>What Practical Things Can We Do?</h2>
<p>Are you feeling encouraged after reading these verses? I hope so.</p>
<p>Of course, it might also seem scary to stand up and speak out on important issues of our times, since there's a chance that we might become the target for someone's anger or hatred. But the only other option is to stay quiet and let evil continue to grow in our society, until it gets so bad that it does break out into full-out persecution of some group of people or another. Let's not make the same mistake that Martin Niemoller did, and stay quiet when we should be speaking out.</p>
<p>Not only that, but if we never stand up for anything, then effectively, we'll be no one and we'll never do anything important, out of fear of possibly offending someone. But then we'll end up like the servant in Jesus's parable who never made use of the resources that he was given to serve his Lord, and who was then criticized for his inaction when his Lord returned (Matthew 25:24-30).</p>
<p>So while we might face a little temporary discomfort, if we're insulted for holding on to solid Biblical truths or for speaking out about what's right, we're in good company. Many prophets were disliked. Jesus was disliked. Paul and the disciples were disliked. It's okay to be disliked, even if it feels like we're all alone.</p>
<p>However, what's helpful to remember is that if many people speak out together, then we're no longer alone.</p>
<p>For example, let's return to the story of Elijah. He complained that he was the only one left in Israel who hadn't given in to evil. Yet God told him that that no, he wasn't alone. In fact, there were <em>seven thousand</em> other people left in Israel who also hadn't given in to evil (1 Kings 19:18).</p>
<p>So although Elijah felt alone, he wasn't. If Elijah had only known about all these other people who agreed with him, then how much easier might it have been for him to endure his persecution?</p>
<p>In our world today, the silence of Christians and other good people who don't want to offend anyone helps make it appear that the small groups of very vocal people who denigrate Biblical truth and righteousness have far greater support than they actually do.</p>
<p>This effect is even more pronounced when the media takes these vocal groups' side and amplifies their voices, while silencing their critics. Thus, I think it's helpful to follow both mainstream media and alternative media, and to intentionally go out of our way to read both sides of important issues. In this way, I hope we can avoid letting ourselves be bullied into thinking that only one view is acceptable to hold, based only on how loud one side is.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the right response to the vocal people who criticize Biblical truth or morality isn't to stay quiet in hope that they won't insult us, because they dislike us anyway just for believing what we do. Instead, we should stand together with others who also value Biblical truth and righteousness, and let our voices be heard.</p>
<p>By making our voices heard, we'll also encourage others who agree with us that they're not alone, which will give them greater courage to speak out, too. Perhaps, then, immorality and deception can be restrained just a little longer, and we can prevent evil from gaining more power in our societies, thus warding off injustice and the atrocities that will occur if evil goes unchecked.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So, if you see something happening in the news or in your community that you disagree with, then say something!</p>
<p>As a start, talk to your family and friends about it, and let your opinion be known. Write to your politicians and your school-board representatives. Send in letters to the editors of news organizations to tell them your opinion on the positions they're pushing, even if your feedback is never published. Comment on online news articles, and share articles you agree with on social media. But if you do get into a discussion with others who disagree with you, remember to love them and treat them with respect.</p>
<p>Because if you say nothing, no one will be able to say that they agree with you. And that will make it harder for people who do agree with you to feel comfortable speaking out. And then that leads into a downward spiral where everyone is too afraid to say anything, and evil gains the upper hand. When actually, if we just spoke out, we might realize that there are more people who agree with us than we expected, and together, we could make a difference in our society for good.</p>
<p>But remember: even if you're insulted by some people, or the worst happens and you <em>do</em> have to stand alone against the world, you're in the very good company of the prophets, disciples, the early church, and Jesus himself. Then, when you finally stand before Jesus, he'll tell you "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21), which is of infinitely more value than any other person's opinion of you.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Martin Niemoller, <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists">"First They Came For The Socialists,"</a> Holocaust Encyclopedia. Accessed January 24, 2022.</li>
</ul>Why I Wrote My Dissertation on Predestination2022-01-05T00:00:00+00:002022-01-05T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2022-01-05:/article/why-study-predestination/<p>As part of my preparation for my dissertation defence in August 2021, I was asked to think about why my doctoral research matters to the church.</p>
<p>At first glance, I admit that my investigation into why the eighteenth-century Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards believed that God predestines most people to hell …</p><p>As part of my preparation for my dissertation defence in August 2021, I was asked to think about why my doctoral research matters to the church.</p>
<p>At first glance, I admit that my investigation into why the eighteenth-century Puritan theologian Jonathan Edwards believed that God predestines most people to hell doesn't appear all that relevant to Christians today.</p>
<p>Sure, there's a few die-hard Edwards fans out there who would probably be interested in the topic. It's also an interesting question for historical theologians, since there's no consensus about why Edwards affirmed <em>double predestination</em> (i.e., the idea that God has chosen, from eternity past, who will be saved and who will be condemned to hell, and people have no influence over God's eternal decision).</p>
<p>A few theologians have also noted some inconsistencies and contradictions in Edwards' theology surrounding the issue of predestination, but no one has analyzed his work in-depth on the topic. So I've made a useful contribution to scholarship on Jonathan Edwards.</p>
<p>But to answer the initial question, here are four main reasons I believe my research is useful for the Church today:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Because theologians are concerned about speaking correctly and accurately about God, because what we say about God matters to both those inside and outside of the Church. Thus, it's important to examine Edwards' arguments for why he believed that God predestines people to hell, in order to determine whether his ideas might be true or not.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The idea that God might predestine people to hell is <em>the</em> most significant challenge to God's love and goodness. Since Edwards is seen as such a great theologian and supposedly one of the best defenders of Calvinism, I wanted to examine Edwards' arguments for double predestination to see whether he can manage to uphold God's loving goodness while justifying why God would predestine anyone to hell. If he can't do this, then perhaps it's a clue that his interpretation of predestination is not the best one.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Regardless of whether Edwards' position on predestination is true or the best one, it's useful to learn why a significant theologian such as Edwards believed as he did, since this might give us greater insight into how he did theology. By extension, such a study can help us reflect on why we believe what we do, in order to be more thoughtful about how we do theology. And yes, that means I do think we're all theologians, in one way or another.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Because learning about why we believe what we do, and why others may believe differently, should lead us to have greater grace for others with whom we disagree.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I'll expand on each of these reasons below. First, though, I'll explain why Jonathan Edwards is a relevant and interesting theologian to study on the issue of predestination.</p>
<h2>But Why Study Jonathan Edwards?</h2>
<p>What's most interesting to me about Edwards in regard to predestination is that as a youth, he thought the idea that God predestines anyone to hell was a "horrible" doctrine. Yet at some point as a young adult, he said he had a "wonderful" change of mind. From then on, he never again questioned the justice of God's absolute sovereignty over individuals' eternal destinies.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>As someone who very much agrees with Edwards' first opinion, I wanted to discover what caused Edwards' change of mind. Unfortunately, he never clearly explained it.</p>
<p>His change of mind on the issue is especially interesting because Edwards is often seen as one of the greatest theologians in North American history. He is even called "the most formidable defender of Calvinism in the history of North America" for how he attempted to defend double predestination against critics of it.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Near the end of his life, Edwards wrote two major works titled <em>Freedom of the Will</em> and <em>Original Sin</em>. In these books, Edwards attempted to argue that people don't have control over their own choices, and that all people are rightfully held guilty of the first sin of Adam and Eve. Taken together, these books make a case that God is just when God predestines anyone to hell, and that God is merciful and gracious when God chooses to save anyone, which Edwards claimed God does by irresistibly sending the Holy Spirit to indwell a person's heart.</p>
<p>So as someone who strongly disagrees with Edwards' final position, the goal of my dissertation was to go through Edwards' writings and find every argument that he makes in favor of double predestination and against his opponents' views on predestination. By doing this, I hoped to find out why he changed his mind on this issue, and why he argued so strongly in favor of double predestination for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Edwards is also still widely read by many theologians today, especially by evangelicals. His perspective on predestination is also often appealed to by influential Calvinist pastors and scholars. I hoped that by studying his perspective, I could understand more about why Calvinists today still want to believe in double predestination.</p>
<p>I also wanted to put my own views to the test to see whether Edwards might be able to convince me of his position, or if I would find problems in his reasoning that would reinforce my current view that double predestination isn't the best way to understand how God saves people who believe in Jesus.</p>
<p>So that explains my personal interest in Edwards and the topic. But again, why does any of this matter to the Church?</p>
<h2>1. Theology Is Concerned With Seeking Truth About God</h2>
<p>One definition of <em>theology</em> is "a religious belief system about God or ultimate reality".<cite>3</cite> However, the word theology comes from two different Greek words: <em>theos</em> meaning "God" and <em>logos</em> meaning "word" or "speech". So <em>theology</em> can also mean something like "speech about God" or "speaking about God".</p>
<p>I agree with Jonathan Edwards when he proposes that the reason God created the world is so that God reveal himself to intelligent creatures, who can then know God and love God.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>However, that means it is important to know God <em>truthfully</em> and <em>accurately</em>. If we misrepresent God by saying false things about who God is or how God acts, then we don't really know him. It would also be insulting to God, and we would be doing bad theology.</p>
<p>What we say we know about God will also affect how much we love God, and will influence how we portray God to non-Christians we are attempting to witness to.</p>
<p>I believe that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-theodicy/">theodicy</a> (i.e., defending God's goodness despite the existence of sin, evil, and suffering in the world) is a key issue that Christians need to address in order to help both Christians and non-Christians come to love God more. I also argue <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/theodicy-as-criteria-for-theology/">here</a> that theodicy could be a helpful criteria to use when choosing between theological systems, such as between Calvinism, Arminianism, and open theism.</p>
<p>As predestination is one of the major areas of debate between Calvinists, Arminians, and open theists, how well Calvinists can defend their perspective on predestination is a very relevant issue that needs to be addressed, as I explain in my next point below.</p>
<h2>2. Predestination is a Serious Challenge for Theodicy</h2>
<p>Predestination is a word that's used a few times in the Bible to refer to events that God decided will happen even before they actually occurred or will occur (e.g. Acts 4:28, Ephesians 1:5, 1:11, Romans 8:29-30, 1 Corinthians 2:7).<cite>5</cite> These sorts of predestined events are usually seen as being specifically willed by God, who is the ultimate cause behind why these events happened exactly as they did.</p>
<p>So predestination is a Biblical concept. However, ever since the early church theologian Augustine argued that God has ultimate control over who will be eternally saved and who will not, there have been heated debates and disagreements among Christians over what predestination means in these verses, and how it relates to human free will.</p>
<p>This debate has been especially fierce because predestination is <em>the</em> most significant challenge for God's goodness. Christians who believe in predestination must not only attempt to explain why a perfectly good and loving God might allow or even ordain the existence of sin, evil, and suffering in this world, but they must <em>also</em> explain why a perfectly good and loving God might predestine individuals to an eternity of suffering far more intense than anything they ever experienced in their earthly lives.</p>
<p>Such a task is very difficult. Clark Pinnock argued that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">the idea of everlasting torment (especially if it is linked to soteriological predestination) raises the problem of evil to impossible dimensions... if Christians want to hold that God created some people to be tortured in hell forever, then the apologetic task in relation to theodicy is just hopeless.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Even if someone prefers to understand hell as <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a> in contrast to eternal torment, the same question arises if we ask why a good and loving God would predestine anyone to be eternally destroyed.</p>
<p>Many Christians might answer that people are predestined to hell on the basis of God's foreknowledge of these individuals' future free actions, such as their personal sins combined with their lack of personal faith in Christ. But why would God create people who God knows will never believe in him, if God <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">really wants all people to be saved</a> (e.g. 1 Timothy 2:3-4, 2 Peter 3:9)?</p>
<p>To avoid this question, some Christians argue that God doesn't actually predestine individuals to either heaven or hell. Instead, God predestines the Church as a whole, leaving individuals to freely opt into the Church through faith in Christ (or <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">opt-out</a>, by not believing in Christ, as I'd prefer to say). This is called <em>corporate election</em>,<cite>7</cite> and I think there's some merit to it.</p>
<p>Alternatively, Christians might opt for Karl Barth's idea that the only person who was predestined was Jesus. In this view, Jesus was both chosen/elected to be the Messiah, and also rejected/reprobated by God to suffer the punishment for our sins when he died on the cross. Yet I believe Barth's view is problematic because it logically leads to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">universalism</a>, which has problems of its own.</p>
<p>As another option, a few Christians argue that predestination has nothing to do with eternal life, and so predestination is only about people being chosen by God for earthly service to Him.<cite>8</cite> I think this view also has some good potential.</p>
<p>Yet the problem for theodicy is worst for Christians who believe that God actually <em>causes</em> some people to not believe in Jesus, so that God can guarantee that these people will be condemned to hell. Usually, proponents of this view claim that God acts in this way in order to demonstrate God's justice, wrath at sin, and power, without which, God wouldn't be fully glorified. This idea is often called <em>double predestination</em>, and this is what Jonathan Edwards believed. So did other major Christian theologians such as Augustine, Martin Luther, and perhaps most famously, John Calvin.</p>
<p>In response to the above idea, some theologians rejected the idea of double predestination. For example, John Wesley said he believed that double predestination is blasphemous because it would mean that God's offer of salvation to all people as found in verses such as John 3:16 is a lie, and so would make God worse than Satan!<cite>9</cite> Arminius argued that double predestination is contrary to God’s wisdom, justice, and goodness, among other issues.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>More recent critics have argued that if double predestination is true, then God would be worse than the worst human tyrants,<cite>11</cite> and God would be as sadistic as a child who takes pleasure in torturing a cat in a microwave.<cite>12</cite> I agree with Clark Pinnock that if God does predestine people to hell, then God would be a bully "to which I could submit but which would not inspire admiration in me and certainly not love".<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>So if double predestination makes it harder for some people to see God as attractive and worthy of worship, obedience, and love, then churches and pastors who affirm it may have a more difficult time with evangelism. I believe these churches and pastors also risk producing less passionate and less committed Christians who may grudgingly obey God out of fear, but might not fully trust God's goodness in their personal lives or be motivated to tell about God's love to others.</p>
<p>Some people are able to love God despite believing in double predestination, as Edwards did. However, even the staunch Calvinist John Piper says that people should not believe in double predestination if it would cause them to question God’s justice, righteousness, goodness, or love.<cite>14</cite></p>
<p>I've argued <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/theodicy-as-criteria-for-theology/">here</a> that theodicy (i.e., defending God's goodness despite the existence of sin, evil, and suffering in the world) is a useful criteria when choosing between competing theological perspectives. So if even Jonathan Edwards can't sufficiently defend God's goodness regarding double predestination, then perhaps that is a clue that his understanding of predestination is not the best one, and we should consider alternatives that do a better job of upholding God's goodness.</p>
<p>Yet if Christians are called to seek truth about God, then we shouldn't believe things about God just because they make us <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christianity-is-not-a-feel-good-religion/">feel good</a> or because these beliefs attract people to our churches. Thus, we need to consider other criteria that may indicate whether our belief is true or not.</p>
<p>This brings us to the question of how we should do theology. What sources should we use when going theology, and which sources should have priority over others?</p>
<h2>3. Learning How Edwards Did Theology</h2>
<p>In my dissertation, I sort Edwards' arguments for double predestination into the categories of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience.</p>
<p>Although I'm not a Wesleyan, I think that these categories comprise every possible source that Christians might appeal to when making theological arguments. I believe that if a doctrine is able to be supported by all four sources, there is a a good chance it is theologically sound, and is more likely to be true than if it were to lack support from one or more of these sources.</p>
<p>Primarily, I used these categories only as a general way to organize Edwards' arguments for double predestination, and there was cross-over between them. Discussions of Scripture, for example, appeared in multiple chapters, as did Edwards' philosophy of causality. But by organizing Edwards' arguments into these categories, I hoped I could see how Edwards made use of these four sources, and which ones he tended to prioritize in his arguments about predestination. I hoped that perhaps this would give a clue as to the reason he chose to affirm double predestination.</p>
<p>Using a process of elimination, and by considering alternative approaches that Edwards could have used, I narrowed down what I believed were the most important source(s) behind Edwards' belief in double predestination.</p>
<p>In the end, I believe that the most significant factor behind Edwards' affirmation of double predestination was Tradition. Specifically, it was his desire to defend the core traditional Protestant conviction that salvation is by faith alone and God’s grace alone, against what he perceived as the threat of "Arminian" moralism or legalism in New England.</p>
<p>What's interesting is that Edwards' theology could nearly have led him to universalism. Some theologians today even argue that Edwards was a closet universalist, or at least, an inclusivist.<cite>15</cite> Yet I think what kept Edwards from affirming that all people will be saved is how his reading of Scripture convinced him that most people will end up in hell.</p>
<p>This forced Edwards to find a place in his system for his understanding of hell, despite all the contradictions it causes in his philosophy and larger overarching worldview, which he used to try to defend what he saw as critical Biblical doctrines.</p>
<p>But by looking at Edwards as a case-study of how one intelligent, thoughtful Christian came to affirm a certain position on a controversial topic where there is no Christian consensus, I hope my dissertation can help us understand why Christians can disagree on many different topics, leading to all the diversity of Christian belief and practices we see in the world today.</p>
<p>If we could break down all the reasons we believe as we do on any particular issue and discern which reason seems to be most central, then perhaps greater insight could be gained as to why Christians choose to affirm one perspective over another, even though we're all working with the same Bible.</p>
<p>This sort of self-analysis of our own theology would hopefully lead to having greater grace for Christians who come to differing conclusions, without demonizing them or questioning their salvation.</p>
<h2>4. Having Grace for Those Who Disagree</h2>
<p>After having finished my study of Edwards' view on predestination, I'm even more convinced that double predestination is not the best Biblical understanding of predestination. I would personally opt for understanding predestination as either corporate election of the Church as a whole, or election of individuals to earthly service.</p>
<p>However, I do appreciate what Edwards was attempting to do by standing up for the idea of salvation by faith alone, which is a gift based on God's grace and was purchased by Jesus' death on the cross.</p>
<p>Although Edwards has harsh words for the "Arminians" of his time, it must be noted that the people he called by this name were not teaching what is usually thought of today as Arminianism, if Arminianism is best defined by the beliefs of its originator, James Arminius.</p>
<p>Instead, these "Arminians" in Edwards' day were basically teaching moralism or legalism, and so claimed that people could be saved by doing good works and avoiding sin. This understanding of salvation is strikingly similar to the ancient teachings of Pelagius, which were condemned as heretical.</p>
<p>Augustine was rightly concerned about Pelagius's teachings, and used double predestination to argue against them. Double predestination also gained popularity during later times in church history when the gospel was being threatened by distortions that put undue emphasis on good works as being necessary for salvation, such as in the Reformation.</p>
<p>It seems that for theologians such as Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, allowing any room for human free will was seen as risky and as possibly supporting the idea that people could earn their salvation, or at least, people could deserve some credit for their salvation.</p>
<p>As a result, I can respect what these theologians were attempting to do. It's just too bad they felt the need to rely on double predestination in order to do it, when it has such negative implications for God's character. But I would prefer for people to be Calvinists if the only other option is to think that it's possible to earn salvation by doing good works, avoiding sin, or being a good person.</p>
<p>However, I think it is possible to affirm that salvation is by God's grace alone through faith alone, yet while still preserving room for human free will in salvation. This is because God allows people to freely choose whether they want to resist the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, as I've talked about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">here</a>.</p>
<p>In my view, people who come to have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">faith in Christ</a> need to give all the credit and glory to God and not to themselves, because all they did was choose to not resist the Holy Spirit. This could be an improvement on the usual way that Arminians describe people freely saying "yes" to God's offer of salvation, which could make it appear to Calvinists and others that people are actively <em>doing</em> something to be saved.</p>
<p>Thus, it can be useful to engage with the concerns of those on the "other side" of theological debates, in order to understand what their core concerns are, and then try to find ways to improve our own theology in an attempt at perhaps bridging the gap between the two. It can also force us to face the difficult verses that challenge our Biblical interpretation, rather than ignoring them like Edwards often did.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Yet I can't be too hard on Edwards. Through my study of Edwards' childhood and upbringing, I can relate to what it's like to grow up being worried about whether I was saved or not, and whether God is truly good and loving.</p>
<p>I can see how if Edwards had a spiritual experience that convinced him he was elect, it would likely have brought him great comfort and a conviction that God is good and loving (at least, toward Edwards himself and other 'elect' Christians). Perhaps Edwards' spiritual experience truly was a movement of God in his heart, which helped him get over these fears and enabled him to love God.</p>
<p>Fortunately for Edwards, his change of mind came just in time for him to graduate from his Master's degree, since back then in New England, it was necessary to affirm double predestination in order to become a respectable pastor. Perhaps God wanted to make sure Edwards could become a pastor, so that God could use him to preach the gospel to many people during the Great Awakening revivals.</p>
<p>Since no one's theology is perfect in this life (1 Corinthians 13:12), I can accept that it was better for Edwards to become a pastor than the alternative. There are also some very helpful and good things in his theology that I can appreciate and want to make use of in my future work.</p>
<p>I can also appreciate how Edwards stood up for the true gospel in the face of growing legalism and moralism. Maybe at that time, in that culture, Edwards' defense of the gospel using double predestination was the best that could be given?</p>
<p>So I can have grace for Edwards, and even for other Calvinists, even though I still think that double predestination has horrible implications for God's loving character. Personally, I believe that God really <em>does</em> want to save <em>all</em> people, but that people can freely reject God's offer of salvation, and that once anyone believes, they're <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">eternally secure</a> due to the indwelling Holy Spirit, as per Ephesians 1:13-14.</p>
<p>Yet I hope that though ongoing dialogue and by criticizing and challenging each other's theology, Calvinists and Arminians and open theists can all work at improving our own theology, while having grace for those who disagree.</p>
<p>If you would like to read my dissertation which gets into everything I've spoken about in this post in much more detail, you can download it as a .pdf by clicking <a href="/file/Zeeb_Janelle_L_202205_PhD_thesis.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Edwards, "Personal Narrative," in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Vol. 16, Letters and Personal Writings, ed. George S. Claghorn (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 792.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Mark A. Noll, "Edwards, Jonathan," in <em>The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought</em>, ed. Alister E. McGrath et al. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 145.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, <em>Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 113.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, "Dissertation 2: Concerning the End for which God Created the World," in <em>The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Vol. 8, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University, 2008), 441-443.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> William D. Mounce, "Predestination," in <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 533-534.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, "The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent," <em>Criswell Theological Review</em> 4, no. 2 [1990]: 253–254.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> William W. Klein, <em>The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election</em>, Revised and Expanded Version (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015).</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Shawn Lazar, <em>Chosen to Serve: Why Divine Election Is To Service, Not To Eternal Life</em> (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2017).</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> John Wesley, "Free Grace," in <em>The Works of John Wesley, Volume 3: Sermons</em>, ed. Albert Outler and Frank Baker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 554–557.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> James Arminius, <em>Arminius Speaks: Essential Writings on Predestination, Free Will, and the Nature of God</em>, ed. John D. Wagner (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 40–41.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Susan Neiman, <em>Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy</em> (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 19–20, 125.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Clark Pinnock, "The Conditional View" in <em>Four Views on Hell</em>, ed. Stanley N. Gundry and William Crockett (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 140.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, "Response to Part 1," in <em>Reconstructing Theology: A Critical Assessment of the Theology of Clark Pinnock</em>, ed. Tony J. Gray and Christopher Sinkinson (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2000), 84.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong>John Piper, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Ry0yEhhOw">"Does God Predestine People to Hell?" on YouTube</a> Desiring God, November 19, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Some proponents of Edwards as a universalist or inclusivist include Anri Moromoto and Gerald McDermott. For more on this debate, see John J. Bombaro, <em>Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate</em> (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 255-257, or Michael J.McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, <em>The Theology of Jonathan Edwards</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 589-598.</li>
</ul>Are We In The End Times?2021-12-06T00:00:00+00:002021-12-06T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2021-12-06:/article/signs-of-the-end-times/<p>If you've heard a little about what Christianity teaches about the future, and have been paying attention to what's going on in the world over the last little while, you might be asking questions like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are we approaching the end of the world?</li>
<li>Are we currently in the Tribulation?</li>
<li>What …</li></ul><p>If you've heard a little about what Christianity teaches about the future, and have been paying attention to what's going on in the world over the last little while, you might be asking questions like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are we approaching the end of the world?</li>
<li>Are we currently in the Tribulation?</li>
<li>What even is the Tribulation?</li>
<li>What are the signs of the end-times?</li>
<li>Does everything that's happening now mean that Jesus coming back soon?</li>
</ul>
<p>If so, then congratulations: these are exactly the sorts of questions that I'd hope people today would be asking. Asking these questions shows you recognize that something isn't right in the world, and indicates you have the courage to ask tough questions, even if the topic of the end-times makes you nervous, anxious, or even downright terrified.</p>
<p>I hope this blog post is able to answer some of these questions, and also will also reassure you that as of the date of writing, we are not in the Tribulation. However, we <em>are</em> certainly in the end times, and <em>yes</em>, this does mean that Jesus is coming back soon.</p>
<p>If you have believed in Jesus as your Savior, then you can rightly feel excited and have peace, and know that soon you'll get to experience the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">Rapture</a>. On the other hand, if you haven't yet believed in Jesus, then I'd truly encourage you to take him up on his offer of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">free eternal life</a> before you miss out and have to face the upcoming Tribulation.</p>
<h2>What is the Tribulation?</h2>
<p>So first of all, what do I mean by the term "the Tribulation"? Generally, the Tribulation is a term used by Christians who hold to a pre-Millennial perspective on the end-times to describe the last seven years before Jesus' second coming, based on the use of the word in Mark 13:19, Mark 13:24, Matthew 24:21, and Revelation 7:14. In Biblical Greek the word "tribulation" (<em>thlipsis</em>) means "to be squeezed or put in a narrow place." It is very similar to other Greek words that mean trouble, affliction, distress, and persecution.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>The Tribulation includes all the events that occur from Revelation chapters 4 to 19, ending with the return of Jesus with his heavenly armies of saints and angels to destroy the armies of the Antichrist and False Prophet (Revelation 19:11-21).</p>
<p>We know the Tribulation lasts for seven years thanks to the Old Testament prophet Daniel. In Daniel chapter 9, he was given a message by the angel Gabriel which outlined a timeline for God's purposes for the Jewish people.</p>
<p>Gabriel said "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy" (Daniel 9:24, KJV).</p>
<p>I agree with Bible prophecy commentators who say that this overview takes us right up to the point in history when Jesus will finally be recognized by the Jewish people as their Messiah and Jesus sets up his millennial kingdom. (The Millennium is the thousand year period of time after Jesus' second coming when Jesus will personally rule the world along with his saints, and things will be much better than they have been for most of human history. I talk about it a little in this post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">here</a>).</p>
<p>In Daniel's prophecy, the term "week" is used as a way of saying a period of seven years. So this prophecy given to Daniel is an outline for a period of about 490 years. However, these 490 years are split into two main divisions:</p>
<ul>
<li>7 weeks plus 62 weeks, which makes 69 'weeks' (483 years). This period began with the command to rebuild Jerusalem (444 BC, see Nehemiah 2:1) and lasted until the Messiah came (Daniel 9:25). After this, the Messiah was "cut off, but not for himself" and "the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary" (Daniel 9:26). This part of the prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus was crucified in 33 AD.<cite>2</cite> Later, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple in 70 AD.</li>
<li>1 more 'week' (7 years). This period begins with the confirmation of a covenant between the people of Israel and "many" (Daniel 9:27), likely thanks to the negotiations of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>. This event is the official starting point of the Tribulation.<cite>3</cite></li>
</ul>
<p>Technically, though, we have to remember that the Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, which means it has only 360 days per year. So actually, the Tribulation will be 2520 days long.</p>
<p>The Tribulation itself is also divided into two periods. About halfway through the Tribulation the Antichrist will break the covenant with Israel and will declare himself to be God in the rebuilt Jewish temple, according to Daniel 9:27, Daniel 12:11, Matthew 24:15-16, Mark 13:14, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, and Revelation 13:5.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>How will we know when the Tribulation is getting close? There are some general signs we can look for, but we can also look into the conditions that we'll see during the Tribulation itself. Using these criteria, we can recognize that the Tribulation is approaching. However, by examining several clear signs of what occurs in the Tribulation, we'll be able to know for sure whether we are in it or not.</p>
<h2>Signs of the Approaching End Times</h2>
<p>There are some general signs of the approaching end-times which have actually been around for thousands of years. Ever since the early church began spreading across the Roman Empire slightly under two-thousand years ago, Christians can technically count ourselves as being in the "last days" (Acts 2:15-18, Hebrews 1:1-2).</p>
<p>There are some signs that the Bible says will characterize the end-times. These have always been present since the early church, but as we get closer to the start of the Tribulation, we'll see these signs increasing. Jesus compares these signs to "birth pains" (Matthew 24:8), which will get stronger and more frequent as we approach the end times. These signs will all reach their peak and ultimate fulfillment during the Tribulation itself.</p>
<h3>Increasing Doubt About Jesus's Soon Return</h3>
<p>Ironically, one of the signs to look for is when people (especially Christians) deny that we are approaching the Tribulation or deny that Jesus is coming back soon.</p>
<p>Peter warns us that scoffers will say things like, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation" (2 Peter 3:4).</p>
<p>I've seen this attitude expressed by Christians who say things like:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">No, there's no way Jesus is coming back soon. Look, the early church thought he was coming back in their lifetimes. Every generation of Christians since then also thought they were living in the end times. But history just keeps going on, and so no matter how much we think we see the signs of the end times coming, we just have to keep enduring no matter how hard it gets. After all, Jesus didn't save the early church from Roman persecution, or save the Protestants from Catholic persecution, so we'd better hunker down and toughen up to prepare to face what's coming.</span></p>
<p>In my experience, people with this attitude often deny that there will be a Rapture. Some even seem to downright <em>hate</em> the teaching of the Rapture, and accuse those who teach it of being false prophets who are leading people astray, because they aren't teaching people to prepare to survive the Tribulation.</p>
<p>But as I've argued elsewhere, there are <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">at least five good reasons</a> that prove the Rapture must occur before the Tribulation. A major one is that the Rapture is meant to be an encouraging doctrine (1 Thessalonians 4:18). The scoffers destroy this encouragement by denying that Jesus could come to catch up the Church to heaven at any time.</p>
<p>So if you're a Christian who believes in the Rapture, don't let these sorts of skeptics and scoffers get to you. Don't let them take away the heavenly reward of an eternal crown that you can earn just by continually looking forward to Jesus' return at the Rapture (2 Timothy 4:8, Revelation 3:11).</p>
<h3>Increasing Sinfulness</h3>
<p>There are a couple different lists of sins and sinful attitudes that the Bible warns people will show more of as we get closer to the Tribulation:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:1-5).</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them (Romans 1:29-32).</span></p>
<p>It's easy to skip over these long lists, but if you go one-by-one and think about our society, you'll probably see all of these signs are present in one way or another. If you think back to how things used to be even a decade or two ago, you'll probably agree that these things are getting worse:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived (2 Timothy 3:12-13).</span></p>
<p>Jesus says that when he comes at the Rapture, the world will be like it was in the times of Noah and Lot. While in some ways the world was going on like normal (Matthew 24:37-39, Luke 17:26-29), the Bible also gives these two times as instances when societal evil and sinfulness had reached a level that brought on God's destruction.</p>
<p>In Lot's case, there weren't even ten righteous people left in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:32), and the people seem to have been consumed with inappropriate sexual lust and violence (Genesis 19:4-11). Peter says that Lot suffered because he was "greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)" (2 Peter 2:7-8).</p>
<p>All sin can be described as lawlessness (1 John 3:4, Matthew 7:23). Jesus warns that in the end times "And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12). When times get tough, people start looking out for themselves and their families at the expense of others. As a mild example, just consider the sort of things that happen in stores on Black Friday sales. And that's not even when these people's own lives and the lives of their families are at risk!</p>
<p>In Noah's case, "The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5), such that only Noah and his family were spared.</p>
<p>During the Tribulation we're told that even though God sends terrible disasters on the world to try to wake people up and get them to turn to Him, people won't repent. What won't they repent of? Things like worshiping idols and demons, murder (especially of Christians), sorcery, sexual immorality, theft, and deception (Revelation 9:20, 18:23).</p>
<h3>Antichrists and False Prophets</h3>
<p>The first sign that Jesus gives in his final speech to his disciples about the end-times is about being careful to not be deceived by false Christs and false prophets:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?' And Jesus answered them, 'See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray' (Matthew 24:3-4).</span></p>
<p>Some people will claim that they are Jesus, or that Jesus has returned already:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect (Mark 13:21-22, see also Mark 13:5-6, Matthew 24:23-27, 1 John 2:18).</span></p>
<p>Alternatively, more people will deny that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 2:22). This is also expected, because Paul warns:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared"* (1 Timothy 4:1-2).</span></p>
<p>Jesus' prophecy will be ultimately fulfilled by the appearance of the final Antichrist/the Beast and False Prophet, who both work for the Dragon (a.k.a Satan) (Revelation 13:1-8, 13:11-18).</p>
<p>I believe the Antichrist will attempt to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">impersonate Jesus</a>, and so together, these three (Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet) form a sort of false imitation of the Trinity (God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit). Together, this false trinity will deceive the world:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 2:7-12).</span></p>
<p>So as seen here and in the last section, lawlessness/sinfulness and deception seem to go together. Both will peak during the Tribulation when the world is under the rule of the Antichrist.</p>
<h3>Increasing Wars and Natural Disasters</h3>
<p>Jesus's second sign of the approaching end involves wars and natural disasters:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines (Mark 13:7-8, see also Matthew 24:6-7).</span></p>
<p>All these wars and disasters will get far worse in the Tribulation. The second, third, and fourth Seal judgments in Revelation 6:3-8 follow Jesus' outline quite well.</p>
<p>There will be a worldwide outbreak of war, followed by something which raises the prices of food significantly, and then death due to all these things: war, famine, and pestilence. We're told that over a quarter of the earth's population at that time will die (Revelation 6:8).</p>
<p>There are also several major earthquakes predicted in Revelation 6:12-14, 8:5, 11:13, 11:19, and culminating with the worst earthquake the world has ever seen in Revelation 16:18-19.</p>
<h3>Increasing Divisions Between People and Persecution of Christians</h3>
<p>Division between people and persecution of those who believe in Jesus began during Jesus' first coming. He said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household (Matthew 10:34-36).</span></p>
<p>Jesus gave several different warnings about division and persecution being a sign of the end times:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>"And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death"</em> (Mark 13:12).</li>
<li><em>"Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another"</em> (Matthew 24:9-10).</li>
<li><em>"But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them"</em> (Mark 13:9).</li>
</ul>
<p>These things certainly happened to the Apostles, 11 out of 12 of whom were killed for their faith (John was just tortured and exiled several times). This persecution also happened to the early church Christians, and still happens today in places around the world.</p>
<p>Throughout church history, families have been divided between those who chose to believe in Jesus and those who didn't. Unfortunately, this division has happened even among Christians who have turned against family or friends who became part of different Christian movements, whether Protestants, Catholics, Anabaptists, etc. who were persecuted and killed at different points in time.</p>
<p>Ultimately we'll probably see these prophecies fulfilled in the Tribulation when people will likely turn each other in for not worshiping the Antichrist or taking the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>.</p>
<h3>Worldwide Evangelism</h3>
<p>Jesus said, <em>"And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come"</em> (Matthew 24:14).</p>
<p>This is the completion of the Great Commission given to the church:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).</span></p>
<p>The Joshua Project tracks unreached people groups.<cite>5</cite> According to their downloadable .pdf report, in 2021, there are still approximately 2.18 billion people on the planet who haven't heard the gospel.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>However, this worldwide evangelism won't be finished by the Church. It will be finished in the Tribulation by the Tribulation saints, two witnesses (Revelation 11:3), and even an angel/messenger who flies around the world preaching the gospel (Revelation 14:6).</p>
<h3>Economic Distortions</h3>
<p>Finally, one minor sign of the end is economic distortions and drastic wealth imbalances.</p>
<p>James says that in the last days, the world's rich people will hoard wealth and will commit injustices against the working poor, such as by not paying their workers their fair wages, and even by murdering righteous people. Yet these rich people's wealth will be corroded (inflated?) away (James 5:1-6).</p>
<p>In the Tribulation, some loss of wealth might happen during the Third Seal judgment, where either famine, economic collapse, or runaway inflation will mean people can buy "A quart of wheat for a denarius [a day's wage],and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!" (Revelation 6:6).</p>
<p>However, as hinted at in the above verse, it seems the rich will still be able to afford luxuries like oil and wine. Also, in the Tribulation there will still be buying and selling, at least for those who take the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:16-17).</p>
<p>Some people will even make a lot of money as a result of the end-times entity called "Babylon," which seems to have both religious and economic components and may be tied to a specific city (Revelation chapter 17). We're told "the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her [Babylon's] luxurious living" (Revelation 18:3). Then all the merchants of the world will mourn when Babylon is finally destroyed and no one will be able to buy their luxury goods (Revelation 18).</p>
<h2>Indisputable Signs of the Tribulation</h2>
<p>There are a few key signs that can confirm beyond a doubt whether we're in the Tribulation or not. If we don't see all these signs, then we're definitely NOT in the Tribulation. If you see or have seen them all, then you definitely ARE in the Tribulation:</p>
<h3>The Rapture</h3>
<p>As I've argued elsewhere, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">the Rapture</a> must happen before the Tribulation, for a number of theological and Biblical reasons.</p>
<p>At the Rapture, everyone who died after having believed in Jesus for eternal life will be resurrected, and all true Christians around the world will be instantly changed from mortal to immortal and caught up to heaven to be with Jesus forever (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).</p>
<p>So if millions of people around the world have suddenly disappeared, and there's a lot of empty graves in cemetaries, that will be the evidence of the Rapture having happened.</p>
<p>One thing I haven't talked about much is the issue of children and the Rapture. Will all kids under the age of accountability also be Raptured? It's hard to say for sure. We do know that Jesus has a special love for children (Matthew 18:1-6), but God also allowed many children to suffer the destruction that came on their sinful societies that rejected God in the Old Testament, too. I've looked at this conundrum of why a good and loving God might allow children to suffer and die <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">here</a>.</p>
<p>However, I'm convinced that God's loving character means he won't leave behind any kids who are under the age of accountability who have a Christian parent, and this could potentially be argued from 1 Corinthians 7:14. Maybe if God is extra merciful, all the world's kids will be Raptured too, but it's not certain.</p>
<p>Also, it's not clear in the Bible how long it will be between the Rapture happening and the Tribulation officially starting. Some argue that the Tribulation begins immediately after the Rapture, where others say there could be months or even years between the Tribulation and the Rapture.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the chaos that follows the Rapture will be the final catalyst that allows for the appearance of the Antichrist and the formation of a worldwide government led by ten 'kings', as will be discussed next.</p>
<h3>The Ten Kings</h3>
<p>The Bible prophesies in several places about the emergence of a worldwide government controlled by ten leaders (Daniel 2:40-43, 7:7-9, 7:19-27, Revelation 17:12) who will give their power to the Antichrist (Revelation 17:13). In these Bible passages, the government led by these ten 'kings' is described as being partly strong and partly weak, but also being terrible, trampling the whole world, and having iron teeth.</p>
<p>There's a lot of speculation among Bible prophecy scholars about what this prophecy means.</p>
<p>Will the world be divided up into ten regions like a European Union, a North American Union, an African Union, and so forth, each led by one top person? Or is it referring to a shrunken European Union with only ten countries which dominates the post-Rapture politics of the world? Will it be the recently-mentioned group of ten most powerful democratic countries who will act like a new G7?<cite>7</cite> Will it be "multilateralism with teeth," as was said recently by UN Secretary Antonio Guterrez?<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>I don't know. All I'm willing to say is that I think, if these ten king-like rulers don't appear before the Rapture, they'll appear quite quickly after the Rapture.</p>
<h3>Mystery Babylon Religious System</h3>
<p>During the Tribulation, there will be a major worldwide religious system that matches the characteristics of "Mystery Babylon" in Revelation 17. This is a very difficult and confusing passage of Scripture, but I believe it will make perfect sense to those who are alive in the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Yet there are at least a few hints that we can make sense of now.</p>
<p>Initially, the false religion is portrayed as a prostitute (a Biblical symbol for idolatry) who sits on the Beast/the Antichrist (Revelation 17:1-5). It will persecute/kill the Tribulation Saints (Revelation 17:6) and may have killed Christians in the past, if it comes out of a religion that is already on earth today. The religion is also associated with a city with seven hills/mountains that dominates the world (Revelation 17:9, 17:18). The religion is also associated with the colors of scarlet and purple and is very rich (Revelation 17:4).</p>
<p>These traits lead some to speculate that Mystery Babylon is the corrupted remnants of Catholicism that will be left behind on earth after the Rapture. Or perhaps some coalition between Catholicism and Islam or other religions.</p>
<p>Thus, it is interesting how much effort is being put forth in the last few years by Pope Francis to reconcile Catholicism and Islam and Judaism. These efforts are culminating in the creation of the <em>Abrahamic Family House</em> being built in the UAE, which will be a complex with a church, a mosque, and a synagogue, as well as an educational center.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>Yet at some point, this false religion will be destroyed by the Antichrist/the Beast and the ten kings (Revelation 17:15-17). Perhaps this will correspond with the half-way point of the Tribulation when the Antichrist declares himself to be God in the rebuilt Jewish temple and stops their sacrifices (2 Thessalonians 2:4, Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11, Matthew 24:15-16, Mark 13:14).</p>
<p>Thus, at some point before the Antichrist can do this, Israel must rebuild their temple. Preparations are already quite far along, and there is an organization called <em>The Temple Institute</em> who is working toward this goal.<cite>10</cite> I suspect that Israel will be able to rebuild the temple quite quickly when the time is right, perhaps, after the covenant between Israel and the "many" is signed by the Antichrist (Daniel 9:27).</p>
<h3>The Two Witnesses</h3>
<p>At some point in the Tribulation, two powerful prophets called the two witnesses will show up. They will prophesy for 1260 days (Revelation 11:3), or about half the length of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>These two prophets will be famous worldwide. Why?</p>
<ul>
<li>they can destroy anyone who wants to harm them by shooting out fire from their mouths (Revelation 11:5).</li>
<li>they can stop the rain from falling and inflict plagues on the world (Revelation 11:6).</li>
</ul>
<p>After the 1260 days are up, they will be killed by the Antichrist (Revelation 11:7). Their bodies will lie in the street of Jerusalem for three and a half days, where people from all around the world will see them (Revelation 11:8-9).</p>
<p>It seems perhaps their deaths and dead bodies will be worldwide breaking news, maybe even with live footage of them lying dead for three and a half days. People around the world will be so happy the witnesses are dead that they will celebrate and give gifts to each other, as if it were Christmas (Revelation 11:10).</p>
<p>But after the three and a half days, the two witnesses will be resurrected and taken up to heaven, while an earthquake destroys part of the city of Jerusalem (Revelation 11:11-13).</p>
<p>It's not completely clear at what point the two witnesses appear during the Tribulation. Many Bible prophecy commentators I've read argue that they will be killed halfway through the Tribulation at the same time when the Antichrist declares himself to be God in Israel's rebuilt temple. But it's not totally clear here in Revelation, so I'm not willing to say for sure.</p>
<p>Either way, if two people show up who match the above traits, then you definitely know you're in the Tribulation.</p>
<h2>Other Signs</h2>
<p>There are a few other interesting signs of the approaching Tribulation.</p>
<p>One of them is that the world needs to have the technology to control all buying and selling so that no one without the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> can buy or sell (Revelation 13:16-17).</p>
<p>This seems to be a worldwide system, and thus, I suspect there will be more to it than just a tattoo that everyone has to show before they're allowed to buy or sell. Otherwise shop owners could just ignore it in order to make more money by selling their goods illegally to people without the Mark.</p>
<p>I've heard tons of speculation that the Mark of the Beast might be based on a one-world digital currency, block-chain crypto-currency technology, central bank digital currencies, social credit scores, worldwide ESG ratings, vaccine passports, or some sort of global digital identification system. But again, it's hard to say for sure. All we need is some system that is so pervasive and controlling that no one can buy or sell without taking the Mark of the Beast.</p>
<p>Yet somehow, some people will survive the Tribulation without it, or else there would be no one left to repopulate the world during Jesus' millennial kingdom (Revelation 20), since anyone who takes the Mark of the Beast will face eternal consequences (Revelation 14:9-11) including being thrown into the lake of fire along with the Antichrist and False Prophet (Revelation 19:20).</p>
<p>Another interesting technological aspect of life in the Tribulation is that somehow, the False Prophet will be "allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain" (Revelation 13:15).</p>
<p>With all the innovation going on these days with robotics and artificial intelligence, or CGI and virtual reality, who knows what combination of technology will be used to pull this off. But however it works, God says it will happen.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So hopefully after reading this post, you've gotten a fairly good idea of what life will be like during the Tribulation. You should also know what signs to watch out for that show how close we are getting to the Tribulation, and how to know if the Tribulation has begun or not.</p>
<p>If you're worried by what you're seeing, the good news is that if <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> hasn't yet happened, there's still time for you to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believe in Jesus</a> as your Savior. Then you will "be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man" (Luke 21:36, KJV).</p>
<p>Or, in the event that the Rapture has occurred, it's still not too late for you to believe in Jesus and be guaranteed that you'll have eternal life. You may face martyrdom for your faith and for not worshipping the image of the Antichrist or taking the Mark of the Beast, but if that happens, don't worry: you'll be resurrected and will rule with Jesus for a thousand years (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<p>Regardless of where we are on God's prophetic timeline, we can know that everything God has said will come true one day. I also believe that even if we can't figure out all the details ahead of time, when the prophecies in Daniel and Revelation start being fulfilled, it will be very clear to the people who are on earth at the time.</p>
<p>But what's really exciting is that Jesus said <em>"Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near"</em> (Luke 21:28).</p>
<p>If you're interested in following current events as they may relate to the approaching end-times, I'd recommend sources such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Pastor JD Farag (<a href="https://www.jdfarag.org/">jdfarag.org</a>). He offers weekly Bible Prophecy Updates. On his site, under the category of "Prophecy Vids" you can watch past updates or download .pdf transcripts to read. I appreciate his approach and think that he is quite on-target and demonstrates a good Christian attitude that is encouraging, even if at times his sources are slightly questionable.</li>
<li>Pastor Tom Hughes (<a href="https://hopeforourtimes.com/">hopeforourtimes.com</a>) has many videos where he discusses current events as they relate to Bible prophecy. Yet at times, the views presented by Hughes and his guests are rather pessimistic and negative, so if you are anxious or easily stressed, I would not recommend this site.</li>
<li>the authors at Rapture Ready (<a href="https://www.raptureready.com">https://www.raptureready.com</a>). Some authors here are better than others, in my opinion, but the weekly "Nearing Midnight" and "Israel Watch" columns are well-done.</li>
</ul>
<p>A few other good books on the end-times are listed on my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/recommended-resources/">Recommended Resources</a> page.</p>
<p>However, as always, you should pray for discernment regarding what you read and are told by others, including by myself. No one has everything figured out 100% (1 Corinthians 13:12) especially on difficult issues like Bible prophecy, and so you should always pray for help from the Holy Spirit and investigate whether what you're told lines up with Scripture, as the Berean Christians did (Acts 17:11).</p>
<p>Let's remember that no matter how close it seems we might be to the Tribulation, or how intimidating current events might be, the Rapture could happen anytime. Let's hold on to our hope of eternal life through faith in Christ, and share our hope with others who might also be wondering what's going on and where the world is headed.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> William D. Mounce, <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids, Zondervan: 2006), 743-745.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Rick Larson, <a href="https://bethlehemstar.com/the-day-of-the-cross/daniels-prophecy/">"Daniel's Prophecy"</a>, BethlehemStar.net. Also see John F. Walvoord, <em>Daniel,</em> The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, ed. Charles H. Dyer and Philip E. Rawley (Chicago, Moody: 2012), 274-284.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Daniel,</em> The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, ed. Charles H. Dyer and Philip E. Rawley (Chicago, Moody: 2012), 284-290.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>Daniel,</em> The John Walvoord Prophecy Commentaries, ed. Charles H. Dyer and Philip E. Rawley (Chicago, Moody: 2012), 288-290.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> <a href="https://joshuaproject.net/">Joshua Project</a>, joshuaproject.net </li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Clicking the following link will allow you to view Joshua Project's .pdf titled <a href="https://joshuaproject.net/assets/media/handouts/status-of-world-evangelization.pdf">"Status of World Evangelization 2022"</a>, joshuaproject.net </li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> James Rogers, <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/time-for-the-d10-to-replace-the-g7/">"Time for the D10 to replace the G7?"</a>, <em>The Strategist</em>, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, June 16, 2020.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Edith M. Lederer, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-health-coronavirus-pandemic-united-nations-covid-19-pandemic-dcabfc7526f46940dc5a992d52737c8b">"UN chief: World is at 'pivotal moment' and must avert crises"</a>, AP News, September 11, 2021.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> <a href="https://www.forhumanfraternity.org/abrahamic-family-house/">"About the Abrahamic Family House"</a>, Abrahamic Family House.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> <a href="https://templeinstitute.org/">The Temple Institute</a>, TempleInstitute.org</li>
</ul>Christians Should Not Fear Death2021-11-01T00:00:00+00:002021-11-01T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2021-11-01:/article/christians-should-not-fear-death/<p>If there's anything obvious about the world in 2020 and 2021, it's that fear of death is everywhere (especially in the media).</p>
<p>Incredible precautions are taken against an illness that kills only a very small percentage of people who get it, many of whom were already ill with other conditions …</p><p>If there's anything obvious about the world in 2020 and 2021, it's that fear of death is everywhere (especially in the media).</p>
<p>Incredible precautions are taken against an illness that kills only a very small percentage of people who get it, many of whom were already ill with other conditions. The true chance of dying from this illness is reduced even further once we consider that the official statistics do not include unreported cases which could be many times greater than the recorded ones.</p>
<p>To me, it seems the fear of death has increased almost to the point that it seems our society has become convinced that no one should die from anything, anywhere, for any reason. Leaders are willing to shut down economies, schools, and international travel, destroy individuals' social lives and finances, and even deny people their basic human rights, all to avoid the small chance of someone somewhere dying from a generally mild illness.</p>
<p>As a Christian, all of this makes no sense to me. Christians are not supposed to be afraid of death, and large percentages of people in many countries around the world identify as Christian.<cite>1</cite> In Canada and the USA, about 65-70% of people are supposedly Christian. However, if you were go out and survey people in these countries to see if they're afraid of death, I'm sure almost everyone would say that they are.</p>
<p>The only answer I can think of to explain why this situation exists is that, apparently, many Christians have forgotten that we should not fear death.</p>
<p>So by way of reminder, I've written this post to encourage Christians that while we should not intentionally seek death, death is no longer to be feared because Christ has conquered death for us.</p>
<p>Additionally, Christians have many incredible promises from God to look forward to regarding resurrection and eternal life. These promises should give us confidence even if the worst comes and we have to face martyrdom for our faith.</p>
<h2>Physical Death Is (Mostly) Unavoidable</h2>
<p>Because our first parents Adam and Eve sinned, all humanity has become subject to physical death (Romans 5:12), because death is the penalty for sin (Romans 6:23, James 1:15) and all have sinned (Romans 3:23, Isaiah 53:6).</p>
<p>As a result, as I've written about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">here</a> in more detail, God is just when he chooses to kill any person. Ultimately, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">eternal death</a> is what individuals are destined for if they finally refuse to accept Jesus' death for their sins.</p>
<p>Unless Christians today are fortunate enough to be alive when Jesus returns at <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, sooner or later, every one of us will die. Historically, there were only two people recorded in the Bible who did not die and were taken up directly to heaven: Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:11).</p>
<p>Thus, except for the above exceptions, every single person will die <em>sometime</em> from <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>We might have the time to see death coming, get our affairs in order, and say our goodbyes to our loved ones, or it could happen with no warning at all. It's hard to say which option I'd pick, if I could choose. (Personally, though, I'm hoping for option 3: the Rapture).</p>
<p>But the reality is that, unless we receive personal direct revelation from God about how long we'll live—like Hezekiah and Simeon did (Isaiah 38:5, Luke 2:26)—we have no idea whether we'll even take our next breath or have another heartbeat (e.g. Luke 12:19-20). Just look at Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:5, 5:10), or Herod (Acts 12:23) as examples of people who had no idea that in the next instant they would be dead.</p>
<p>However the Christian hope has always been about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-christian-hope-of-resurrection/">bodily resurrection</a>.</p>
<p>Thus, like Job, all Christians should be able to confidently say:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Job 19:25-27)</span></span></p>
<p>This is because Jesus has already defeated death for us, and one day he will finally destroy death once and for all.</p>
<h2>Jesus Has Defeated Death, and Will Destroy Death</h2>
<p>The Bible tells us that Jesus has ultimately defeated death for us, to set us free from the power of death:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Romans 6:9-10)</span></span></p>
<p>In Christianity, the symbolic act of water baptism that is highly encouraged (but not required) for all Christians (Matthew 28:19) represents the spiritual death of the old person we were before and the spiritual birth of the new person we became the moment we <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believed in Jesus as our savior</a> (2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 1:13-14). The first moment of belief is when the Holy Spirit came to indwell us (Acts 10:44-48, Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16, Ephesians 1:13-14).</p>
<p>Through the spiritual union we now have with Jesus through the indwelling Holy Spirit, we share in Christ's death, and thus, because of his resurrection, our bodily resurrection is also guaranteed:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>"If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you"</em> (Romans 8:11).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his"</em> (Romans 6:3-5).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death"</em> (1 Corinthians 15:22-26).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Jesus came so that <em>"through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery"</em> (Hebrews 2:14-15). Note here that fear of death leads to lifelong slavery, but Jesus has come to deliver us from it.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Death and hell will finally be destroyed after the final judgment of all people who have ever lived (Revelation 20:14). Then, everyone throughout history who is saved will have either been resurrected and/or changed from mortal to immortal in the twinkling of an eye:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 Corinthians 15:53-56)</span></span></p>
<p>All that will be left for God's redeemed people is an eternity in the New Heaven and New Earth where God "will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away" (Revelation 21:4).</p>
<p>Therefore, death's days are numbered.</p>
<h2>For Christians, Death is Far Better than Temporal Life</h2>
<p>In addition to knowing that death is not the ultimate end for God's people, there are some surprising verses that talk about the benefits we get if we die.</p>
<p>The moment any Christian dies, even though our bodies stay here until being resurrected at the same time as <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">the Rapture</a> occurs (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17), at the moment of death our spirits go to be with Jesus in heaven:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. <span class="blockquote-verse">(2 Corinthians 5:6-8)</span></span></p>
<p>Did you catch that? Paul says Christians should actually <em>prefer</em> to be away from our bodies and at home with the Lord!</p>
<p>This was not a one-time comment by Paul. When he was being held in prison and wasn't sure whether he would be released or would be executed, he wrote:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Philippians 1:21-24)</span></span></p>
<p>So yes, dying and being with Christ is FAR BETTER than remaining in this world, at least, for the individual Christian who dies.</p>
<p>However, this certainly doesn't endorse suicide. Our death is <em>not</em> better for those we leave behind who will miss the contributions that we could make to the community of faith. Since Christians are called to love others, we should emulate Paul and remain here to serve others with the time we have, for which we'll be rewarded eternally (1 Corinthians 3:11-15).</p>
<p>But let's return to Paul's argument that for individual Christians, dying and being with Christ is far better than staying alive on earth. These are some pretty bold claims. What basis does Paul have for these statements?</p>
<p>In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul says that fourteen years ago he knew a man who was caught up to the third heaven or paradise. Here, "he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter." Paul repeats that he's not sure whether this experience happened while the man was still in his body, or out of it. (2 Corinthians 12:1-4).</p>
<p>Yet we know this man was Paul, because only a few sentences later he says God gave him a "thorn in the flesh" after this experience in order to keep him humble, due to the "surpassing greatness of the revelations" he had during this time (2 Corinthians 12:7).</p>
<p>So it appears that Paul either had a near-death experience or else a vision where he saw things in heaven that were far too amazing for him to describe, which were so great that he felt he couldn't talk about them.</p>
<p>Because of the hope he gained from this vision, he wrote "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities" (2 Corinthians 12:10). A similar statement is made when he writes "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18).</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Paul writes "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him," (1 Corinthians 2:9, NKJV). Yet "God has revealed them to us through His Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:10, NKJV).</p>
<p>Here's just a few things God has promised to you if you have believed in Jesus as your savior:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>A spiritual body that is imperishable/immortal, strong, glorious (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 52-53), and similar to Jesus' glorified body (1 Corinthians 15:49) which we get a glimpse of in Revelation 1:14-16. Our glorified bodies will be so much better than our current bodies that Paul says our current bodies are like flimsy tents, while in comparison our eternal bodies will be like durable buildings (2 Corinthians 5:1-4).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A place/room/mansion (depending on the Bible translation you use) in the Father's house which is being prepared for us by Jesus (John 14:2-3). John later reveals that this will be somewhere in the New Jerusalem described in Revelation 21:10-27. This city is described as being made of clear gold and built on foundations of many precious jewels. God himself will live in the city with us, and thus the city will not need any sun or light because God will be its light. The footnote to Revelation 21:16 in the ESV says the length of one of the city's sides is about 1330 miles (2140 km) and the city will be the same height as it is wide. So there will be more than enough space for everyone to have their perfect eternal home that God has created for each of us who believe in Jesus.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Heavenly rewards for all the good things we've done in our lives or how we served Christ. These rewards will be as valuable as gold and precious jewels (1 Corinthians 3:11-14, Colossians 3:23-24) and are referred to as an inheritance that is "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:3-5, see also Matthew 6:19-20, Romans 8:16-17, Ephesians 1:18). Even the smallest good work like giving a cup of water to someone in Jesus' name will be rewarded (Matthew 10:42).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Faithful Christians who have served God in this life will be rewarded by ruling with Christ over cities in the Millennium and/or eternity on the New Earth. We'll also have authority to judge the world and even judge angels (Luke 19:17-19, 2 Timothy 2:12, 1 Corinthians 6:2-3, Revelation 2:26-27, 5:10, 20:4).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The Church made up of all true Christians will be somehow even further united with Jesus, similar to how a man and woman are united in marriage (Ephesians 5:31-32, Revelation 19:6-10, 21:2). Jesus promises that everyone who is resurrected or raptured will be with Jesus forever (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and God will dwell with us in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:3).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>One of my favourite books that I recommend if anyone wants to get excited about what our eternal life on the New Earth will be like is called <em>Heaven</em> by Randy Alcorn. It's easy to find and is still very popular.</p>
<p>While his book is occasionally a little speculative, on the whole I think it's useful to clear away any fears we might have that eternal life will be boring or bland, or at worst, so unimaginable and different that we would rather hang onto this life here at all costs. Probably heaven will be even better than what Alcorn pictures, but it's a good starting point for Christians to begin getting excited about what our eternity will be like.</p>
<h2>Christians Can Face Martyrdom With Joy</h2>
<p>Because of all these amazing promises that we have to look forward to, Christians in the past have been able to face death courageously and without fear. Jesus said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! <span class="blockquote-verse">(Luke 12:4-5)</span></span></p>
<p>So basically, the thing that everyone (especially unsaved people) should really take seriously is the possibility of God's judgment, not physical death.</p>
<p>Christians in the early church had to start facing death for their beliefs on a regular basis. The first Christian martyr was Stephen, as recorded in Acts 7:54-60. The term "martyr" in Biblical Greek actually means <em>witness</em>,<cite>2</cite> and was used to describe people who witnessed to Christ through being put to death for not giving up on their faith. Eventually, all of the Apostles except for John died martyrs deaths,<cite>3</cite> although John was also tortured and exiled at various points in his life.</p>
<p>One of the early records of martyrdom faced by early church Christians is a document called "The Martyrdom of Perepetua." It tells about the last days of several young people in Carthage, North Africa who became Christians and were killed in 202 or 203 AD.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>They were arrested at a time when it was illegal to become Christian and were held in jail while they were put on trial. Yet they refused to renounce their faith, and so they were sentenced to death. Eventually they were taken to be executed in a Colosseum-like arena where they fought wild animals including a leopard and a mad cow, and were finally killed by gladiators.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>During their time in prison, the brand-new Christians were given several visions of heaven which gave them the courage to hold onto their faith, even though they knew it would lead to their deaths. However, they weren't afraid at all. In fact, when they were finally taken into the arena they were singing songs of victory.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>This is just one historical example of how Christians in the past were not afraid of facing even a violent and painful death. Other possibly historical examples of Christians who were tortured or killed for their faith in Christ can be found in Foxe's Book of Martyrs.</p>
<p>Can you believe that Christians in the past could have such courage, but many Christians alive today are afraid of dying from a bad cold? How embarrassing!</p>
<p>Where has our confidence in the truths of resurrection and eternal life gone? No wonder non-Christians today don't seem to think Christianity is something worth taking seriously, and Christians don't think the gospel is something worth sharing with everyone we know!</p>
<p>Ever since the early church, martyrdom of Christians has been ongoing and even increasing. Recently, a study revealed that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world, and estimated that in 2016 one Christian died for his or her faith every six minutes!<cite>7</cite> This is especially true in Afghanistan today where Christians are facing strong persecution from the Taliban after the disorderly US military withdrawal.<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>Yet the greatest number of Christian martyrs is still to come. After <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> happens, many people are going to change their minds about the truth of Christianity, but then it will be too late. These new Christians will unfortunately be left behind on earth to undergo the terrible seven-year Tribulation described in Revelation chapters 6 to 19.</p>
<p>Already by the fifth seal judgment, John describes the souls of martyrs arriving in heaven (Revelation 6:9-11).</p>
<p>More martyrs are described in Revelation 7, where John sees</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" <span class="blockquote-verse">(Revelation 7:9-10)</span></span></p>
<p>We know this group are martyrs because John is told that "These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 7:14).</p>
<p>This mass slaughter of Christians only gets worse as the Tribulation goes on. The <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> makes war on the saints (Revelation 13:7) so that they are forced to choose whether to worship the image of the Antichrist and take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> or be beheaded (Revelation 13:15-18, 20:4). Yet these martyrs will be resurrected at the end of the Tribulation and will rule with Jesus in his Millennial kingdom (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<p>If the Rapture hasn't happened yet and you want to escape having to make such a decision, it's super easy. All you need to do is believe in Jesus as your savior and you can have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">eternal life for free</a>!</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>In the end, everyone will have to give an answer to Jesus, who said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26).</p>
<p>If you have indeed <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believed in Jesus as your savior</a>, then like Job and Paul, you should be able to confidently answer "YES" to Jesus' question above.</p>
<p>If so, then there is nothing you need to fear,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">for I am sure that neither <em>death</em> 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. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Romans 8:38-39)</span></span></p>
<p>Not only that, but we have an incredible eternal future to look forward to which will be better than anything we can imagine now.</p>
<p>If you're a Christian, I would challenge you to think about these promises and absorb them deep into your heart, because this will give you the courage you need to overcome the fear of death that is paralyzing our world today, and will let you give answers to others about the reason for your hope (1 Peter 3:15).</p>
<p>If it becomes necessary, pray that God would give you the courage to stand firm in your faith even unto death, so that you can receive an eternal crown (Revelation 2:10). And if you're reading this after <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> has happened, then avoid taking the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> at all costs.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country">"Christianity By Country"</a>, Wikipedia.org</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> <a href="https://biblehub.com/greek/3144.htm">3144. Martus</a>, Biblehub.com</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Josh and Sean McDowell, <em>Evidence for the Resurrection</em> (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2009), 216-218.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Alan Hayes, <em>Church and Society in Documents, 100-600 AD</em> (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 1995), 60.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Alan Hayes, <em>Church and Society in Documents, 100-600 AD</em> (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 1995), 61-72.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Alan Hayes, <em>Church and Society in Documents, 100-600 AD</em> (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 1995), 70.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Barbara Kay, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-our-politicians-may-not-care-but-christians-are-under-siege-across-the-world">"Barbara Kay: Our politicians may not care, but Christians are under siege across the world"</a>, The National Post, May 7, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> <a href="https://www.persecution.org/2021/08/23/christians-afghanistan-call-help-new-reports-persecution-surface/">"Christians in Afghanistan Call for Help as New Reports of Persecution Surface"</a>, Persecution.org, August 23, 2021.</li>
</ul>Christians Must Evangelize Or Churches Will Die2021-10-17T00:00:00+00:002021-10-17T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2021-10-17:/article/churches-must-evangelize-or-die/<p>Many people have noted the decline of Christianity in Western countries over the last few hundred years, which has become even more obvious in the last fifty to seventy years. The reasons for this decline are attributed to many different things.</p>
<p>Some say it's just 'post-Christendom,' where Western societies as …</p><p>Many people have noted the decline of Christianity in Western countries over the last few hundred years, which has become even more obvious in the last fifty to seventy years. The reasons for this decline are attributed to many different things.</p>
<p>Some say it's just 'post-Christendom,' where Western societies as a whole are becoming resistant and indifferent to Christianity after being influenced by it for so long. Others say Christians are just not having as many children as they used to, in contrast to growing religions like Mormonism and Islam. Some say it's simply a demographic and cultural shift in Western cultures which means that churches should downsize and merge with one another.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>All these arguments seem to say that there's nothing that can be done to slow down or reverse the decline of Christianity in Western countries. It seems to lead to an attitude that Christians should just get used to this new reality.</p>
<p>But I think another major reason behind this decline is that, on the whole, Christians are failing to share our faith with others. The theological term for this activity is <em>evangelism</em>. I worry that many Christians no longer know how to explain <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">the gospel</a> in an understandable way, so that non-Christians <em>can</em> believe it and <em>want</em> to believe it. This may be because many Christians today feel unequipped in their own understanding of the gospel.</p>
<p>Therefore, in this post I will argue that Christians (and church leaders especially) should make evangelism their number-one priority, as well as training up of current Christians in theology and apologetics.</p>
<h2>Evangelism is a Necessary Activity of the Church</h2>
<p>Consider the early church. They started from <em>nothing</em>, with no knowledge of Christianity that pre-existed in their Greco-Roman culture. And they rapidly spread the message of the gospel and started house churches in city after city after city. Paul and other Apostles would go and preach the gospel even in the marketplaces or other public areas. Some people would reject them, but others would be convinced and would join them. </p>
<p>New communities of Christians sprang up quickly when people heard the gospel and joined together to encourage each other, to study the Bible, to pray together, to build up their faith, to train and educate new converts or children, and to share the gospel with others around them. Similar things happened when missionaries brought the gospel to new cultures who had never heard it before.</p>
<p>The success of these new Christian communities depended on having enough numerical growth to sustain their existence. They were training up their children in the faith, appointing new leaders to take over when older ones passed on, and reaching out to the people around them to bring in new converts.</p>
<p>Evangelism is ultimately the activity that sustains churches. If evangelism is neglected, then a church will eventually die out. It's a simple fact.</p>
<p>After all, even though we usually don't like to think about it, each of us will eventually die (unless Jesus returns before then at <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>). The only reason the churches we attend currently are still in existence is because previous generations of Christians evangelized.</p>
<p>They took their children to church. They invited friends to church. They held revival meetings. They passed out tracts. They preached on the street-corners. They held Bible studies in their homes. They formed student organizations to preach and teach on campuses. And on and on.</p>
<p>And yes, they did good works too. They founded orphanages, shelters, soup kitchens, and hospitals. They advocated for abolishing slavery and opposed other injustices. They tried to change their societies to be ones that supported Christian values. These are all excellent things, and God is certainly pleased when we help others.</p>
<p>However, if all those good works are not inspiring people to become Christians and join churches, then unfortunately, the truth is that these churches will shrink and eventually die regardless of how much excellent work they are doing in their communities.</p>
<p>Even if a church closes its doors, sells its building, and becomes a small group or house church, eventually that too will die off if it fails to evangelize and bring in or raise up new Christians.</p>
<p>People move away due to school, work, marriage, etc. Elderly people will pass on. And if no one new is coming in to replace these people who leave, then slowly the group will dwindle until it is forced to cease altogether or merges with another group. If that new group also does not bring in new people, then it too will sooner or later decline and die out. And on and on.</p>
<h2>You Can't Help Someone If You're Dead</h2>
<p>Some might say that the church also needs to do good works. They argue that the church can do a lot of good, such as by filling gaps in government social programs or saving people from dying on the streets or living in poverty or being hungry. But if the church doesn't exist, then it cannot do <em>any</em> of that!</p>
<p>The current state of Christianity in our culture today reminds me of the emergency instructions they give you when you travel on an airplane: "put on your own oxygen mask before helping others". Unless churches are growing, soon they will not exist, and will not be able to do these excellent good works. And the only way churches grow is through evangelism.</p>
<p>So those who are the most enthusiastic for all the social programs that churches are involved in <em>should also be the ones most encouraging evangelism</em>! Because without evangelism, churches <em>cannot</em> sustain these programs for the long-term.</p>
<p>Therefore, if faced with a declining church, the answer is not to continue to do things the same way as they have been. Because doing things the same way is going to lead to the same results.</p>
<p>If resources of money or volunteers are dwindling, it is unreasonable to ask fewer and fewer people to do more and more, to sustain things and keep the church going the way it was in the 'good old days'. If a church does that, then soon, the work will be too burdensome for anyone to want to take it on. After all, people's lives are busy and complicated, and it does the church no good if a person who was willing to step up and volunteer burns out.</p>
<p>And the evangelism needs to happen before a church becomes so small that any newcomers are seen only as new "human resources" to put to work right away to keep the church's programs going. Desperation and clinginess will scare people away from joining churches just as these same things drive people away from romantic relationships.</p>
<h2>Proposed Solution: Focus on Evangelism and Training Up Current Christians</h2>
<p>So I think the solution is for churches to put more of their limited resources and energy into outreach to non-Christians. Or perhaps, outreach to those who are nominally Christian but who feel no need to get involved in a local church. Or to Christians who are satisfied watching Youtube sermons but are not part of local church communities.</p>
<p>Accordingly, another critical area of focus should be on discipleship programs which can instruct and mentor people in their Christian faith. This is critical to train Christians to know what they believe and to enable them to share their beliefs clearly with their friends, family, coworkers, and others.</p>
<p>After all, Paul says we should always be ready prepared to "make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).</p>
<p>But my experience is that many Christians in church are not ready to do this. They might be happy to talk about what God has done in their lives in Bible studies or among Christian friends. But if asked a tough question by a non-Christian, they might freeze.</p>
<p>They might say that having answers doesn't matter because it's all about faith. They might tell someone to just read the Bible and pray, and it will becomes obvious that Christianity is true.</p>
<p>They might, if they're especially daring, invite that person to church, or forward them a Youtube video where they can hear explanations from an expert. They might buy someone a Bible, or a good book by a well-loved Christian author. This is alright, and certainly better than nothing, but not ideal.</p>
<p>The issue is that in all these approaches Christians are essentially passing off their responsibility to give an answer to someone else, whether to the person who is interested in Christianity themselves, or to another Christian expert.</p>
<p>While there might be times to refer to experts, I think what we really need in order to keep Christianity going in places where it is declining is to train every individual Christian to:</p>
<ul>
<li>be more familiar with the basics of Christianity (a.k.a the gospel).</li>
<li>explain the gospel in ways that are clear and understandable to people in our culture which is rapidly losing familiarity with the Bible and Christian terminology.</li>
<li>explain the gospel in such a way that non-Christians realize they need Jesus as their savior.</li>
<li>know some answers to the most common "tough questions" that unbelievers might throw at us.</li>
<li>demonstrate in our lives the difference that our faith makes to how we act and how we think about the world.</li>
</ul>
<p>We need preaching and teaching which enables the average pew-sitting Christian to do these things. We also need more people to be involved in Bible studies, or even for churches to offer full-blown catechetical courses, like they still do in some Christian traditions.</p>
<p>We need to preach the gospel clearly in <em>every single sermon</em>, or at least, it needs to be said clearly at least <em>sometime</em> during every church service. We can't just assume that everyone in church knows what it is. What if someone attends your church for the first time, and they go home having heard nothing about the hope of eternal life and the love of God for sinners shown to us in Christ's life and death for us? How sad would that be! And what a lost opportunity.</p>
<p>In summary, let's put the focus back on Jesus' command to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).</p>
<p>If you've made it this far into my argument and agree with me, then I'm glad, and I hope you take up my challenge to prioritize evangelism and discipleship, whether personally or in your churches.</p>
<p>In the rest of this post I'm going to argue why I think that the gospel needs to be churches' priority rather than good works, if we're facing a situation of declining numbers, or if we have to choose where to spend our limited resources.</p>
<h2>But what about the people who need our help?</h2>
<p>The above question is what I imagine some especially compassionate and caring Christians might say in response to my above argument. Maybe they will dismiss me as a cold-hearted rational theologian. However, I believe that prioritizing evangelism and discipleship is actually the best long-term answer to enabling our churches to help more people.</p>
<p>If a church is facing dwindling numbers or limited resources, then I know it might be hard for some to stomach, but it might be necessary to cut back on other social programs the church is running, if there are not enough people or resources to continue to run them. Or at least, put the social programs on hold until the church is growing and sustainable again.</p>
<p>In the worst case scenario, maybe churches should downsize and find a new way of existing that is sustainable, even if it means they can no longer offer the social programs they used to, or if they have to sell their building.</p>
<p>After all, those people who are relying on the social services that a church provides will go elsewhere or will find other ways of surviving if the church goes under. But churches cannot sacrifice their own existence by focusing so much on these good things and serving others that they neglect evangelism. For doing so is to neglect their own future existence. Then no one gets helped.</p>
<p>Plus, there are many organizations out there that do offer various social programs and are not associated with churches. Why are churches duplicating these things which other organizations probably do them better, more efficiently, and more effectively, while churches neglect Jesus' commands to go and preach and make disciples?</p>
<p>Spreading the gospel is the <em>only</em> thing the church does that all the other organizations out there do not do. Personally, I would rather put my limited time, effort, and money into that task, rather than supporting other charities or organizations that don't directly share the gospel.</p>
<p>Some might say that the church being involved in offering social programs might inspire the people that benefit from them to attend church by demonstrating God's love to them. Or maybe the programs can attract non-Christians who are interested in serving others by working for common goals.</p>
<p>But in my experience, while this may be true for a small minority of people, on the whole, it seems that this approach does not lead to the boost in church attendance or commitment or conversions that churches need to become sustainable again. The number of new, consistent, and committed church attendees I've seen as a result of my small church's <em>totally amazing</em> service to many different communities over the years has led to no significant increase in our church size.</p>
<p>Yes, all this serving might be having an impact on some people's souls, such as introducing children to Jesus in summer camps, or chatting with homeless and poor individuals about God during the nights when they eat and sleep in the church's basement.</p>
<p>But ultimately, if our church is not growing, demographics will overtake it very quickly, and all these wonderful things my church does will cease anyway.</p>
<p>It reminds me of people who are so giving of themselves that they neglect their own health, sanity, and financial stability.</p>
<p>They give and give and give until they are unhealthy, burnt out, and penniless. Then those who have depended on their enabling and provision will either go elsewhere to get what they need, or, they will simply end up in the same situation that they would have ended up in anyway.</p>
<p>Plus, the individuals who were being cared for have, in all likelihood, still not learned the skills or made the changes that they would need to in order to get themselves out of the cycle of neediness and dependency that caused them to need help in the first place.</p>
<p>Jesus did say that we would always have the poor with us (Matthew 26:11). The church is never going to be able to solve that problem (nor, will the government, for that matter).</p>
<p>Some might say "Well, we just need to pray, and trust that God will sustain us to continue doing His work."</p>
<p>But again, let's remember what is the most <em>important</em> work the church does. That's where the church's priorities <em>must</em> be, in order to be faithful to Jesus.</p>
<p>Jesus' instructions to the church is not "go out and solve world hunger." It is not "go out and solve homelessness." It is not "go out and heal the sick." It is not "go out and adopt all the unwanted children out there to end abortion." It is not "go and advocate for all the minorities and oppressed peoples of the world." It is not "go out and reconcile all divisions between all people groups". Or whatever other socially good task we can imagine.</p>
<p>Of course these are all good things which individual Christians can be involved in according to our gifts and callings. And God is pleased when Christians do good, and promises us heavenly rewards for our personal involvement in these things (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). But these things are not our <em>primary</em> duty as Christians. We are commanded to go <em>preach</em>, <em>teach</em>, <em>make disciples</em>.</p>
<p>We might have these specific spiritual gifts. But if we don't, then building up the church, a.k.a the body of Christ, is the goal of all the spiritual gifts which the Holy Spirit gives to each Christian:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Ephesians 4:11-12, NRSV)</span></span></p>
<p>Spiritual gifts and Christian leadership roles are not given by God for the purpose of going out to fix the world. To think that Christians will save the world through our good works is as heretical as the idea that our good works can get us into heaven. Only Jesus saves the world. Our job is to tell the world about Jesus.</p>
<h2>The Gospel Is Needed To Sustain Western Ethics</h2>
<p>However, for anyone who is unconvinced by my argument so far and who still thinks the church needs to save the world through good works, I will argue here that society as a whole benefits directly from Christians sharing the gospel.</p>
<p>Historically, it is because of the widespread influence of Judeo-Christian values and beliefs over the last two-thousand years that Western culture has come to believe in caring for the poor and disadvantaged members of our society.</p>
<p>And it is the gospel which teaches us to overcome biases against people based on superficial characteristics. For example, the belief that God loves everyone equally means we should also love each person equally (Romans 13:8, John 13:34, 15:12).</p>
<p>In other societies people are often valued only based on their class, their race, their gender, their beauty, their wealth, or some other standard. In other societies things like murder, theft, torture, enslavement, or abuse are excused or overlooked if done against certain types of people. These are things that Christianity teaches are sinful.</p>
<p>So if Christianity dies out in Western countries due to a lack of evangelism, then in the long term, if Jesus doesn't return quickly enough, our society will lose these values. These values may persist for a few generations in the 'afterglow' of the gospel, when people still believe that being an ethical person is important.</p>
<p>However, sooner or later people with no religious background will begin asking themselves why they bother being good and loving people if, in the end, everything and everyone they love and care about will die.</p>
<p>For example, in a debate involving Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and psychologist Jordan Peterson, Peterson argued that the purpose of life is doing good, alleviating suffering, and fighting evil. Craig argued that if there is no God who gives people eternal life which makes our moral choices eternally significant, then doing good, alleviating suffering, and fighting evil makes no ultimate difference.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>For example, some might say that it is our families that gives our lives meaning. We want the world to be a good place for our children, and their children, and on and on. But from an atheistic perspective, why would it matter if our families continue, or if people in the future have good lives, if everything will ultimately be destroyed either in a nuclear war, a deadly pandemic, an asteroid impact, runaway climate change, a solar flare hitting Earth, the sun going supernova, or the final heat death of the universe?</p>
<p>The end result would be the same as if humanity had never existed. Whether we as individuals had happy lives or miserable lives would not matter or change anything.</p>
<p>And thus, if there is no eternal afterlife and no eternal impact we may make on someone's life, then why not just live for ourselves and our own pleasure?</p>
<p>The song "Imagine" by John Lennon would seem to say that's a good thing. One line goes "Imagine all the people living for today." But just imagine how terrifying that would be: rates of murder, rape, and theft would skyrocket!</p>
<p>Some might say that such a situation would not happen because people are inherently good, and people feel good when we do good for others, and so altruism would win out and prevent societal decline. People would still love their children, care for elderly parents, feed the poor, and so forth, because of the inherent goodness of their hearts, or their consciences, or their 'selfish' genes that program them to do such things to ensure humanity's continued existence.</p>
<p>As a Christian, I would say that yes, due to God's common grace, God preserves some sense of selflessness and good in humanity at large so that humanity does not self destruct in an apocalypse of individualistic selfishness before the end-times comes (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 2:7). Scripture also hints that our consciences can act as a sort of "law" unto themselves if necessary (Romans 2:14-16).</p>
<p>Thus, many human cultures have managed to not self-destruct without Judeo-Christian values because of people's God-given and common-grace-preserved consciences. But many societies have also fallen into human sacrifice, mass murder, slavery, and other extreme evils despite having consciences. Conscience is not infallible.</p>
<p>The Christian philosopher Kierkegaard, in his book <em>Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing,</em> argued that each person should live in a way that we would be at peace if we were eternally trapped with our own consciences in the afterlife. He believes we do this by living for only "one thing", which is what he calls "the good" (i.e. God). Ancient Greek philosophers came to similar conclusions.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>But it is Christianity and not philosophy which made the incredible impact upon Western culture that has shaped our society as a whole such that individuals in Western cultures generally value doing good towards others.</p>
<p>I've even heard a contemporary philosopher say that if you can't teach your children philosophy, then take them to church, because there they will learn the same morals and ethics that the best philosophy can teach.</p>
<p>More importantly, though, you should take your children to church because they might just gain <em><a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">eternal life</a></em>, if they believe in Jesus as their savior from the eternal death that their sins deserve.</p>
<p>Because philosophy has no solution to what each of us feels deep inside about our failure, our guilt, our inadequacy, and our mistakes and errors when we have failed to live up to what we know we should have done.</p>
<p>Yes, we can learn from our past, and try to live better. But because humanity has fallen into sin, it is impossible to rid ourselves of our selfishness, our greed, our pride, or our hatred by our own efforts. Philosophy, atheistic ethics, and our consciences cannot save us from sin. They can't give us ultimate meaning and purpose despite the suffering we all experience.</p>
<p>It is only Christianity which can relieve our guilty consciences. It is only in Jesus that we can have the promise of eternal life, which gives meaning to all of our lives and to the lives of everyone else in the world whom Christians desire to help.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">offer of free eternal life through faith in Christ</a> is what Jesus has called Christians to share with the world. This must be our priority.</p>
<p>Those who want to focus on ethics and good works instead of the gospel should realize that by sharing the gospel, we are also sharing the values and ethics which can help improve the world. However, we can't just skip over the gospel and go straight to ethics, because without the gospel there is no foundation for Christian ethics.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>If you want your church to continue to exist, the only solution is to evangelize. And that means training up average Christians through teaching doctrine and studying the Bible so that they can effectively share their beliefs and give compelling answers to questions they will face in the process.</p>
<p>Sharing the gospel is the essential mission and calling of the church, and of all Christians. It cannot be neglected for the sake of doing good works. Yet indirectly, sharing the gospel provides the only enduring foundation for the ethics which will improve the world. So those who want to do the most good in the world should also focus on evangelism.</p>
<p>Because a church which fails to reach out to others with the gospel and fails to train Christians to share the gospel will eventually die out. Regardless of how much good we do for others, or how much we love our services and worship and community, if our church does not spread the message of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ</a>, then I would argue that it is not truly a church and Christians should not weep if it ceases to exist.</p>
<p>Fortunately, God has given us reassurance that <em>the Church</em> as a whole will not die out in this world, because not even the gates of hell will be able to overcome it (Matthew 16:17-19). However, we still have a job to do, and the future of our local churches and of Christianity in our city or country depends on Christians stepping out in faith to engage in evangelism and discipleship.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Erik Parker, <a href="https://millennialpastor.net/2019/05/29/closing-9000-churches-in-canada-why-decline-might-still-be-a-good-thing-in-2019/">"Closing 9000 Churches In Canada – Why Decline Might Still Be A Good Thing In 2019"</a>, The Millennial Pastor, May 29, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV4oIqnaxlg">"Is There Meaning to Life? | William Lane Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, Jordan Peterson - Toronto 2018" on *YouTube*</a>, ReasonableFaithOrg, January 26, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good">"Form of the Good"</a>, Wikipedia.org</li>
</ul>Do You Trust the Experts?2021-09-29T00:01:00+00:002021-09-29T00:01:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2021-09-29:/article/trusting-the-experts/<p>Now that I've successfully defended my PhD, some people might consider me an 'expert' on at least some topics.</p>
<p>However, as I've progressed through my theological studies, I've become much less willing to trust someone just because they call themselves an expert, or even because they're recognized by others as …</p><p>Now that I've successfully defended my PhD, some people might consider me an 'expert' on at least some topics.</p>
<p>However, as I've progressed through my theological studies, I've become much less willing to trust someone just because they call themselves an expert, or even because they're recognized by others as an expert.</p>
<p>So in this post I want to encourage you to not just trust the experts, but to think for yourself. I'll also suggest some ways that I think you can go about the process of thinking for yourself.</p>
<p>And don't think for yourself just because I said so! Instead, I'd like you to read my argument for why I think you should think for yourself, and <em>then</em> decide for yourself whether you agree or disagree.</p>
<h2>The Problem of Trusting Experts</h2>
<p>Too many times in discussions on many different topics, I've seen someone offer some expert's conclusion as if that is enough to settle the argument or prove a point. Or, alternatively, I've seen people dismiss a person's arguments simply because that person is not deemed to be enough of an expert.</p>
<p>But either way, if you argue that an idea or fact is true or false based <em>only</em> on someone <em>else's</em> opinion that the idea or fact is true or false, this is to commit what's called the <em>genetic fallacy</em>.<cite>1</cite> Fallacies are faulty ways of reasoning, and thus, if someone commits a fallacy, it makes their argument invalid. An invalid argument means that the argument can't contribute one way or the other to determining the truth of the issue being debated.</p>
<p>Now, I'm not saying that all experts are inherently untrustworthy, or that you should just ignore all the experts and go with your own first impression or gut instinct. Expert opinions are useful, because often experts have specialized training and knowledge that we don't have.</p>
<p>However, I think most people today can look around at the world and realize that just because some expert says something, it doesn't necessarily make it true.</p>
<p>This is even more clear when we consider that equally-qualified experts often disagree!</p>
<p>I've been in numerous debates where neither I nor my debate partner were personally experts on the details of a topic. Then each of us pulls out our favourite experts, and we each argue for why our expert should be trusted over the other person's expert. But in the end, neither of us is convinced by the other, and the debate has to end in an agreement to disagree. In particular, this happens when the evidence referred to by these experts is so specialized that it can't easily be understood or interpreted by the average person.</p>
<p>So then what do we do? How can we make decisions if the experts disagree, and if we don't have enough expertise to judge the evidence for ourselves?</p>
<h2>The Problem of Vetting Experts</h2>
<p>Some might say that we should look at people's certifications and degrees to determine who to trust. If an expert has degrees from a university that's deemed reputable, or if the expert has been certified by some organization, it can make it seem like the expert should be trustworthy.</p>
<p>However, this is just to push the problem back one step. Because who says that those people who judge a university to be reputable or not reputable, or who hand out the degrees or the certificates, or who do the peer-reviewed studies are themselves to be trusted? They're just other experts!</p>
<p>It's the same problem with people who claim to have the authority to fact-check information and judge whether an expert is telling the truth or not. Who says that the fact-checkers who are vetting these experts are correct? Other fact-checkers? Other experts? And the problem just begins all over again.</p>
<p>Even if you get a lot of experts together who all agree, it still doesn't necessarily mean something is true.</p>
<p>For example, all the experts back in Galileo's day would have said that the sun orbits around the earth. Just because they said so, though, has absolutely no power to determine what is reality. Even if every single person on the planet agreed that the sun orbits around the earth, it still wouldn't be true.</p>
<p>Conversely, to argue that someone is not enough of an expert on a subject is completely irrelevant when it comes to judging the potential truthfulness of the arguments or evidence that this person may present.</p>
<p>For example, again, back in Galileo's time, the most uneducated or even completely insane person could have argued that the earth orbits around the sun, and it would have been true!</p>
<p>Today, an even dumber version of this problem of vetting experts occurs when people criticize not just the credentials of who is making an argument, but also what platform is being used to host or distribute this argument.</p>
<p>Just because something is on Youtube or Facebook or Twitter doesn't automatically make it true or reliable, and just because something is on Bitchute or Gab or other alternative platforms also doesn't make it automatically true or reliable. Just because something is in a published book sold at major retailers doesn't make it true, and just because something is posted on an obscure, very 1990s-looking text-only website doesn't make it true, either.</p>
<p>So then what do we do? If neither being an expert, being recognized by others as an expert, or having large numbers of experts agreeing on a fact or idea has anything to do with determining the truthfulness of that fact or idea, do we just give up on ever hoping to know what is true? Or is there some way that we can perhaps sort through the mess and try to figure out what is more likely to be true?</p>
<h2>The Solution: Think for Yourself, Keep an Open Mind, and be Humble</h2>
<p>In this life no-one is ever completely objective. We're all influenced by our past experiences, our culture, our family and friends, and the people that we've learned from.</p>
<p>However, when it comes to important issues, it's important to try to become as objective as possible. The way to do this is to look at all sides of an issue for ourselves, and to give experts on each side a fair chance to present their evidence and make a good case.</p>
<p>This requires humility, because we can't just assume that whatever position we initially prefer is necessarily true. We also can't assume that whatever we currently believe is automatically true. I've had the experience several times in my life of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/being-open-to-changing-our-minds/">changing my mind</a> on an issue after I allowed myself to read the opposing point of view and carefully consider their evidence with an open mind.</p>
<p>Of course, how long and how carefully you choose to do your own research depends on how important you think the issue is. That will depend on how serious you judge the potential consequences of choosing a position to be.</p>
<p>For example, I'm not going to spend time carefully considering the arguments of Flat-Earthers. That's not just because I think there's overwhelming evidence that the earth is round, but because ultimately, it doesn't really matter to me. People got through their lives just fine when they thought the world was flat, so it's not a life-or-death issue. I think people who argue on the topic could probably be using their time in better ways.</p>
<p>But when it comes to much more important issues that could have a significant impact on me, such as questions about personal medical treatments, or important theological questions that affect my understanding of God and his offer of eternal life, I'm more likely to take the time to try to research it by reading multiple points of view and considering their evidence carefully.</p>
<h2>The Problem of Censorship</h2>
<p>However, the procedure of carefully weighing the arguments for multiple sides of an issue can only occur provided that all sides of the issue and their supporting evidence are available to be fairly examined.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there have always been people who think they have the right to determine what information other people should have access to. They also think they can decide which experts are credible and which experts should be discredited, slandered, de-platformed, have their books burned, be fired from their jobs, be arrested, or even be killed.</p>
<p>This problem is complicated by the fact that if you're a Christian, you likely agree with the idea that all people are sinful (Romans 3:10-12, 3:23, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Isaiah 53:6). That means <em>all people</em> have the potential to be selfish, to put our own interests ahead of the best interests of others, and to lie or mislead others out of that selfishness.</p>
<p>Yes, ALL PEOPLE. That includes me, you, strangers on the internet, our friends, our family, our teachers, our professors, our politicians (especially politicians), the media, the alternative media, scientists, doctors, judges, clergy, theologians, even the Pope! If someone is human, they're sinful (except for Jesus, who is also <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-jesus-must-be-fully-divine/">fully divine</a>).</p>
<p>And, just in case anyone is inclined towards science fiction, any AI programmed by sinful humans is also going to be sinful, since those who program it will program it to behave and put out results in accord with their own sinful biases.</p>
<p>There's no possibility of avoiding sinful people on this planet other than the single person who committed no sin, who said he was <em>the truth</em> (John 14:6). And that's because Jesus is God, and God never lies (Titus 1:2). (Yes, these statements are obviously based on my belief that these verses <em>are</em> telling the truth, which you may disagree with, but we'll get to that later.)</p>
<p>Added to all of this is the problem that Satan is prowling around on the planet like a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8), seeking to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10), and Satan is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). Satan hates the truth because Jesus is the truth, so Satan and his demonic minions will do anything and everything they can to suppress, distort, demean, slander, oppress, and deny the truth.</p>
<p>In a way, then, one criteria I find very interesting to use to determine what might be true, is to see what views are currently being persecuted, oppressed, silenced, etc. This doesn't always work, but it can be one piece of evidence to add on top of others, especially if there are good reasons why people might want to silence or persecute such views.</p>
<p>For example, why does our culture allow Christianity to be <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christianity-is-not-a-feel-good-religion/">frequently criticized</a>, while criticizing other popular monotheistic religions is seen as taboo? Maybe it's because there's something true about Christianity after all! Indirectly, then, persecution and censorship of Christianity can act as a sort of negative confirmation of the gospel's truth.</p>
<p>However, some people might object to my argument thus far. They might say, "But we can't let everyone run around and spread whatever ideas and information they want without anyone vetting the information! Someone might believe something that's untrue!"</p>
<p>And yes, that's a real possibility. But the benefit of allowing people to say what they want is that we can have an open, honest, and transparent debate where each side is free to bring their best evidence and try to refute the other side(s).</p>
<p>This process encourages further study that helps us sort through complex ideas, refine our arguments and do better research, and might result in us learning new things. Whereas if we preemptively decide which side is right and censor the others, we don't get any of that.</p>
<p>Even worse, because none of us are perfect, there's always the risk that the side we've preemptively decided is 'right' is actually wrong, and we become the bad guys who persecute those who are advocating for the truth. Do you want to take that risk? I don't.</p>
<p>Plus, I don't want to risk having the means of censorship fall into the hands of people with ulterior motives, who could then use it to censor me.</p>
<p>On top of all this, I think that if anyone moves toward censorship to promote their view rather than relying on honest and open debate based on reason and evidence, such a person is basically admitting that their preferred view has lost the argument, and the only tool left in their toolbox is the blatant use of power to oppress their opponent.</p>
<p>Therefore, even if there is a risk that some people will believe things that aren't true, we must allow people the right to disagree and to share their opinions openly without censorship. The alternative is too dangerous, and those who censor information risk ending up on the wrong side of history, and risk facing God's judgment, too.</p>
<p>What scares me even more than simple censorship though is that, once someone becomes convinced that their view is correct and then wants to censor other contrary views, it's not hard to imagine that they might want to stop people from sharing alternative views altogether. In the past, people who thought they were in the right killed the Old Testament prophets, they killed Jesus, they killed the early church Christians, they killed Protestants, and more.</p>
<p>So even though I totally believe that Christianity is true, I would never want to have the power to block all non-Christian views from the internet or burn all books that advocate for other religions, even if doing so might be for people's spiritual benefit. Instead, I think it's better to let people debate, see the evidence for each side, and trust people to work it out for themselves, because then their belief will be stronger than if it is merely dictated from the top-down by "fact-checkers" or "experts".</p>
<p>Never mind that controlling people's beliefs through censorship never works, anyway. If people don't want to believe the fact-checkers or experts, they won't. No one can force people to believe something they don't want to believe, no matter how much solid evidence and good arguments exist for it. (This is why Flat-Earthers are still around).</p>
<p>Even after a thousand years of Jesus' personal direct rule on Earth during his future Millennial kingdom, the Bible says there will be so many people who reject Jesus that their "number is like the sand of the sea" (Revelation 20:8). So people can't be forced to believe anything, no matter how strong the evidence is or how censored the alternatives are.</p>
<p>So whenever someone comes along who wants to control what information you're allowed to access by trying to discredit particular experts or label certain ideas as 'fake news' or 'disinformation', don't necessarily trust them. Look things up for yourself, read all sides of the debate, and weigh the consequences of believing one side or another carefully before making your decision about who to trust.</p>
<p>And of course, you can always pray about it, because God says that one role of the Holy Spirit is to guide us to the truth (John 16:13). But this brings me to my last point.</p>
<h2>It All Comes Down to Faith</h2>
<p>There is something called confirmation bias, where we tend to believe the experts who say the same thing as what we already believed or what we want to believe, and we will tend to ignore or discount experts who disagree with our pre-existing viewpoints.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Of course, whether confirmation bias is true could itself be debated. However, I think it's useful to remember that our judgments about who we choose to trust are personal choices, and each of us will come to different conclusions based on how we judge the evidence, and this judgment may be influenced what we want to believe.</p>
<p>For example, a notable atheist named Thomas Nagel has admitted that he simply doesn't want to believe in God. He wrote:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>How many other atheists out there are like him, but aren't willing to openly admit it?</p>
<p>Whereas for myself and many other Christians, we would admit that the atheistic idea that the universe has no ultimate meaning or purpose, or that there is no God who is perfect love who will one day bring justice and truth and righteousness to the world is extremely unappealing to us. Therefore, we will inherently trust experts who confirm our beliefs, because we want to support what we already believe, and we'll distrust experts who disagree with us.</p>
<p>Thus, in the end, I think confirmation bias is unavoidable. Even if we try the above method of being open minded and humble while investigating multiple sides of an issue, everyone still has to choose what they want to believe.</p>
<p>Some very noble and courageous people may simply want to believe the truth, no matter what that truth is. That's perhaps the best desire of all, since I'm convinced that honestly and diligently seeking truth will ultimately lead people to <em>The Truth</em>, which is Jesus Christ. But again, this requires that certain ideas are not being artificially suppressed and censored.</p>
<p>So please, let's learn how to agree to disagree, and to accept that there will always be a broad diversity of opinions in this fallen, sinful world. The only other option is to go back to holy wars where people kill each other over differences of belief, or we end up in oppressive societies where authorities censor, imprison, or execute those who dissent from their pre-selected views.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>I believe that many things that each of us believe about the world are not actually facts, but are acts of faith.</p>
<p>For example, I have never personally done the observations and calculations to determine whether the sun orbits around the earth, or if the earth orbits around the sun. I trust the astronomical experts have got that one figured out. But I do recognize that although many people would consider the idea of the earth orbiting around the sun as a fact, the fact is, unless they've repeated the experiments for themselves, they're choosing to place their trust in the experts, and they have faith that what they are told by these experts is actually the truth.</p>
<p>This is just one obvious example, but it goes for many other things that we think are 'facts' but that we haven't personally proven. We choose people to trust and have faith in their expertise, and so we accept that what they say is a fact.</p>
<p>So, in many areas of life, we are in the same position as Adam and Eve, having to choose who to trust. In their case, they had a choice between trusting God, or listening to Satan. Unfortunately for us all, they chose the wrong 'expert' to trust, and it had devastating consequences that required the death of God's own Son to solve.</p>
<p>Many of our daily choices over who to trust won't ever be this serious. I've written elsewhere about these issues regarding our choice to believe <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/">whether the Bible is fully accurate or not</a>. Our choice of what to believe about Jesus' offer of salvation to anyone who believes in him (John 3:16) is an even more important issue that, if you haven't made your mind up about it yet, you should seriously consider spending the time to investigate it carefully.</p>
<p>But regardless of whether you believe in Jesus or not, I would appeal to you to allow people to have the right to disagree with you, and not advocate for censorship of ideas that you find distasteful. Because the alternative is much worse.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> <a href="https://proofed.com/writing-tips/academic-writing-how-to-avoid-the-genetic-fallacy/">"Academic Writing: How to Avoid the Genetic Fallacy"</a>, Proofed.com, September 10, 2020.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Shahram Heshmat, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias"></a>"What Is Confirmation Bias?", Psychology Today, April 23, 2015.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Annie Holmquist, <a href="https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/atheist-explains-true-reason-religion-terrifies-him/">"An Atheist Explains the True Reason Religion Terrifies Him"</a>, Intellectual Takeout, June 14, 2018.</li>
</ul>Mistaking the Antichrist for Jesus2021-09-29T00:00:00+00:002021-09-29T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2021-09-29:/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/<p>One thing I've wondered about over the years is why most people who will be alive during the future seven-year Tribulation will worship the Antichrist.</p>
<p>We have many warnings in the Bible about false Christs, false prophets, and false teachers. We also have very specific details in the books of …</p><p>One thing I've wondered about over the years is why most people who will be alive during the future seven-year Tribulation will worship the Antichrist.</p>
<p>We have many warnings in the Bible about false Christs, false prophets, and false teachers. We also have very specific details in the books of Daniel and Revelation about the Antichrist. So why would anyone willingly follow him? Won't it be obvious to everyone that he's the prophesied evil Antichrist?</p>
<p>In various end-times movies and books, the Antichrist is portrayed as a powerful, charming, and good-looking politician or world leader who rises up during the chaos that follows <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, and eventually gains control of the entire world. But would that really be enough to persuade most people to worship him?</p>
<p>I think the answer is found in how the prefix "anti-" in the term "Antichrist" can also mean that he will not just be "against" or "opposed to" Christ, but he will also come "instead of" or "in place of" Christ.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>So I think one reason why so many people will follow the Antichrist is because they will have mistaken him for Jesus, because the Antichrist will try to impersonate Jesus.</p>
<p>In this post I'll compare and contrast Jesus and the Antichrist, and I'll also propose one major reason for why many people during the Tribulation will be deceived by the Antichrist.</p>
<p>I hope this post will encourage Christians today that no matter how dark the world seems to be getting, we're not yet in the Tribulation. Also, since the Antichrist has not yet appeared, we are not yet facing the choice of taking the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>.</p>
<h2>Major Traits of the Antichrist</h2>
<p>Here's some of the most identifiable traits of the Antichrist, in roughly the same chronological order that they will appear:</p>
<ul>
<li>he first appears on a white horse and goes out to conquer at the start of the Tribulation (Revelation 6:2), after <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>.</li>
<li>he is somehow associated with the number 666 (Revelation 13:18).</li>
<li>he will have no respect for laws or the rule of law (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 2:8).</li>
<li>he will make or confirm a peace deal between Israel and "many" that will last for seven years (Daniel 9:27). This deal will allow Israel to rebuild their temple and restart their Old-Testament sacrificial system.</li>
<li>ten leaders will give him power to rule the whole world (Revelation 17:12-13, 13:7-8).</li>
<li>he will blaspheme God (Revelation 13:5-6).</li>
<li>he will kill the two witnesses who will prophesy in Jerusalem for 1260 days (Revelation 11:7-8).</li>
<li>he may receive a deadly/fatal wound with a sword/knife of some sort, but this wound will be healed (Revelation 13:3-4, 13:12-14). This apparent miracle will cause people to marvel and worship him.</li>
<li>halfway through the seven-year Tribulation, he will declare himself to be God in Israel's temple and end their sacrifices (2 Thessalonians 2:4, Daniel 9:27, Daniel 11:31, Daniel 12:11, Matthew 24:15-16, Mark 13:14).</li>
<li>he will demand that everyone worship an image of the Antichrist or die (Revelation 13:15).</li>
<li>he will be endorsed by a religious leader who does impressive miracles for him (Revelation 13:11-14).</li>
<li>this religious leader will demand that everyone take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> in/on their right hands or foreheads to be able to buy and sell (Revelation 13:16-17).</li>
<li>he will persecute the Tribulation saints and overcome them (Revelation 13:7).</li>
<li>he will be captured and thrown into the lake of fire at Jesus' second coming (Revelation 19:20).</li>
</ul>
<p>There are possibly several more obscure traits of the Antichrist than just these listed here, but I think the above are the clearest and least debateable. For more on this topic, I recommend Mark Hitchcock's book <em>Who Is The Antichrist?</em> (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2011).</p>
<p>What's important to note is that there has not yet been anyone in world history who has matched all of these characteristics. There have been people in the past who acted in somewhat similar ways, but these people were only a foreshadowing of the Antichrist who will appear and rule during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Given all the above, it should be quite easy for anyone who will believe in Jesus after <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> to identify the Antichrist, and thus, to avoid worshiping him or taking his <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> either accidentally or unknowingly.</p>
<p>So why will most people still worship him? Why would they risk suffering the punishment that the Bible warns will happen to those who take the Antichrist's Mark:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Revelation 14:9-11)</span></span></p>
<p>I think it's because they will be convinced that the Antichrist actually <em>is</em> God, because he'll impersonate Jesus.</p>
<h2>How the Antichrist Will Impersonate Jesus</h2>
<p>What I've noticed in my reading of the book of Revelation is that there are some notable similarities between what the Antichrist will do when he appears, and what God does or what Jesus will do at his second coming. This leads me to suspect that some of the Antichrist's actions during the Tribulation will be intended to trick people into believing that he is Jesus (or at least, that he is the Jews' real messiah).</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>both the Antichrist and Jesus will make their appearances on a white horse (Revelation 6:2, 19:11). I think that because Jesus' appearance on a white horse will be visible to the whole world, the Antichrist will also probably have a nice photo-op of himself sitting on a white horse at some point early on in his rise to power.</li>
<li>the Antichrist might very well proclaim to have come back from the dead like Jesus did, if he does somehow recover from a deadly wound (Revelation 13:3-4, 13:12-14).</li>
<li>both the Antichrist and Jesus will require that people worship them or die (Revelation 13:15, 20:15, Matthew 25:41).</li>
<li>both the Antichrist and Jesus will wipe out their enemies in battle (Revelation 13:7, 19:14-15).</li>
<li>both the Antichrist and Jesus will rule the entire world (Revelation 13:7-8, 19:15).</li>
<li>both the Antichrist and Jesus/God place marks on their followers' foreheads (Revelation 13:16, 7:3, 9:4, 14:1, 22:4).</li>
</ul>
<p>These similarities shouldn't be surprising, because not only does Satan hate God, but Satan actually also wants to be worshipped as God (Matthew 4:8-10). By having the Antichrist impersonate Jesus in these ways, Satan tries to impersonate God, and during the Tribulation he will try to receive humanity's worship which is meant only for God (Revelation 13:4).</p>
<h2>Differences Between Jesus and the Antichrist</h2>
<p>But, obviously, there are some major differences between Jesus and the Antichrist:</p>
<ul>
<li>Jesus never demands that people worship an image of him, and throughout the Bible, idolatry is always a sin.</li>
<li>the followers of Jesus are willing to die (Revelation 20:4), whereas the followers of the Antichrist are willing to kill (Revelation 13:7, John 16:2).</li>
<li>God marked his people spiritually on their foreheads during times of divine judgment (Ezekiel 9:4, Revelation 7:3), but the Antichrist marks his followers physically on the hand or forehead (Revelation 13:16).</li>
<li>Jesus' kingdom will last for 1000+ years (Revelation 20:1-3), where the Antichrist technically rules the world only for three-and-a-half years (Revelation 13:5).</li>
<li>Jesus' rule will be characterized by justice, righteousness and peace (Jeremiah 23:5-6), where the Antichrist's rule will be characterized by worldwide destruction, war, and violence (Revelation 13:7, 16:13-14, 20:4).</li>
</ul>
<h2>Why People Will Mistake The Antichrist For Jesus</h2>
<p>So although we've looked at some ways that the Antichrist is similar and dissimilar to Jesus, we still haven't necessarily answered the question of why so many people will be deceived into thinking the Antichrist is Jesus.</p>
<p>I think the answer is to be found in versions of Christian eschatology (i.e. teachings about the end-times) that do not anticipate a yet-future Tribulation. That is, they don't teach that there will be a future seven-year period of God's wrath being poured out on earth before Jesus returns to rule the world at his Second Coming.</p>
<p>These systems of eschatology confuse the Rapture and the Second Coming, and make the two distinct events identical when actually the conditions at the Rapture and the Second Coming are very different, like I've talked about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">here</a>.</p>
<p>This mistaken eschatological understanding will likely lead many otherwise Biblically-informed people to believe that the Antichrist is actually the second-coming of Jesus (or at least, the Jews' Messiah).</p>
<p>This deception will be helped by how the Antichrist will probably portray himself as the saviour of humanity. He'll probably promise that if people just do what he says, he'll <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/climate-change-and-the-end-times/">save the world from climate change</a>, from nuclear destruction, from financial collapse, or from anything else that furthers his agenda and attracts people's support.</p>
<p>If the Antichrist happens to have a well-known Biblical name that's also attributed to Jesus, like, say, "Emmanuel" which means "God with us" (Matthew 1:23, Isaiah 7:14), the deception would be even more convincing.</p>
<p>This is why Jesus gives very clear warnings to prevent people from being deceived by false Christs/Messiahs, especially during the Tribulation:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For many will come in my name, saying, "I am the Christ," and they will lead many astray. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Matthew 24:5. See also Mark 13:6, Luke 21:8)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Then if anyone says to you, "Look, here is the Christ!" or "There he is!" do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, "Look, he is in the wilderness," do not go out. If they say, "Look, he is in the inner rooms," do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Matthew 24:23-27)</span></span></p>
<p>Unfortunately, there will probably be a large number of people who call themselves Christians who will be left behind after the Rapture. These left-behind Christians-in-name-only will probably deny that the Rapture just happened. This is because these people won't want to admit they were left behind for never having had personal faith in Jesus as their savior.</p>
<p>These people will easily fall for the deception and believe that the Antichrist is actually the second coming of Jesus Christ, or maybe that he's a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, or he's the "real" Jesus Christ (versus that fake impostor whose lying disciples misled people 2000 years ago).</p>
<p>We're warned that the Antichrist's deception will be very powerful indeed:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. <span class="blockquote-verse">(2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)</span></span></p>
<p>These deceived people will also eagerly accept whatever lie the Antichrist invents to explain away <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>.</p>
<p>Maybe the Antichrist will claim that those millions of people who disappeared were removed by God for being horrible, hateful, judgmental, and divisive people who were holding humanity back from the wonderful future of worldwide love, tolerance, peace, and unity that God wants to set up through the Antichrist.</p>
<p>Or maybe he'll say that those who disappeared at the Rapture were left behind in an alternative dimension or reality until they learn their lessons and are ready to join the rest of humanity who have 'evolved' or 'ascended' into a new superior level of consciousness or spiritual reality.</p>
<p>Or maybe he'll say that those who were raptured were actually abducted by aliens that only the Antichrist can save the world from? Or maybe he'll claim that the aliens are actually angels who took away or killed all those awful, evil people for the good of the rest of humanity?</p>
<p>Who knows. But whatever the Antichrist's false explanation for the Rapture will be, it will probably be insulting to those who were raptured, since Revelation 13:6 warns that the Antichrist will blaspheme God, heaven, and also "those who dwell in heaven" (i.e. raptured and resurrected Christians).</p>
<p>This lie that slanders God and true Christians will likely be part of why the world as a whole won't have a problem with the Antichrist persecuting and killing people who do believe in Jesus after the Rapture. Jesus warns us that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. <span class="blockquote-verse">(John 16:2-3)</span></span></p>
<p>Many of those who insist on staying faithful to God during this time will be beheaded (Revelation 20:4). But these people will be resurrected shortly after Jesus' second coming, and they'll be rewarded by ruling the world with Jesus for the next thousand years. So that's not so bad, and it's far better than what the followers of the Antichrist will receive (Revelation 14:9-11).</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So in addition to the various warnings we've been given in the Bible about the characteristics of the Antichrist, the Bible's teachings about the pre-Tribulation Rapture and a future seven-year Tribulation before the second coming of Christ are important to help identify the Antichrist.</p>
<p>In contrast, any systems of doctrine that don't teach about the yet-future Tribulation or the Rapture are potentially setting people up to fall for the Antichrist's deception.</p>
<p>But this can all be summarized into one major point that I've made before:</p>
<p><strong>If, for any reason, someone says that you can't buy or sell without opting into some system that requires a mark in/on your right hand or forehead, and/or someone tells you to worship someone who isn't Jesus returning in the clouds wearing a robe dipped in blood, sitting on a white horse, surrounded by the armies of heaven (Revelation 19:11-14), in a display that will be like lightning flashing from the east to the west (Matthew 24:27, Luke 17:24), DON'T DO IT. Even if it costs you your life.</strong></p>
<p>However, on the flip side, if we don't yet see anyone who fulfills the above characteristics of the Antichrist, then we can trust that the Antichrist is not currently in power, and therefore, the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> also is not currently available (no matter how similar some ideas being proposed and enforced by our governments might appear right now).</p>
<p>This isn't meant to scare anyone. I'm confident that even if Christians who are paying attention today can see that the Tribulation is approaching fast, we'll be <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">raptured</a> before the Antichrist will be revealed, and before we have to make any choices about whether to take the Mark of the Beast. So I hope this article can comfort you if you have believed in Jesus as your savior, if you're worried about the way things are going in the world.</p>
<p>To anyone who finds this blog post after the Rapture has happened, I hope it can help counteract whatever the mainstream narrative will be at that time, help you identify the Antichrist, and encourage you to give your life to Jesus now, so that you can rule with Jesus during his millennial kingdom that's only seven years away.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Mark Hitchcock, <em>Who Is The Antichrist?</em> (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2011), 41.</li>
</ul>My Top 5 Reasons For The Rapture2021-09-17T00:00:00+00:002021-09-17T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2021-09-17:/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/<p>Given all that we're seeing in the world today, I suspect that at least some Christians are wondering if we're in the Tribulation: the period of seven years characterized by many divinely-sent disasters upon the Earth before Jesus returns to set up his <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">Millennial kingdom</a>.</p>
<p>My answer is <em>no</em>, we're …</p><p>Given all that we're seeing in the world today, I suspect that at least some Christians are wondering if we're in the Tribulation: the period of seven years characterized by many divinely-sent disasters upon the Earth before Jesus returns to set up his <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">Millennial kingdom</a>.</p>
<p>My answer is <em>no</em>, we're not yet in the Tribulation. And the reason we know we're not in the Tribulation is because the Church (i.e., all true Christians) will be suddenly removed from this world and taken to heaven at some point before the Tribulation begins.</p>
<p>This sudden event is often called "the Rapture" among English-speaking Christians.</p>
<p>One frequent but lazy objection to this doctrine is that the word "Rapture" isn't found in the Bible. That's because the term comes from the Latin word <em>rapere</em> meaning "caught up" as it's translated in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.<cite>1</cite> The original Greek word here is derived from the verb <em>harpazo</em>, also meaning "to catch up".<cite>2</cite> Specifically, the verb <em>harpazo</em> has the nuance of "to snatch" in the sense of "a forceful or violent seizing".<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>Unfortunately, the idea of the Rapture is disputed and sometimes even mocked by some Christians.</p>
<p>So in this article I want to present my top five reasons for why I believe the doctrine of the pre-Tribulation Rapture is correct, and why Christians should be comforted by this hope as we consider where the world seems to be rapidly headed, as I have <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">here</a> and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/climate-change-and-the-end-times/">here</a>.</p>
<h2>Reason 1: Jesus Returns for His Church When Life is Normal</h2>
<p>Jesus teaches his disciples that when he returns, life will be going on mostly like normal for most people in the world, and the people left behind on earth after the Rapture will be surprised and caught off guard by the sudden arrival of God's judgment:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming (Matthew 24:36-42).</span></p>
<p>A similar passage is found in Luke:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17:26-30).</span></p>
<p>If you read the stories of Noah in Genesis 7 and Lot in Genesis 19, you'll see that in both cases, Noah's and Lot's societies were going on just like normal until Noah entered the ark and rain started to fall, or until Lot was dragged out of Sodom by the angels.</p>
<p>There is debate over whether these verses in Matthew and Luke are talking about the Rapture or not. However, I'm convinced they must refer to the Rapture which leads to the beginning of the Tribulation. This is because I can't accept that the description of "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" or working in fields, milling grain, planting, building, etc. will be happening on a worldwide scale at the end of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Just take a quick skim through Revelation chapters 6 to 19, and you'll clearly see that life will be anything but 'normal' for people living on earth during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>For starters, in the Second Seal judgment there is worldwide war or violence (Revelation 6:4), and in the Third Seal judgment there is some sort of economic crisis that makes the basic food staples cost an entire day's wages (Revelation 6:5-6). Next, twenty-five percent of the world's population dies in the Fourth Seal judgment (Revelation 6:8).</p>
<p>In the Sixth Seal judgment something happens that reminds me of those asteroid-impact movies that came out back in the 1990s:</p>
<p>The sun goes dark, the moon turns red, and the stars fall to earth (meteorites?). There's an earthquake that moves every island and mountain from their places, and then</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?" (Revelation 6:15-17).</span></p>
<p>And it only gets worse from there.</p>
<p>Later judgments burn up a third of the earth and all grass (Revelation 8:7), turn the sea to blood and kill sea creatures (Revelation 8:8-9, 16:3), and poison a large portion of the world's fresh water (Revelation 8:10-11, 16:4). Another third of the surviving population are killed by angels released from the Euphrates river (Revelation 9:15). Many large earthquakes and other judgments will happen on top of the deadly persecution unleashed by the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> against those who believe in Jesus during the Tribulation period (Revelation 13:7, 13:15).</p>
<p>Jesus says that the Tribulation will be the most awful time that humanity has ever experienced:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short (Matthew 24:21-22, also Mark 13:19-20).</span></p>
<p>So can we really imagine that after all of that, at Jesus' second coming in Revelation 19:11-16, life will be going on as usual? Buying, selling, planting, marrying? Probably not so much. It will probably be more like those post-apocalyptic movies where people are just trying to dodge one disaster after another (Amos 5:18-19).</p>
<p>In fact, if we examine Revelation chapter 18, it says that at the judgment of the end-times entity called "Babylon," the merchants of the world will weep because there is no one who can buy their goods (Revelation 18:11-13), and there won't be anyone playing music, or building, or milling grain, or getting married (Revelation 18:21-24). This is before Jesus returns at the Second Coming in Revelation 19.</p>
<p>But if Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30 refer to the Rapture which happens before the Tribulation, then these verses are much more compatible with the detailed outline of future events given in the book of Revelation.</p>
<p>The Rapture happening before the Tribulation also matches with a shorter chronological outline of the end times given by Paul. He says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:21-26).</span></p>
<p>See how Christ is resurrected first, and when Christ comes (at the Rapture) Christians are resurrected. <em>Then</em> the 'end' comes (the Tribulation), which results in the destruction of the Antichrist and all rebellious people who oppose Jesus (Revelation 19:19-21), and finally, death itself is destroyed (Revelation 20:14).</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Jesus also warns that the Tribulation will come on the world like a "snare" or "trap" (Luke 21:34-35), so it will be sudden, without warning or most people being able to see it or avoid it.</p>
<p>Paul repeats this warning and adds details:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6).</span></p>
<p>So even if the world won't see the Rapture and the start of the Tribulation coming, and it will be a sudden, surprising event to them, Christians who are paying attention should be able to know when the Rapture is getting close, even if we won't be able to pinpoint the exact day or hour.</p>
<h2>Reason 2: The Freaked-Out Thessalonians</h2>
<p>Considering the details about the Tribulation that I've just described above, the doctrine of the Rapture is really, really good news to Christians living today.</p>
<p>It's not as good of news as Jesus' offer of eternal life to anyone who believes in him (John 3:16), but the Rapture is definitely some of the best news we're given in the Bible. Titus even calls it the "blessed hope" (Titus 2:13). Because who in their right mind would want to endure all of the judgments in the book of Revelation if there were a way to avoid them?</p>
<p>We just have to look at how the Thessalonian Christians reacted when someone misled them into thinking they had entered the Tribulation (a.k.a. the Day of the Lord).</p>
<p>Paul writes to them and says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).</span></p>
<p>Paul is trying to reassure these Christians that they didn't miss the Rapture ("the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him" in v.1), and so they are not in the Tribulation. He does this by reminding them that there's certain signs they would have seen if indeed they were in the Tribulation.</p>
<p>The main sign is that the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> will be revealed. Many commentators argue this is the figure on the white horse seen in the First Seal judgment (Revelation 6:2). Halfway through the Tribulation the Antichrist will enter the rebuilt Jewish temple and declare himself to be God (Matthew 24:15-16, Mark 13:14, Daniel 9:27), and will demand that everyone worship him as God or be killed (Revelation 13:5, 13:15, Daniel 7:21). Since the Antichrist had not yet been revealed, the Thessalonians were not in the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Another sign Paul mentions is that "the rebellion" comes before the Antichrist appears. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3 the original Greek word <em>apostasia</em> is translated often into English as "rebellion," "falling away," or "apostasy".<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>Some argue that the "rebellion" or "apostasy" is some sort of widespread falling away from Christianity. Unfortunately, it's hard to say if such a falling away has already happened, is happening, or is still in the future.</p>
<p>If Paul is just describing what he goes on to say in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 that God will bring delusion on people who have refused to believe the truth, so that they will believe the Antichrist's deception, I don't see how this is helpful for the Thessalonians. The Antichrist has to be around before he can deceive people to make them fall away from faith, but then the apostasy would happen <em>after</em> the Antichrist appears, not before it.</p>
<p>It is true that we are told that in the "later times" some people will fall away from faith and believe the "teachings of demons" (1 Timothy 4:1). Specifically, these false teachers will forbid marriage and prohibit the eating of certain foods/meats (1 Timothy 4:3). But there's no mention of the Antichrist in this verse, or the deception of false Christs that Jesus warns about in relation to the Tribulation (Matthew 24:23-27).</p>
<p>Forbidding marriage and prohibiting eating certain foods are not teachings that the Bible associates with the Antichrist, but they were problems in the early church. The issue of whether Christians should eat meat was dealt with by Paul in Romans 14, and the question of whether Christians should marry or not was addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9. So I'm not convinced that 1 Timothy 4:1 is referring to some general falling away from Christian faith before the Rapture.</p>
<p>Alternatively, a few scholars have argued that the term <em>apostasia</em> in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 can be translated as "the departure".<cite>5</cite> If so, this would be an explicit statement by Paul that the Rapture happens before the Antichrist is revealed. And the Antichrist will be revealed at the very start of the Tribulation (Revelation 6:2) when he <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/watch-for-the-seven-year-covenant-with-many/">confirms some sort of covenant/agreement with "many"</a> which is supposed to last for seven years (Daniel 9:27).</p>
<p>If <em>apostasia</em> in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 does mean "the departure" (of Christians to heaven where we'll wait out the seven-year Tribulation), then Paul's teaching to the Thessalonians would line up exactly with what Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 24 and Luke 17, as we looked at already, and it would be a much more identifiable event than some undefined falling away from Christian faith. To me, this is the most convincing reason why I'd opt to translate <em>apostasia</em> as "the departure," in which case, this verse would mean that Paul is clearly reminding the Thessalonians to not worry because they will be raptured before the Tribulation begins.</p>
<p>But even if this particular verse does not teach the Rapture, in an earlier letter, Paul reminded the Thessalonians to serve God and "to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10). To me, this sounds like the Rapture. If so, then we can say for sure that Paul did teach the Thessalonians about the Rapture, and it can explain why the Thessalonians were so concerned that they had missed the Rapture and were going to face God's worldwide outpouring of wrath in the Tribulation.</p>
<p>We can reach the same conclusion that Paul was reminding the Thessalonians that they were not yet in the Tribulation in another way.</p>
<p>Let's imagine that Paul had never taught the Thessalonians about the Rapture, and instead he had told them to watch for the appearance of the Antichrist and had taught them they would have to endure through the Tribulation. If this were true, then why would they be alarmed? Shouldn't they have been excited, if they knew that those things had to happen before Jesus returned?<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, I think the most plausible reason that the Thessalonians were freaked-out when they falsely heard that the Tribulation had begun was because they were expecting to be raptured beforehand, as Paul had taught them.</p>
<h2>Reason 3: The Rapture is A Comforting Doctrine</h2>
<p>Building on these earlier two reasons, we can see that the Rapture is meant to be a comforting, encouraging doctrine. This is confirmed in one of the major passages that describes the Rapture:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).</span></p>
<p>Paul specifically says that this teaching should be <em>encouraging</em>. I don't believe the Rapture would be as encouraging if Christians had to endure all the terrible things that will happen in the Tribulation beforehand.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, Paul repeats that the Rapture will involve the resurrection of all deceased Christians, and then the bodies of all Christians who are currently alive will be instantly changed from mortal to immortal:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-53).</span></p>
<p>Combining these two passages gives us the clearest understanding of what happens at the Rapture: all Christians who have died since the time of the early church will be instantly <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-christian-hope-of-resurrection/">resurrected</a>, followed shortly or even instantly by the transformation of all living Christians' bodies into our glorified eternal ones. All of us will then be "caught up" to be with Jesus forever.</p>
<p>If this isn't enough, there's a third similar passage:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).</span></p>
<p>Note that in this verse "awake" means "alive" and "asleep" means "dead", similar to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 above.</p>
<p>So when it happens, all Christians, whether dead or alive, will be raptured and given their final immortal glorified bodies, escaping the wrath of God that falls on the world during the Tribulation, and will be united with Jesus forever. That's definitely an encouraging, comforting promise.</p>
<h2>Reason 4: God Promises to Protect Faithful People From His Wrath</h2>
<p>But we don't have to look just at these passages to trust that God will rapture us before the Tribulation. We can also look at how God acted in the past. There is good precedent for the Rapture in how we see that historically, God always removes his faithful people before he brings his judgment or wrath on a society.</p>
<p>We've already seen in Reason 1 how Jesus refers to both Noah and Lot as examples of what it will be like when Jesus returns at the Rapture. Noah was considered righteous (Genesis 6:9, 7:1) and so he and his family were spared the judgment that fell on everyone else.</p>
<p>When Abraham bargains with God over the fate of Sodom, Abraham bases it on the fact that God doesn't destroy the righteous along with the wicked (Genesis 18:25). Unfortunately, Lot and his family were the only ones rescued.</p>
<p>In other incidents in the Old Testament, God also protects faithful believers from God's widespread judgment (e.g. Exodus 9:5-7, 9:25-26, 10:22-23, 12:12-13, Joshua 6:25, Ezekiel 9:4-6).</p>
<p>We've also mentioned Paul's statement that Jesus will return from heaven to deliver Christians from the "wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10).</p>
<p>Jesus himself promises the Philadelphian church that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth (Revelation 3:10).</span></p>
<p>We're not just kept from the wrath or judgments that will come on the world during the Tribulation, but from the entire <em>time</em> of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>So where will the Philadelphian church (along with all other Christians) be during the Tribulation?</p>
<p>Jesus told his disciples:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:1-3).</span></p>
<p>This promise matches well with Paul's descriptions of the Rapture discussed in Reason 3. It also fits better with the description of Rapture than with the description of Jesus' second-coming at the end of the Tribulation. This is because in this verse Jesus says he'll take us to where he is (the Father's house, i.e. heaven) where he has been preparing places for us, not that he will come to where we are (earth) and only <em>then</em> prepare places for us. And again, Jesus says this promise should keep his disciples' hearts from being troubled.</p>
<h2>Reason 5: The Difference Between the Church and the Tribulation Saints</h2>
<p>If the Tribulation comes on the entire world, this also implies that the Church can't be on earth when the Tribulation happens.</p>
<p>Confirmation of this is seen in how throughout the book of Revelation chapters 6 to 19, there is not a single instance of the word "church". There are saints, but the term "church" is used only in chapters 1-3. If the Church were on earth during the Tribulation, why wouldn't we be mentioned throughout chapters 6 to 19 also?</p>
<p>I think the answer is that the Christians of the Tribulation period are not the same group as the Christians who have made up the Church for the last 2000 years. This fact seems confirmed when we note that Jesus promises that the gates of hell won't overcome the Church (Matthew 16:18), but Satan will overcome the saints who are on earth during the Tribulation (Revelation 13:7).</p>
<p>When Jesus returns for the battle of Armageddon, he comes with the "armies of heaven" who are on white horses (Revelation 19:14). As Jude notes, <em>"Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, 'Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness'"</em> (Jude 1:14-15). This army will include the raptured, resurrected Christians who have been in heaven for the previous seven years of the Tribulation.</p>
<p>Why? Because Paul says once we're raptured, "so we will always be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). If Jesus is coming back to earth to set up his Millennial kingdom, we'll be with him.</p>
<p>In contrast, these Tribulation saints who were beheaded for not taking the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> are resurrected only <em>after</em> the battle of Armageddon and are rewarded with ruling privileges during the Millennium (Revelation 20:4). The differences between these two groups shows that the saints who are killed during the Tribulation are not the same as the Christians who were raptured before the Tribulation.</p>
<p>More evidence can be found if we look at John as a 'type' of Christians who will be raptured. After the seven letters to the churches in Revelation chapters 2-3, John suddenly sees a "door" open in heaven, a voice like a trumpet that says "come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this" (Revelation 4:1). This seems very similar to Paul's description of the Rapture that happens with a shout and a trumpet (1 Thessalonians 4:16), and it happens in the right place in the book of Revelation in terms of chronology (i.e., the Rapture happens at the end of the Church age and the start of the Tribulation).</p>
<p>Instantly, John is in heaven, and he sees twenty-four thrones with elders sitting on them, wearing white robes and crowns. Angels are never described as wearing crowns or sitting on thrones, so these elders can't be angels. But it would make sense that, if John saw a preview of the Rapture, the next thing he would see is a vision of the Church, made up of all Christians whose works have been judged by Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11-15), and rewarded with the ruling privileges that Christ has promised to faithful Christians (Luke 19:17, 2 Timothy 2:11-12, 1 Corinthians 6:3, Revelation 2:26-27, etc.).</p>
<p>So there are clearly two different groups of saints who rule and reign with Christ:</p>
<ol>
<li>The Church, made up of Christians beginning from the early church until the Rapture. After we're raptured we'll be rewarded, and will wait out the Tribulation in heaven, in the 'rooms' that Christ is preparing for us, and will return with Jesus in the clouds at the battle of Armageddon to help rule in the Millennial kingdom.</li>
<li>Tribulation saints who are Christians who convert after the Rapture, who remain on earth during the Tribulation, and many of whom will be killed by the Antichrist for not taking the Mark of the Beast. They will be resurrected and rewarded after the battle of Armageddon, and will also help rule in the Millennial kingdom.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you're reading this before the Rapture happens, and you believe that Jesus died for your sins so that you can have eternal life, then congratulations, you're part of group #1. You can have the peace and comfort of knowing that no matter how bad things get now, you won't have to experience the Tribulation. No matter what persecution we might face before the Rapture happens, it's not the wrath of God, and we can look forward to Jesus returning soon to take us to be with him forever.</p>
<p>If you're reading this after millions of people all around the world have suddenly disappeared, and out of this chaos some person has risen to sudden prominence and power who seems to have all the answers, who <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/watch-for-the-seven-year-covenant-with-many/">confirms a covenant with "many"</a>, and who is supported by a powerful religious leader, then if you believe that Jesus died for your sins <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">so you can have eternal life</a>, you're potentially part of group #2. Hold on to your faith, don't take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>, and if you're beheaded for refusing to worship the Antichrist as God, you can look forward to being resurrected and rewarded after Jesus returns.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So there you have it: my top five reasons why I'm convinced the Rapture has to happen before the Tribulation. Hopefully this has been an encouraging plunge into pre-millennial eschatology.</p>
<p>Of course, there are many other websites out there that have articles about the Rapture and the Tribulation. Some are good, some are misleading, and some try to refute the idea altogether. Even on the good sites, there will be a mixed bag of truth and more questionable ideas. Maybe I've even gotten some things wrong here. I hope not, and I've tried to be careful, but if you're interested in the topic and want even more details and arguments for the pre-Tribulation Rapture and pre-Millennial return of Christ, I would recommend that you read:</p>
<ul>
<li>John F. Walvoord, <em>The Rapture Question</em>, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979).</li>
<li>John F. Walvoord, <em>The Millennial Kingdom</em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959).</li>
</ul>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>The Rapture Question</em>, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), 12.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> <em>The UBS Greek New Testament: A Reader's Edition</em> (Stuttgart: Deutche Bibegesellschaft, 1993/2001), 536.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> William D. Mounce, <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 100.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> <em>The UBS Greek New Testament: A Reader's Edition</em> (Stuttgart: Deutche Bibegesellschaft, 1993/2001), 539.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>The Rapture Question</em>, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), 239-240.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> John F. Walvoord, <em>The Rapture Question</em>, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), 240-241, 244.</li>
</ul>Important: Regarding Buying and Selling2021-09-01T00:00:00+00:002021-09-01T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2021-09-01:/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/<p>Because of current events happening in the world lately, I thought a reminder regarding buying and selling is in order.</p>
<p>Revelation 13 describes two future world leaders, the "Beast" (a.k.a. the Antichrist) and the "False Prophet" religious leader who will endorse and support the Beast.</p>
<p>At some point …</p><p>Because of current events happening in the world lately, I thought a reminder regarding buying and selling is in order.</p>
<p>Revelation 13 describes two future world leaders, the "Beast" (a.k.a. the Antichrist) and the "False Prophet" religious leader who will endorse and support the Beast.</p>
<p>At some point during the future seven-year-long Tribulation period, John says the False Prophet</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Revelation 13:16-18).</span></span></p>
<p>We are warned that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">if anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Revelation 14:9-11)</span></span></p>
<p>Regardless of whether this passage supports <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">eternal conscious torment</a> or not, it does say that there will be very serious negative eternal consequences for people who accept the Mark of the Beast. I don't see any hint in the wording of the verse that this sin is forgivable or that the eternal consequences will be cancelled for anyone.</p>
<p>So in case you don't have time to read my whole post, I'll give you my conclusion now:</p>
<p><strong>If, for any reason, someone says that you can't buy or sell without opting into some system that requires a mark in/on your right hand or forehead, and/or someone tells you to worship someone who isn't Jesus returning in the clouds wearing a robe dipped in blood, sitting on a white horse, surrounded by the armies of heaven (Revelation 19:11-14), in a display that will be like lightning flashing from the east to the west (Matthew 24:27, Luke 17:24), DON'T DO IT. Even if it costs you your life.</strong></p>
<p>Yeah, that sounds scary, I know. But it's where God has told us that this world is going. At the speed things are happening regarding current events today, it seems possible that such a system could be implemented sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>But if you're a Christian who has trusted in Jesus as your savior, it means we should be looking forward to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, and shouldn't be afraid at all.</p>
<h2>Why I Felt the Need to Write</h2>
<p>Certain rules being implemented by governments in many countries and regions around the world are having an impact on who can do what or go where, depending on whether a person has a certain slip of paper or a government-issued QR code.</p>
<p>Now, I need to be very clear. The Covid vaccines are <em>not</em> the Mark of the Beast. Also, none of these health or Covid passports are the Mark of the Beast.</p>
<p><em>Yet</em>, at least, since neither of these match the description in Revelation 13:16-18 about receiving a "mark" (Greek: <em>charagma</em> meaning "an imprinted mark" <cite>1</cite>) in/on (Greek: <em>epi</em> meaning either "in" or "on" <cite>2</cite>) people's right hands or foreheads.</p>
<p>Although these current systems <em>are</em> being set up to control who has access to some forms of travel and to other specific locations or activities, as of yet, the systems are not being used to totally control everyone's ability to buy or sell (i.e., purchase goods or services, operate a business, or be financially compensated for one's work).</p>
<p>However, I believe that the time may be coming, perhaps sooner than we think, when such functions could be easily added to these systems.</p>
<p>For example, Europe is proposing a "digital wallet" that would hold all of a person's identification documents, and could be used for many different things, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>applying for loans</li>
<li>opening bank accounts</li>
<li>filing taxes</li>
<li>applying for universities</li>
<li>renting cars</li>
<li>proving a person's personal identity to authorities across the EU</li>
</ul>
<p>All as part of one standardized system.<cite>3</cite> If Covid is still around, vaccine passports would likely be part of this mix of critical personal documents stored in such a digital wallet.</p>
<p>As a side-note, such an all-encompassing system would surely require a very high level of security in order to avoid identity-theft, and it would have to be available to everyone, not just people who have cellphones or printers. Something that can't be lost, stolen, duplicated, or hacked would be necessary, like a personal ID number linked to an implantable microchip, a quantum-dot tattoo, or an RFID ink tattoo, maybe.</p>
<p>But I'm not going to say exactly in what form the Mark will appear, since it could be different than these things. All I know is what the Bible says about the Mark of the Beast being in/on the forehead or right hand and being related to controlling all buying and selling. I'm also not offering any advice on how to 'calculate' the number of the Beast, since that is pure speculation until the system rolls out.</p>
<p>I'm also convinced that whenever the Mark of the Beast appears and in whatever form it appears, it will be so obvious that no one will be able to accept it accidentally or unknowingly. I believe God couldn't justly impose severe negative eternal consequences if it were possible for people to take the Mark of the Beast mistakenly or accidentally without people clearly knowing what the consequences will be.</p>
<p>So don't worry, the Mark of the Beast is not your social security number, credit cards, bar codes, QR codes, or anything else that people currently use as of this date of writing.</p>
<h2>Current Psychological Preparation for the Mark of the Beast</h2>
<p>Already, in many countries and regions of the world people are lining up to receive the new Covid vaccines in order to get back to normal life, including all the things they were used to doing before lockdowns and Covid. Things like eating at restaurants, travelling, shopping, attending sporting events or concerts, and more. Those who didn't receive the vaccines or negative tests are unable to participate in these activities.</p>
<p>So far, none of these restrictions are completely preventing people's ability to buy or sell, and so as currently implemented, these systems are not the Mark of the Beast.</p>
<p>However, I do think the vaccine passports are preparing the people of the world for the mindset that will lead many people to accept the Mark of the Beast at some point in the not-too-distant future.</p>
<p>Why do I think this? Because in my opinion, the average person is too addicted to the things of the world. If an authority figure or government comes and says "I'm not going to let you do [insert thing here] unless you take this Mark" (in whatever form it will be), how many people will rush out to get it?</p>
<p>We just saw a million people in France rush to sign up to be vaccinated after the French president Emmanuel Macron announced the implementation of Covid passes in order for people to have access to things like restaurants, shopping malls, and travel on trains or airplanes.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>This does restrict who is allowed to buy or sell in these very specific contexts. People are also being limited in what they can buy, or at least <em>how</em> and <em>where</em> they can buy the things they want or need, if they are not allowed access to particular stores.</p>
<p>Once the government has the power to control people's physical movement and economic activity, it's not difficult to predict that this control could escalate to the level of denying people the ability to buy or sell altogether, if people do not do what the government wants them to do.</p>
<p>In a way, the promises being made now that if people do what their governments are trying to pressure them to do, people will then be allowed to go certain places and do certain things reminds me of when Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, to try to tempt him.</p>
<p>Satan said to Jesus, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours" (Luke 4:6-7).</p>
<p>I imagine the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist's</a> offer to people in the Tribulation will be something like: "To you I will give access to all the pleasures of the world, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it all to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."</p>
<p>So I suspect people will be told that if they'll only accept the Mark of the Beast and worship the Antichrist, they'll have full access to anything and everything they could ever want. Access to travel, nightclubs, bars, concerts, spas, gyms, maybe a universal basic income, free healthcare, free university tuition, free daycare for their children, free doughnuts, and on and on.</p>
<p>Most people are currently so absorbed with all these things they enjoy that likely, they won't be able to imagine living without them. Once the threat of not being able to buy or sell anything is added on top of this, for most Biblically-uninformed people, taking the Mark of the Beast will be a no-brainer. Especially if they don't believe in an afterlife where there could be eternal consequences for their choices.</p>
<p>We can see creeping shadows of the Mark of the Beast in how some industries in countries around the world are pressuring their employees with threats of being fired if they don't line up and get their Covid vaccinations.</p>
<p>For these people, it might come down to not being able to work, at least, until they can find a new job. So it's true that currently the vaccines aren't "mandatory". But if these people are in very specialized industries and don't have many transferrable skills or the financial means to move to find a new job or retrain, it could be a very difficult choice to make.</p>
<p>If these people fear that the current Covid vaccines are a greater risk to their health than remaining unvaccinated, given the current lack of long-term testing and reports of serious side-effects from these vaccines, then their employers are effectively forcing these people to choose between their personal health and their ability to earn a living, to buy the things they need to survive. This is highly ethically questionable.</p>
<p>If people are currently willing to accept a risk of potential short-term or long-term health consequences in exchange for access to jobs, shopping, travel, and cultural events, it's not such a stretch to think that in the Tribulation, people will be willing to accept the possibility of eternal death in exchange for access to their money and all the things that money can buy, in addition to whatever other incentives might be thrown at them.</p>
<p>In a way, then, perhaps the lockdowns and restrictions that many people around the world have been subject to over the last year can be useful. Personally, they've taught me that I don't need all the things that I was used to having.</p>
<p>Not that I'm the sort of person who has a desperate craving to go out to nightclubs or bars in the first place. But I've learned to get by without professional haircuts, eating in restaurants or getting takeout, going to movies or concerts, shopping for fun, taking transit, going to the gym, going to libraries, and travelling to other cities.</p>
<p>Now if Satan or one of his human lackeys tells me that I need to worship the Antichrist in order to get access to all these things again, I could easily say "Nope, not interested." I don't need any of that.</p>
<p>If the consequences were more severe, such as having my degrees revoked, being unable to work, having my savings confiscated, being put under permanent house-arrest, taken off to an internment camp, or even being executed, I trust that the indwelling Holy Spirit would help me be able to say "No."</p>
<p>Since, after all, once you <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believe in Jesus as your Saviour</a>, your <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">eternal salvation is guaranteed</a> due to the indwelling Holy Spirit, as God has promised in Ephesians 1:13-14. Thus, no true Spirit-indwelled Christian will ever be able to take the Mark of the Beast, since God warns that taking the Mark leads to guaranteed eternal death in Revelation 14:9-11. If it were possible for true Christians to take the Mark of the Beast, it would lead to a paradox for their eternal destinies.</p>
<p>But if it ever came down to giving up on Jesus or being executed, as many Christians have experienced ever since the early church, then why should I try to save my life?</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? <span class="blockquote-verse">(Mark 8:36, NASB)</span></span></p>
<p>If someone wants to kill me for not worshiping someone other than Jesus, then I just get to heaven a little sooner than I expected. But being in heaven is "far better" than staying in this fallen world, even if we should want to stay to serve God as best we can (Philippians 1:21-24).</p>
<p>So it's a question that's worth thinking about: is there anything in this world that you desire <em>so</em> much that you would worship Satan instead of Jesus in order to have it? I hope not.</p>
<p>If you worry that there <em>might</em> be something you would deny Jesus for, try thinking about how great heaven is going to be instead. We're going to get new perfect bodies that will never get sick or age (1 Corinthians 15:51-53, 2 Corinthians 5:1-4), homes in the New Jerusalem (John 14:2, Revelation 21), a wedding feast (Matthew 22:1-10), and much more. How could anything in this world ever outdo that?</p>
<p>Maybe it would help to practice denying yourself the things you love the most, so that you won't be tempted if it comes down to having to choose between that and your faith.</p>
<p>Mmmmm... doughnuts... or Jesus... doughnuts... or Jesus... Hmmm, tough choice (just kidding). As if Jesus can't give you an endless supply of doughnuts after you're resurrected and living on the New Earth, if that's really what it comes down to. Maybe he'll even be able to make doughnuts that won't make us gain weight!</p>
<p>I don't think there is anything that is truly good in this world that won't be even better on the New Earth. After all, God is the source of all good things in this world (James 1:17). In the New Jerusalem we'll have full access to everything because we will all be full citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20) and co-heirs along with Christ (Romans 8:17).</p>
<p>If that means missing out on a few years of this world which can never fully satisfy and is getting rapidly darker, in exchange for an eternity that is going to be better than we can ever imagine, then it's worth it.</p>
<p>If all you worry about losing is your relationships with loved ones who are unsaved, then maybe it's a good time to share the gospel with them.</p>
<p><strong>In conclusion, if, for any reason, someone says that you can't buy or sell without opting into some system that requires a mark in/on your right hand or forehead, and/or someone tells you to worship someone who isn't Jesus returning in the clouds wearing a robe dipped in blood, sitting on a white horse, surrounded by the armies of heaven (Revelation 19:11-14), in a display that will be like lightning flashing from the east to the west (Matthew 24:27, Luke 17:24), DON'T DO IT. Even if it costs you your life.</strong></p>
<p>Maybe I'm wrong about the vaccine passports, and they'll disappear in a year or two when the world gets over the fear of Covid. I hope so.</p>
<p>But the Mark of the Beast <em>will</em> happen someday, because that's what God tells us in the Bible. The only questions that remain are about how fast the world going to get there, and minor details about the technology or method that will be used to implement the Mark of the Beast.</p>
<p>The good news is that I think all this means that Christians should be getting rather excited. Jesus promises that the gates of hell won't overcome the Church (Matthew 16:18), but Satan will overcome the saints who are on earth during the Tribulation (Revelation 13:7). So that's one very good argument (among several others) that the Church (i.e., all true Christians) must be raptured out of this world and taken to heaven before the Tribulation begins.</p>
<p>If we're seeing all of this beginning now, we should expect Jesus to come get us anytime (John 14:1-3, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Luke 21:28)</span></span></p>
<h2>September 20, 2023 Update:</h2>
<p>Although the vaccine passports have thankfully been put on the back burner for most countries, there is still a strong interest in developing both digital IDs and digital currency by several powerful global organizations. Check out these recent news articles:</p>
<ul>
<li>Aaron Kheriaty, <a href="https://brownstone.org/articles/who-treaty-tied-to-digital-passport-id-system/">"The WHO Treaty Is Tied to a Global Digital Passport and ID System"</a>, Brownstone Institute, May 24, 2022.</li>
<li><a href="https://dailyhodl.com/2023/06/24/united-nations-proposes-digital-id-system-tied-to-bank-accounts-and-mobile-payment-platforms/">"United Nations Proposes Digital ID System Tied to Bank Accounts and Mobile Payment Platforms"</a>, The Daily Hodl: News and Insight for the Digital Economy, June 24, 2023.</li>
<li>Bryan Jung, <a href="https://www.ntd.com/g20-announces-plan-to-impose-digital-currencies-and-ids-worldwide_941560.html">"G20 Announces Plan to Impose Digital Currencies and IDs Worldwide"</a>, NTD News, September 12, 2023.</li>
</ul>
<p>So the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the G20 countries are all on board with creating something that could very well turn into the Mark of the Beast system in the future.</p>
<p>Personally, I could see a global digital ID being rolled out after <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, in order for the authorities to determine who is still left on Earth.</p>
<p>A new digital currency linked to these IDs might be a way that world governments will deal with the Third Seal judgment, where food prices skyrocket (Revelation 6:5-6). It could act like a basic income or a welfare program to make sure people can buy food, in order to try to keep hungry people from rioting or looting stores.</p>
<p>Yet a digital ID and/or a digital currency are not the Mark of the Beast unless they are associated with a mark in/on a person's right hand or forehead. Countries could theoretically create these systems ahead of time, earlier on in the Tribulation or even before the Tribulation begins, so that it would make implementing the Mark of the Beast much simpler at the halfway point of the seven-year Tribulation period.</p>
<p>So this is still something to keep an eye on in relation to Bible prophecy. However it works out, we know Bible prophecy will be completely fulfilled.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> William D. Mounce, "5916" in <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 1309.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> William D. Mounce, "2093" in <em>Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words</em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 1150.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-digital-identity_en">"European Digital Identity"</a>, European Commission.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Constantin Gouvy and Angela Charlton, <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/french-rush-to-get-vaccinated-after-president-s-warning-1.5506866">"French rush to get vaccinated after president's warning"</a>, CTV News, July 13, 2021.</li>
</ul>The Benefits of Daily Devotions2020-01-01T00:00:00+00:002020-01-01T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2020-01-01:/article/why-do-daily-devotions/<p>If you're around Christians often, you'll likely hear them talk about their daily devotional time, scripture reading time, and/or prayer time. It's usually one of the first things pastors recommend for Christians to incorporate into your schedule if you want to be spiritually healthy.</p>
<p>However, it's very easy to …</p><p>If you're around Christians often, you'll likely hear them talk about their daily devotional time, scripture reading time, and/or prayer time. It's usually one of the first things pastors recommend for Christians to incorporate into your schedule if you want to be spiritually healthy.</p>
<p>However, it's very easy to ignore this time because we're busy, too tired, or it's just boring. Then we feel guilty for missing it. Then whenever we look at our Bible on the table it just makes us feel guilty again. </p>
<p>It's easy for devotional time to start feeling like a legalistic burden—something we check off on our list of things to do in order to feel like good Christians, but not something we actually look forward to.</p>
<p>There's something I've been thinking about which has helped motivate me to try to make sure I take the time each day to spend reading scripture and praying, in a way that avoids the problem of devotions becoming boring or legalistic.</p>
<p>This might just be me writing for myself, but hopefully you will also find it helpful and encourage you to spend time with God in daily devotional time as well.</p>
<h2>My Personal Experience of Beginning Devotions</h2>
<p>For a long time I neglected to take some special time every day to pray.</p>
<p>While I would say a short prayer before falling asleep, often, I would fall asleep before I finished. Or I would just say a quick prayer that covered all my bases, and again, fall asleep. My bible sat unopened on my nightstand, as a show of good intentions, but it collected dust.</p>
<p>Prayer seemed like one-way communication. Like sending off a letter to a distant pen-pal, who never writes back. Or leaving a voicemail message for God. I heard some people say that God speaks to them through Scripture, and sometimes I would try flopping open a Bible to read some small portion of it and see if anything stood out. But usually nothing did.</p>
<p>I had tried different little devotional guides or books that promised to make it more fulfilling. My grandma would mail me the "Our Daily Bread" devotional. But they were boring. Or I would get a <em>Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul</em> book, and try to read those, but again, I didn't seem to get much out of it.</p>
<p>This disappointing experience with devotions meant that I didn't really look forward to it. </p>
<p>As part of one course at Tyndale for my Masters' degree, I was required to do daily devotions for a month. I resented it at first, because the exercises the textbook required us to do sometimes felt awkward or forced. But of course, I wanted full marks, and I wasn't going to lie about it. So I did it.</p>
<p>What I found was that spending time doing devotions every day became progressively easier. I also found I could start to hear what I thought was maybe the Holy Spirit speaking to me. (Even though I secretly worried maybe I was just telling myself what I wanted to hear.)</p>
<p>Since daily devotional time seemed to be making a slight difference, I tried to continue and make it a regular habit to spend 10-15 minutes in prayer before going to bed.</p>
<p>What I noticed was that, when I could get in the pattern of doing this for several days in a row, I would feel closer to God, and it was easier to hear that tiny, hardly-a-whisper voice of what seemed to be God providing encouragement, love, and other insights.</p>
<p>But then on other nights I would forget or I would get busy doing something else, and wouldn't take the time for devotions. When I would return to devotions, then it seemed like God was more distant, and it was not as easy to hear anything from the Holy Spirit in response to my concerns or prayers.</p>
<p>I couldn't figure out why this would be the case. After all, I figured, God loves me the same amount whether I do devotions or not. And nothing changed in terms of my commitment to God. So why would God seem to pull away and be more distant than usual, just because I forgot a day or two of devotions?</p>
<h2>God Gives Us As Much of Him As We Desire</h2>
<p>I can't remember clearly when it was that I had this insight, or what caused it. But it occurred to me that the reason why God seemed more distant and it was harder to hear anything from the Holy Spirit when I skipped devotions for a few nights in a row was because there is no secret formula of how to hear the Holy Spirit more easily.</p>
<p>Instead, it's about a relationship with God. And most relationships are built on proximity.</p>
<p>The people we get to know the best are those that we spend the most time with. It's very difficult to have an intimate long-distance relationship because there isn't regular contact. It's harder to feel close to someone when you only go for coffee once a year, or call once a month. </p>
<p>That's why when a friend moves away, no matter how well-intentioned we might be about continuing to be in contact with them, the reality is that usually the relationship fades away. We might still be interested in seeing their Facebook photos and updates, but it's not the same as seeing them at church every week, or at small group, or at work or school.</p>
<p>So similarly, regular contact with God will help us grow closer to God.</p>
<p>But there is also another factor which I think plays into this dynamic between us and God. That factor is that God <em>wants</em> to be desired.</p>
<p>I think that women may relate to this slightly more than men. Often women like to be the ones who are pursued by men. We want to be the ones who are asked out on dates, or who are proposed to. We like it when guys initiate romantic activities. Because it's just not the same if we have to be the ones always initiating it.</p>
<p>If the guy is not interested in talking with us or spending time with us, then for us to go out and ask for his attention comes across as desperate. It also makes his attention less meaningful when it is given in response to a request for time or attention. We worry that it's a chore, or that he would rather be doing something else, and that we're just being an annoyance.</p>
<p>Even though God the "Father" is described with male pronouns in Scripture, the reality is that God is not male or female, for God is Spirit (John 4:24). Yes, Jesus is a man, and there's various reasons why that was the most appropriate theologically and culturally that I don't want to get into here. But God is the source of all the traits of both men and women because God created both men and women. So I think that this relational dynamic that women can relate to explains why if we don't spend regular time with God or seek out God, God will become more and more distant from us.</p>
<p>It's not some divine quid-pro-quo, where God legalistically tallies up the time we spend in prayer or reading Scripture and only gives us as much as we've put in. But there is truth to the idea that God is thrilled when we want to spend time with Him. If we don't want to spend time with God, then God doesn't arrogantly demand our attention. Instead, he lovingly, gently gives us what we want — time away from him.</p>
<p>Conversely, God promises us that if we seek him intentionally, we will find him:</p>
<ul>
<li>Deuteronomy 4:29: <em>"You will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul."</em></li>
<li>Jeremiah 29:13: <em>"You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."</em></li>
<li>Proverbs 8:17: <em>"I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me."</em></li>
</ul>
<p>David also said "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). If our desire is for more of God, God will certainly grant this desire.</p>
<p>But I think the converse is also true. If we want less of God, then God will give us less of Himself. If we don't do daily devotional time in prayer with God or reading His word in Scripture, then our priorities are shown to be elsewhere, and God responds accordingly.</p>
<p>There is an image in Revelation of Jesus standing at the door of the Laodicean church, asking if they would let Him into their lives:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.<span class="blockquote-verse">(Revelation 3:20)</span></span></p>
<p>Free Grace theologian Zane Hodges comments on this verse, saying</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">He [Jesus] stood, therefore, on the threshold of their lives. With His rebukes He spoke to them, and with His discipline He knocked on the door of their hearts. But it was up to them to respond. It was for them to open the door to Him. And if they did, He would dine with them and they would dine with him. The choice was theirs. He would not break down the door.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>This verse is not just talking about salvation, because every Christian has the Holy Spirit indwelling their hearts the moment they believe (Ephesians 1:13-14).</p>
<p>But as Hodges argues, there is an extra-special level of personal relationship that Christians can have with Jesus.</p>
<p>This is shown when Jesus said</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">"Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." <span class="blockquote-verse">(John 14:21-23)</span></span></p>
<p>So as Hodges says, "Yes, our bodies are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). But our <em>lives</em>—our earthly experiences—can likewise become His place of residence: 'We will make Our home with him'!"<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Hodges continues:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, offers Himself to individual believers as a divine Guest. If they will respond to Him, if they will love and obey Him, He will make their hearts and lives His personal habitation so that their experience will be like having supper with their Savior. Across the common 'table' which they share, they can communicate freely and He can make Himself known to them. He can <em>manifest</em> Himself to them.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>This would be an amazing privilege. Can you imagine if Jesus came and said to you "I want to come to your house for dinner tonight"? Well, it turns out you can have this level of personal communication with Jesus <em>every</em> night, through personal prayer and devotional time, if you want it.</p>
<p>But as in Revelation 3:20, even for Christians, Jesus will not intrude into our lives if we don't want Him there. He won't break down the door.</p>
<h2>How Much Of God Do You Want?</h2>
<p>So the question of why we don't experience more of God in our personal lives does not seem to be a lack of willingness on God's part. Instead, it depends on how much we want God in our lives.</p>
<p>Can we say with David that "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" (Psalm 42:1-2)</p>
<p>If not, then why not?</p>
<p>As a way to test how much we want God, let's do a thought experiment and imagine how we might spend our time in heaven.</p>
<p>It's fun to think of all the activities that we might want to do in heaven that we never got a chance to do in our lives now, or that we want to do more of but can only do in small amounts here. Or all the people we could meet and talk to. All the adventures, mansions, fashion, and whatever else we imagine heaven will be like.</p>
<p>But can we imagine that we're in heaven, and we only get as much of God as we asked for in this life? Would that be satisfying to us?</p>
<p>Would we want to spend only 5 minutes with Jesus every day for all eternity? Would we want to see Him only for an hour each week, like many Christians do now when they attend church and then go about their week without giving God a second thought?</p>
<p>I think most Christians expect that we will spend much <em>more</em> time with God in heaven. Maybe even <em>all</em> our time with God. But then, why does it seem that we often don't make <em>any</em> time for God in our lives now?</p>
<p>Of course, one answer is that we are busy and we have many things to do, some of which are even good things that we're doing for God. We have responsibilities for work and taking care of ourselves and our families which requires lots of time. Unless we're a monk or nun, we can't spend all day in prayer, and I think God knows this. In some ways, we are in a long-distance relationship with God in this life, which are never as close as relationships when we are with someone in person.</p>
<p>But there's an interesting analogy I found for my relationship with God, when I compare it to when I go home to my parents' house for Christmas, as I did this year.</p>
<p>Often, my husband does not come with me for various logistical reasons, including the expense of flights and hotels. When I am at home I get busy doing Christmas shopping, dinners, watching movies, and other fun activities. It's easy to fall into the pattern of sending one text-message to my husband at night to wish him good-night, and then, nothing the rest of the day.</p>
<p>Yes, I know my husband loves me still, and that he knows I'm busy with family events and other things. But it was nicer on the days when I took a longer period of time to phone him and chat about my day. After some time spent on the phone, he didn't seem so far away, and we seemed closer than on the days when we only traded good-night text messages.</p>
<p>My goal then for this year is to incorporate the pattern of spending some time each night "on the phone" with God, rather than sending only a quick spiritual 'text-message' before I fall asleep. It's also a reminder to try to think of God more often or pray occasionally throughout the day, because ideally I want to spend every minute I can with God.</p>
<p>So if I'm tempted to put off devotional time, I will remind myself that God gives us as much of Himself as we want. If I want more of God, I need to spend more time with God, by reading His word in Scripture, and in personal prayer.</p>
<h2>Having a Two-Way Relationship With God</h2>
<p>One reason why I found devotional times often unsatisfying in the past was because, as mentioned earlier, it seemed like it was only one-way communication.</p>
<p>The key to satisfying devotions then, is to learn how to hear God speaking back to you.</p>
<p>I know some people might be suspicious of my claim that through regular devotions I could start to hear God speaking more clearly in a tiny unheard whisper. But I've heard other Christians say something similar.</p>
<p>Plus, it matches with Elijah's experience in 1 Kings 19:12, which describes God's voice as a "low whisper". We should expect to be able to hear God's voice; Jesus says his sheep will hear and know his voice (John 10:3-4, 16, 27).</p>
<p>Skeptical Christians might say "Well, God only speaks through Scripture, and there's nothing for God to say to you beyond that! If that's not good enough for you, then you're in trouble." Some are skeptical of the idea of personally experiencing God, or fear that they will be led astray into mysticism and other dubious practices.</p>
<p>But does God just hand us a book and tell us "That's all you get of me. Have fun for eternity"? What sort of a relationship is that? </p>
<p>I think maybe this claim that all we need is Scripture is why some Christians don't have passion for their relationship with Jesus, or seem to fall into strict legalism and judgment instead of having love, grace, and mercy for others. If they don't experience God's love for them in their personal prayer times, then how can they pass it on to others?</p>
<p>When I thought that I should be satisfied with just reading Scripture, it made me extremely jealous of those in Scripture who <em>did</em> hear God speak directly to them. For example, like when Samuel heard God so clearly he thought he was hearing his human mentor Eli speak (1 Samuel 3:4-5).</p>
<p>I thought "Why does Samuel get that direct and clear relationship with God, and all I get is a book?". If the Church is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27), and the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:28-32, Revelation 19:7), then why shouldn't we have just as close of a relationship with Jesus?</p>
<p>I longed to hear Jesus' voice, and so I would read the gospels, but I still didn't hear him really speaking <em>to me</em>. And so, my passion for devotional time faded when I expected only a one-way relationship. Why spend time on the phone talking to someone who never answers back?</p>
<p>Of course, knowing Scripture is extremely important, because the Holy Spirit inspired Scripture (2 Peter 1:21), and so in our personal prayer time the Holy Spirit will never tell us anything that contradicts Scripture.</p>
<p>Scripture is also how we learn more about what God is like, and how God often interacts with people, which helps us discern whether something we hear is from God or not.</p>
<p>Some people claim that God makes certain passages of Scripture stand out to them during their time reading the Bible, which God may certainly do. And it is true that God might bring passages to mind as ways of speaking to you, if you have them memorized (another good reason to be familiar with Scripture). But for me, trying to <em>force</em> God to speak to me through Scripture through practices like Lectio Divina don't work.</p>
<p>What works better for me is to sit down in my room in private, and pray about things that are on my mind or heart. When I'm done, I ask God "Is there anything you want to say to me? Or anything you want to talk about?" </p>
<p>Sometimes that little voice appears or something comes to mind. Sometimes I'll 'hear' encouraging phrases like "You're doing well, keep going" or "I love you", or even a few sentences about an issue I'm facing in my life. Sometimes I'll get sudden insights into things to write about or investigate, or ideas for how to solve a problem or what course of action to do.</p>
<p>Now, I am a 'logical' personality type, and so I've always been somewhat suspicious of personal subjective experiences of God. I worry "what if I'm only telling myself what I want to hear?"</p>
<p>As an experiment, I tested two alternatives: trusting that little voice, or being skeptical of it.</p>
<p>When I trusted it, I was often reassured, encouraged, comforted, and felt God's love and close to God. When I was skeptical of it, then I felt despair, loneliness, anxiety, and discouragement.</p>
<p>Of these, which result seems more like it is from God, who is love (1 John 4:8), who wants a loving relationship with me, and cares for me (1 Peter 5:7)? And which one seems like it is from Satan? John writes "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." (John 10:10).</p>
<p>So I've discovered that my criteria for judging whether something comes from God is whether it leads to abundant life. If it leads to hope, joy, love, and peace for me, then I presume it must be from God (Galatians 5:22).</p>
<p>Sometimes that includes convictions of sin, or critique of my ways of thinking. But it's never in a way that is harsh, unloving, hateful, or accusatory. The little voice never insults me, demeans me, or tells me I'm not good enough or that I'm a failure. Usually, that's my own inner critic or doubts and fears, perhaps played up by Satan.</p>
<p>In some ways, I think my skepticism about hearing God speak to me in prayer was replicating the exact problem that Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden. </p>
<p>Although all their experiences with God were positive up to that point, Satan was able to plant a little bit of doubt into their minds about what God was like. Satan suggested that God maybe God was holding back some good from them (Genesis 3:4-5). He made them doubt whether God had actually said what God had told them (Genesis 3:1).</p>
<p>When I am tempted to doubt whether the little voice I hear is from God, I remember that I've never had any experiences with God which should lead me to doubt His goodness and love for me. And so there is no reason to be skeptical, and no reason to ask myself, like the serpent asked Adam and Eve <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/">"Did God <em>really</em> say that?"</a></p>
<p>As someone who prefers to judge things based on logic, evidence, and reason, and not 'feelings' or subjective experience, this is a new way of reasoning which at times feels uncomfortable. I do still sometimes fear that I'm just telling myself what I want to hear. But there's really no other option for me, based on my experimental results described above.</p>
<p>I also trust that if my goals are in alignment with God's, then I can trust that God wants me to succeed, and doesn't want to hurt me. How would that help God's purposes? If a kingdom is divided against itself it won't do well (Matthew 12:25).</p>
<p>Plus, even though the human heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), I remember that I also have the Holy Spirit in me, and the Holy Spirit is more powerful than my sinfulness. So I should expect that the Holy Spirit can actually speak accurately to me, despite my sinful, deceptive heart.</p>
<p>Perhaps there are still some sort of trust issues from some things I read or heard in the past about God which were wrong. Or maybe I have some issues from my childhood (and who doesn't, in one way or another?). But I think the solution to this is to read more Scripture, and to keep up my devotional time, in order to gain further personal experience that God is fully good, loving, and trustworthy.</p>
<p>Maybe you've never struggled with this issue, and if so, then I'm glad for you. But if you have wondered these things, I hope my experience can be helpful to you.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So if you find that you're wanting more of God than you're currently getting, the place to start is by spending more time with God in prayer.</p>
<p>Also, try to find time to read Scripture daily, because that will provide the discernment and source material for the Holy Spirit to speak more clearly to you, and can help you discern God's voice from other thoughts when you pray.</p>
<p>I still forget sometimes to stop working late at night and go pray. But occasionally I hear that little reminder of "Come, spend time with me" or "Why not read some of my Word?". Usually when that happens it's a good idea just to drop everything and go do that right away. </p>
<p>But it would help to be more consistent and schedule time in the morning or evening. I schedule time to call my parents each week. So why shouldn't I do the same for God? It doesn't make it fake, it makes it intentional, and God rewards those who seek him by helping them find Him.</p>
<p>That's my new year's resolution this year. Maybe it could be yours also?</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Zane C. Hodges, <em>Absolutely Free: A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation</em>, Second ed. (Corinth, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2014), 114.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Zane C. Hodges, <em>Absolutely Free: A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation</em>, Second ed. (Corinth, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2014), 116.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Zane C. Hodges, <em>Absolutely Free: A Biblical Reply to Lordship Salvation</em>, Second ed. (Corinth, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2014), 116.</li>
</ul>Advent and Politics2019-12-15T00:00:00+00:002019-12-15T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-12-15:/article/advent-and-politics/<p>Advent is the season of the church calendar leading up to Christmas. During this time, we remember when the Son of God became a human man named Jesus, about 2000 years ago, by being born from the virgin Mary, in order to eternally save all those who would put their …</p><p>Advent is the season of the church calendar leading up to Christmas. During this time, we remember when the Son of God became a human man named Jesus, about 2000 years ago, by being born from the virgin Mary, in order to eternally save all those who would put their faith in Him.</p>
<p>Yet advent is also about anticipating Jesus' second coming, and all that will take place then.</p>
<p>It is good to dedicate a certain period of time each year to think about the future and the doctrines of eschatology (last things), which is usually a very neglected topic. This is in contrast to the topic of politics, which it seems is constantly in the news and on many people's minds.</p>
<p>However, I think the themes of advent can give us some much-needed perspective on politics, which can reduce the stress that Christians may feel when we read the news, and give us hope for the future regardless of what happens in politics.</p>
<h2>Corruption in Politics</h2>
<p>If you follow politics, or even skim the news headlines, you will notice that the topic of corruption in politics appears regularly. Regardless of which party you support, or which country you are in, it is likely that there is someone accusing some politician of being corrupt.</p>
<p>It seems that the longer that people are in government the less they care about doing what is good for the people who elected them. They begin to focus on their own political ambitions or interests, or voting themselves more power or money. Sometimes they even forget about trying to fulfill the promises they made while running for election.</p>
<p>We might think to ourselves "Well, if only <em>my</em> favourite party, or leader, could get into power, then we could fix this!"</p>
<p>But when we think this way, we're forgetting an important theological truth: every system of government is run by humans. And as it stands now, every single human on this planet is sinful. Even Christians still struggle with our sinful inclinations, and can give in to selfishness.</p>
<p>Selfishness has been one definition of sin that Christians have used throughout history. The term <em>incurvatus in se</em> (or "turned in on oneself") has been used by several theologians to explain what sin does to humans. We become self-focused and selfish, caring only about ourselves and not others, or caring about others only insofar as they are useful or beneficial to ourselves, or at worst, even caring about ourselves <em>at the expense</em> of others!</p>
<p>This is certainly the opposite of what Jesus said is the summary of all God's laws:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Luke 10:27, repeated elsewhere like Romans 13:9-10)</span></span></p>
<p>Because of human selfishness, politicians are easily tempted to do things that benefit themselves instead of their people. We've all heard of politicians who vote themselves raises. Or politicians who take donations from people that they should not, and as a result, become far more wealthy by the time they leave office than when they entered it. Or politicians who give contracts to companies who they or their family are associated with. And on and on. The forms of corruption seem to be endless.</p>
<p>Perhaps some political systems can restrain corruption better than others. Democracy is probably better than monarchy or totalitarianism, because at least in a democracy if there's an especially bad politician the people can vote them out—assuming that the election is fair and has not itself been tainted by corruption, that is.</p>
<p>But even in democracy, the problem is that the voters themselves are selfish! They are often uninformed about politics, foreign affairs, or economics, and don't realize the long-term implications of these issues. When a politician appears who promises to give the people more government handouts, the people enthusiastically vote for it—not realizing that future consequences will likely hurt them and/or hurt their society in the long run.</p>
<p>Even judges who are meant to uphold the law can become corrupt. Corrupt judges will not prosecute politicians accused of various unlawful activities, or will give a light sentence which does nothing to discourage others from doing the same thing.</p>
<p>If society as a whole has strong ethical convictions, perhaps some systems will last longer without being compromised by corruption.</p>
<p>But sooner or later, every system will become fully corrupt, and it will no longer operate in the best interests of the country or people. Decisions will be made that ultimately undermine the stability of the society and will lead to its decline.</p>
<p>And so eventually, every political system will fail. We can see this if we look at history. Monarchies fall to revolutions. Totalitarian leaders are taken out by military coups. Democracies vote in dictators. Empires fall due to invasions or internal decay.</p>
<p>In the past, sometimes groups of people could leave old countries and go establish new countries with new political systems to escape oppression or corruption in their countries of origin. But as we see in the US, even a country built on semi-Christian principles and morality (although not without its own dark periods due to sin) ends up with the sorts of scandals and dishonesty and problems that we see today, which are seemingly bringing it to a point of political and economic crisis.</p>
<p>But we can also guarantee that every political system will fail simply because of the principle of human sinfulness. It is impossible for sinful humans to design a perfect system which can restrain human sin. Even a system of checks and balances assumes that at least one of those checks or balances can correct the others. But if each is infiltrated and corrupted one way or another, then that system will also fail.</p>
<p>Some say the solution is better education, or better parenting, or more ethical or religious instruction. But there is no system or philosophy that can totally eliminate sinfulness in humans. <em>Sinful humans cannot eradicate sin</em>, regardless of what we try. It has been sinful human attempts to impose morality upon people by force which produces the most awful results, whether that morality was Christian or communist.</p>
<p>What then is the solution? Keep reading to the end of the article...</p>
<h2>Dispensational Biblical History</h2>
<p>I think this fact that sin corrupts all human systems and societies is also proven when we look at the Biblical history of the world.</p>
<p>One way of understanding Biblical history is to divide it into different periods of time called <em>dispensations</em>. In each dispensation, God deals with humanity in a slightly different way. The way to obtaining eternal life is the same in every one (i.e. acceptance of God's grace through faith), but how that faith or obedience to God is to be expressed varies.</p>
<p>In each dispensation there is a recurring pattern. God first inaugurates a new dispensation by giving new instructions to a group of people. But each period ends with human failure due to sin, and God's judgment comes as a result. God then starts over with some faithful people, and a new dispensation begins. (A great book on this topic is <em>Dispensationalism, Revised and Expanded</em> by Charles C. Ryrie).</p>
<p>The number of dispensations and their names may change depending on which author you read.<cite>1</cite> I categorize them like this (roughly in line with C.I. Scofield and Issac Watts):</p>
<h3>1. Innocence/Garden of Eden</h3>
<p>When Adam and Eve were in Eden, God only had one rule for them, which was to not eat fruit from one tree (Genesis 2:16-17). But they sinned, and were kicked out of the garden of Eden as judgment. They now have to work for their food, nature is less hospitable and cooperative, and they will now die, and experience diseases, painful childbirth, and so on (Genesis 3).</p>
<h3>2. Conscience</h3>
<p>This dispensation is from the time when Adam and Eve left the garden up to the flood in Genesis 9. Here, God lets people follow their own consciences, there are no real instructions or rules made apparent in Scripture for people to follow, although people seem to have had some idea of sacrificing animals to please God (Genesis 4:3-4, 8:20). But eventually the world becomes full of violence (Genesis 6:5-6), so that God sends the flood, starting humanity over with only 8 obedient individuals.</p>
<h3>3. Human Government</h3>
<p>After the flood, God allows humanity to enforce the death penalty against murderers as an attempt to keep evil in check (Genesis 9:6). But humans band together, speaking one language, and build a tower by which they attempt to either save themselves from another flood, or raise themselves into the heavens to become gods, or perhaps, to worship false gods (opinions vary).</p>
<p>Whatever they were trying to do, God judges humanity by confusing the languages, so that it makes human cooperation much more difficult and slows down the progress of technological innovation (Genesis 11:6), and forces humanity to split up and spread out over the world (Genesis 11:7-9). These people eventually grow into tribes and nations, each ruling themselves and in near-constant churn and conflict with others.</p>
<p>This was the scenario for most of human history:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And he [God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Acts 17:26-27)</span></span></p>
<h3>4. Law</h3>
<p>But God did not abandon these nations entirely. God chooses Abraham to be the ancestor of a special people through whom God will reveal Himself and His laws to the rest of the world (Genesis 12:1-3). After multiplying Abraham's descendants in Egypt, God brings the Israelites and others who went with them out into the desert (Exodus 12:37-38). There God gives them his Law through Moses, saying they will be a treasured possession and kingdom of priests for God (Exodus 19:5-6).</p>
<p>These divinely-inspired laws should ideally have led to a good society, especially as compared to other nations at the time. The people pledge their faithfulness to God and promise to follow God's laws, but they almost instantly fall into sin. The history of Israel is not any better, and soon they fall into idolatry, child sacrifice, and injustice. Even establishing a king over the people doesn't solve the problem, because the kings too become evil.</p>
<p>God judges the nation repeatedly, sometimes allowing foreign invasions, and sending them off to exile in foreign countries, and bringing back only a remnant of faithful people to start over. The ultimate instance of this was in 70 AD when the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem, leaving the Jews to live in various places since then.</p>
<p>I agree with those who say the reformation of the modern State of Israel is leading up to the final seven years promised to Israel under the dispensation of Law, which will prepare the Jews to accept Jesus as their Messiah at his second coming (e.g. Daniel 9:26-27, Jeremiah 30-31, Ezekiel 38-39, Isaiah 65-66). Once this happens they will no longer be dispersed or conquered.</p>
<h3>5. Grace</h3>
<p>Once the nation of Israel rejected Jesus as their Messiah and crucified Him, God turned to working in the world primarily through the Church, composed of all Christians everywhere, which continues Christ's mission to the world. Now Christians are not limited to one particular country or race or language, but go spreading God's message and teachings to all countries (Matthew 28:19-20).</p>
<p>Yes, Christians have also sinned and caused their share of problems also through persecuting one another, persecuting non-Christians, and trying to rule the world during the middle ages. (As a side note, this proves that the Church on its own is also not going to be able to reform society or bring in God's kingdom on earth through social justice or charity or activism, no matter how hard we try, because Christians are also still sinful).</p>
<p>Unfortunately, as we seem to see now in Western countries, societies eventually reject Christianity and want to start doing things their own way again. And in many other countries Christians are persecuted for their faith. This is where we're at now.</p>
<p>This current dispensation will end with the future seven-year <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">Tribulation</a> described in the book of Revelation, where the one-world government of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> will persecute and kill many Christians who convert after the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">Rapture</a> (Revelation 13:7) or refuse to take his <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>.</p>
<p>The Tribulation will end with the second-coming of Christ, who will destroy this one-world government and defeat all His enemies (Revelation 19:11-21), rescuing His faithful remnant of Christians and any Jews who will finally accept Jesus as their Messiah (Zechariah 12:10, 13:8-9, Revelation 1:7).</p>
<p>Jesus's return leads to the establishment of a new dispensation:</p>
<h2>6. The Millennial Reign of Jesus</h2>
<p>This dispensation will be unlike anything we've seen before.</p>
<p>Jesus will rule the world from Jerusalem, through his incorruptible government composed of resurrected and perfected Christians. His kingdom will last for at least 1000 years. Finally, we will have the perfectly wise, completely good, and non-corruptible leader that will fix the world and solve all its problems.</p>
<p>Some key bible verses that support this future reality of Jesus' Millennial Kingdom are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Revelation 20:1-6, which describes the setting up of the Millennial Kingdom and the binding of Satan for 1000 years.</li>
<li>Revelation 19:15: <em>"From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron."</em>. This theme is also seen in Revelation 12:5 and Psalm 2:9. A similar idea is in Daniel 2:44-45.</li>
<li>Isaiah 2:2-4, which describes Jerusalem becoming the center of Christ's government for the entire world, leading to worldwide peace.</li>
<li>Isaiah 11:1-10, which describes Jesus as a ruler who will judge in perfect righteousness and wisdom.</li>
<li>Jeremiah 23:5-6: <em>"Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: 'The Lord is our righteousness.'"</em></li>
<li>Daniel 7:13-14: <em>"Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed."</em></li>
<li>Daniel 7:27: <em>"And the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him."</em></li>
<li>1 Corinthians 15:24-28 says Jesus will destroy every other ruling power, and will reign over everything until his enemies are conquered.</li>
<li>Jude 1:14-15 refers to a prophecy by Enoch about God coming with his saints to bring justice to a sinful world, similar to Revelation 19:11-16.</li>
<li>Hebrews 1:8-9: <em>"But of the Son he says, 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions'."</em></li>
<li>Jeremiah 30:3, 8-11, and Ezekiel 39:25-29 describe Israel being restored as a nation in peace and security under the rule of Jesus.</li>
</ul>
<p>Christians who live now who will be resurrected and made immortal at <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a> (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53), and those who die during the Tribulation and are resurrected later (Revelation 20:4-6) will help Jesus rule the world during this time (and probably into eternity as well). we can see evidence for this in all the promises given to Christians about our faithfulness being rewarded with ruling privileges:</p>
<ul>
<li>Revelation 20:6: <em>"Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years."</em> (Perhaps echoing Daniel 7:18 and 7:22).</li>
<li>Revelation 2:26: <em>"The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father."</em></li>
<li>Revelation 3:21: <em>"The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne."</em></li>
<li>2 Timothy 2:12: <em>"if we endure, we will also reign with him."</em></li>
<li>Luke 19:16-19 shows Jesus rewarding faithful Christians with rule over cities. Matthew 25:21-23 is the parallel, and promises faithful Christians will be "set over much", in terms of responsibility. This echoes Matthew 24:45-47 where the faithful servant is "set over" all the master's possessions.</li>
<li>1 Corinthians 6:2-3 says the saints will judge the world, and will even judge angels!</li>
<li>Luke 22:28-30 shows that the 12 apostles will have a special role ruling over Israel in the Millennium and perhaps eternity.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you're interested in this topic, a much more detailed book on all this is <em>The Millennial Kingdom</em> by John F. Walvoord (1959).</p>
<h3>The Sheep and Goats Judgment</h3>
<p>When Jesus returns, He will not only judge the nations, but He will judge all individuals who remain alive after the Tribulation. This is what Matthew 25:31-45 is all about:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.</span></p>
<p>So this passage is not about the final judgment, because the Sheep and Goats Judgment is based on works (Matthew 25:34-36), whereas eternal salvation is based only on faith in God/Christ, and so they are different things.</p>
<p>This is clear when we remember that eternal life depends on only faith, as shown in John 6:28-29:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">"What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."</span></p>
<p>Those at the final judgment will have their works judged, but what finally matters for their eternal life is if their name is in the book of Life (Revelation 20:15). But this is different from being allowed into Christ's Millennial Kingdom.</p>
<p>There are different judgments in Scripture, and it's important to distinguish them correctly, or we will get confused and think our eternal salvation depends on works, when it actually depends only on faith in Christ (e.g. John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8).</p>
<p>As a result of the Sheep and Goats Judgment at the end of the Tribulation, anyone who showed mercy to the persecuted Jews and Christians during the Tribulation (i.e. Jesus's 'brothers' in Matthew 25:40), and who did not take the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a> (Revelation 13:16-18, 14:9-11) will be allowed to live in the Millennial Kingdom. These people will repopulate the world. Their lives will be much easier due to the removal of the curse of nature which I discussed in my post about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/climate-change-and-the-end-times/">climate change and the end times</a>.</p>
<p>But these people who repopulate the world will be regular mortal people, and will still have a sinful human nature. This then explains why Jesus will have to rule with a "rod of iron" as mentioned in several verses listed above, in order to ensure that human sinfulness is kept in check and does not get out of control and ruin things for everyone yet again.</p>
<h3>What Life Will Be Like in Jesus' Millennial Kingdom</h3>
<p>The Bible gives many hints about what the conditions of the world will be like during this time, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>nature will be far more fruitful and productive than it is now (Isaiah 30:23-24, 35:1-2, 35:6-7, Amos 9:13).</li>
<li>human lifespans will be extended back to what they were before the Flood (Isaiah 65:20, 22).</li>
<li>disabilities will be healed (Isaiah 35:5-6).</li>
<li>nature will be re-ordered to remove carnivory and animals will no longer be dangerous (Isaiah 11:6-8, 65:25).</li>
<li>Satan will be confined and not allowed to tempt people as he does now (Revelation 20:2-3).</li>
</ul>
<p>So it's going to be much better than our world as it is right now. If you're a Christian, you will get to see all of this.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I'm convinced that Scripture teaches that things will get worse before they get better, because there is simply no other way to deal with all the details of the book of Revelation in a serious way (that is, without allegorizing them or ignoring them). I've written on the problems of allegorization in my post about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/">biblical inerrancy</a>.</p>
<p>This is why the promise of the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">pre-Tribulational Rapture</a> is so comforting to Christians today, because we know we are not destined to face God's wrath in the Tribulation (1 Thessalonians 4:18, 5:9, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4).</p>
<p>Pre-millennialism is also the only position which explains why we have verses that describe people having children and growing old in Christ's kingdom, such as Isaiah 11:6 and Isaiah 65:20-22. This shows that Christ's Millennial Kingdom is not identical to the future New Heavens and New Earth (Revelation 21) when everyone will be immortal and there will be no more procreation (as per Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25).</p>
<p>Details in scripture matter; otherwise God wouldn't have included them. It is not faithful Biblical interpretation to gloss over the details of Scripture. Taking all of scripture seriously, believing it to be fully inspired by the same Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21) who is God and never lies (Titus 1:2), means we should attempt to harmonize all the prophecies that still remain to be fulfilled.</p>
<p>When we do put all these pieces together in a way that takes the details seriously, we get a picture of the future very much like the one described as a pre-Tribulation Rapture and pre-millennial second coming of Jesus, with a 1000-year Millennial Kingdom.</p>
<h2>The Theme of The Millennial Kingdom in Christmas Songs</h2>
<p>The Millennial Kingdom is my favourite theme in Christmas carols. We might not realize this if we're so used to singing these songs, but if we examine the lyrics, we can see this theme clearly.</p>
<p>For example, "Joy to the World", is actually about Jesus' second coming and Millennial Kingdom:</p>
<p><em>Joy to the world! The Lord is come:</em><br>
<em>let earth receive her King!</em><br>
<em>Let every heart prepare him room</em><br>
<em>and heaven and nature sing.</em></p>
<p><em>Joy to the earth! the Saviour reigns:</em><br>
<em>let men their songs employ</em><br>
<em>while fields and floods rocks hills and plains</em><br>
<em>repeat the sounding joy.</em></p>
<p><em>No more let sins and sorrows grow,</em><br>
<em>nor thorns infest the ground:</em><br>
<em>he comes to make his blessings flow</em><br>
<em>far as the curse is found.</em></p>
<p><em>He rules the earth with truth and grace,</em><br>
<em>and makes the nations prove</em><br>
<em>the glories of his righteousness</em><br>
<em>and wonders of his love.</em></p>
<p>There is also the famous "For Unto Us A Child is Born" by Handel, which basically is just Isaiah 9:6:</p>
<p><em>For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given,</em><br>
<em>and the government shall be upon His shoulder;</em><br>
<em>and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor,</em><br>
<em>the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.</em></p>
<p>Along with Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus," with lines like:</p>
<p><em>Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth;</em><br>
<em>and He shall reign forever and ever;</em><br>
<em>the Kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ!</em></p>
<p>There are a few modern songs also that I really like with this theme.</p>
<p>"He Shall Reign Forevermore" by Chris Tomlin is really good, where the chorus is:</p>
<p><em>And He shall reign forevermore, forevermore</em><br>
<em>Unto us a child is born</em><br>
<em>The King of kings and Lord of lords</em><br>
<em>And He shall reign forevermore, forevermore</em><br></p>
<p>The song "Mary Did You Know?" includes some of these themes, where it says:</p>
<p><em>The blind will see, the deaf will hear</em><br>
<em>The dead will live again</em><br>
<em>The lame will leap, the dumb will speak</em><br>
<em>The praises of the lamb!</em><br>
<em>Mary, did you know that your baby boy is lord of all creation?</em><br>
<em>Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?</em><br></p>
<p>So when you sing these songs, remember you're not singing only about Jesus' first coming. I really look forward to when Jesus will finally come and fix all the mess that the world is in currently.</p>
<h2>End of the Millennial Kingdom</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, not even Jesus' direct rule over the world for a thousand years will solve the problem of human sinfulness.</p>
<p>At the end of the thousand years, God allows Satan back out for a short time, to incite those who want to rebel against Jesus' rule to get up the courage to openly revolt. They gather into a large army and surround Jerusalem, and God judges them for their rebellion by sending down fire from heaven to destroy them (Revelation 20:7-10).</p>
<p>The theory of dispensationalism shows that by the end of history God will have tested humanity under every possible method of government, and it will be proven to us that there is no perfect system which can solve the problem of sin. For even under a perfect, incorruptible government ruled by Jesus himself with a rod of iron to ensure righteousness and justice is done, people will still rebel against God.</p>
<p>There will be nothing left to blame except humanity's sinful hearts. This will prove that our problem truly is sin—not politics, political systems, political parties, particular leaders, electoral colleges, proportional or first-past-the-post systems, human judges, constitutions, bills of rights, border walls (or lack thereof), or whatever else we might think the problem is now.</p>
<p>Of course, we should do what we can to restrain evil in our societies in various ways. But I'm not optimistic about the results. </p>
<p>My opinion is that this fallen world is like the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. It's sinking, and nothing will stop it. Maybe we could take some measures to slow it down, but its fate is ultimately certain. So let's not waste time playing politics, which is equivalent to arguing over who should be captain of the doomed Titanic, and what the captain should do.</p>
<p>Instead, Christians should focus on getting people into the eternal lifeboat, by preaching that anyone who puts their faith in Jesus as their savior from God's judgment on their sins will have eternal life. Unlike on the Titanic, there is enough room for everyone on this lifeboat.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So I'm sorry to disappoint you if you thought that somehow sinful humans could bring in a utopia upon earth. Scripture seems to clearly say this will never happen.</p>
<p>Instead of putting our hopes and dreams in the hands of corrupt human politicians, let's recognize that what the world needs is Jesus. Let's put our hope not in the next election, but in Jesus' second coming.</p>
<p>In the meantime let's eagerly look forward to his coming (2 Timothy 4:8), while faithfully occupying and engaging in Christ's business until Jesus comes (Luke 19:13).</p>
<p>We need to remember that as Christians our home is not this world. We're in the world, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we're waiting for Jesus to return from there to rescue us (Philippians 3:20-21). Let's not get so wrapped up in worldly politics and concerns that we stress ourselves out about the future. Our eternal future is secure, and it will be wonderful and will infinitely outweigh anything negative we experience now, regardless of how things go in this temporal life.</p>
<p>Jesus is indeed our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Let's trust Him as the source of our personal peace this advent season, and into the new year.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Charles C. Ryrie, <em>Dispensationalism: Revised and Expanded</em> (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2007), 72-81.</li>
</ul>Climate Change and the End Times2019-11-07T00:00:00+00:002019-11-07T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-11-07:/article/climate-change-and-the-end-times/<p>With the rise of Greta Thunberg as a public figure it seems that many more people are paying attention to news about climate change. However, Christians should not look only to the news media or to scientists to inform our thinking on this issue. Instead, we should consider how climate …</p><p>With the rise of Greta Thunberg as a public figure it seems that many more people are paying attention to news about climate change. However, Christians should not look only to the news media or to scientists to inform our thinking on this issue. Instead, we should consider how climate change fits within a Biblical worldview.</p>
<p>In this post I want to share a few things that I think can help Christians take a more Biblical position on environmentalism and climate change. I hope that it will give some perspective and help Christians avoid unnecessary anxiety or fear about the future of the planet.</p>
<h2>Caring for the Environment Is Good</h2>
<p>First of all, I want to say that yes, Christians <em>should</em> care for the environment. God originally gave Adam and Eve the mandate to "have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:28). In Eden, they were tasked with working and keeping the garden (Genesis 2:15). </p>
<p>Some people accuse Christians of thinking we can do whatever we want to the world because of verses like Genesis 1:28. But exploitation and abuse is never a model of Christian leadership. God didn't give Adam and Eve free reign to use creation in destructive ways for their own selfish benefit. </p>
<p>Instead, Christian leadership is about serving (Luke 22:26-27). It's hard to say exactly what Adam and Eve's duties in caring for the garden involved before there were weeds and thistles (these appeared only after the first sin as per Genesis 3:18). But we can probably say it involved being caretakers, stewards, and managers of the garden and its resources for their benefit and the benefit of all God's creatures.</p>
<p>God also cares for the environment and nature. The Bible says God pays attention to and cares for even the tiniest birds (Luke 12:6-7, Matthew 10:29-31).</p>
<p>So yes, Christians should try to care for creation. We should try reduce the amount of waste we produce, to save energy and water within reason, and try to protect and care for God's creation and animals. But, humans are also allowed to use nature wisely for our benefit. We are not a 'plague' on the world—the world is made for us. But not <em>only</em> us.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, in this sinful world, humans are selfish and we think more of ourselves than the rest of creation. We bring suffering to creation rather than acting as wise caretakers, stewards, and managers of it. This is sad, and is not the way it should be.</p>
<p>I've heard it said that leaving sinful humanity to care for the planet is like telling a two-year-old to clean up a closet; really, it's only going to make things worse, not better. But Christians and people in general should still try to do what we can.</p>
<p>It is true that many aspects of our world today should be questioned and challenged by Christians who care about the planet.</p>
<p>Planned obsolescence of items is an extremely wasteful practice, even if it keeps companies profitable. We should encourage moving toward a more sustainable economy which pollutes less by making things last longer and be easily recyclable when they wear out, rather than throwing things into landfills. Corporations' pursuit of unlimited profit, and profit at all costs, is certainly harmful and not sustainable. It is true that we cannot have infinite economic growth or unlimited profit on a finite planet with finite resources.</p>
<p>We should move toward more natural farming methods that are better for animals and for the food we eventually eat. We should try to prevent oil spills, and reduce fertilizer run-off, reduce antibiotic use and pesticide use in farming, and clean up the garbage patches in the ocean. These are just a few things that Christians can support and advocate for.</p>
<p>Christians can also be examples of how to spend money wisely on products which are more sustainable or eco-friendly, to reduce our waste, and be energy-efficient.</p>
<p>Of course, technology is a good thing, and so we don't have to go back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Bringing clean water and electricity to poorer countries saves lives, reduces suffering, and reduces pollution.</p>
<p>Using fertilizers and mass-farming techniques are likely necessary to feed all the people of the world. It has been predicted that if something suddenly knocked out all our technology, many people would starve to death because our food production and distribution methods are massively dependent on electricity and fossil-fuels. There's no easy or quick way to change that.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I think one by-product of the Fall into sin is that now there is no way for humans to live without something else suffering or dying. Some waste and pollution is unavoidable. Ancient people's garbage dumps are now sites for archeological exploration. Our landfills may be sources that future humanity will mine for resources.</p>
<p>Just as we can't avoid all sin, so we can't avoid all pollution, and I don't think that will ever be remedied until we're on the eternal New Earth.</p>
<h2>Can Humans Truly Affect the World's Climate?</h2>
<p>However, it seems that lately that the anxiety is not about all these obvious environmental concerns, but about a tiny amount of gas in the atmosphere, and the projected effects that gas <em>might</em> have on the temperature of the planet.</p>
<p>I don't want to get into all the debates here about whether human-caused climate change is true or not. I have read enough to say that perhaps the science is not as 'settled' as many make it out to be.</p>
<p>We could debate all day long about which sources on these things are the most credible and legitimate, and which are 'fake science.' I would encourage any interested Christian to read both sides of the argument with an open mind.</p>
<p>After all, scientists are sinful people too, like we all are. Scientists on all sides of the debate have their own agendas, biases, and can make mistakes. They might even outright lie, if it is in their interest. Thus, we shouldn't just blindly <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/trusting-the-experts/">trust the experts</a>.</p>
<p>Scientists depend on funding; if the government guarantees them a constant stream of income to study climate change, it's in the scientists' interest to make it sound like an urgent, dangerous topic in order to get more funding. If the scientists discover it's not really a problem, or not something we can control, then the government might withdraw their funding. This should make us consider the scientific hype around climate change with at least some suspicion.</p>
<p>I am not willing to put all my eggs in one basket as to whether humans are affecting the world's climate. It seems this is still up for debate. And it should be! This is the way science should work.</p>
<p>New observations and studies are always being done and should be done, and new theories should be made. Some of those theories may contradict what is considered the 'established' view right now. But so did Galileo's theory that the earth revolves around the sun, when back then the "science was settled" that it was the opposite!</p>
<p>If the scientists really want to pursue <em>truth</em>, and not just funding or political power, then they should be willing to go wherever the best and most accurate evidence leads. Cutting short the debate, or excluding people for not being 'real scientists' or for presenting conflicting data doesn't help anyone <em>except</em> those who are <em>not</em> interested in truth and only want power.</p>
<h2>Climate Change Is Not The End of the World</h2>
<p>But I can confidently say that the truth is that climate change is not going to be the end of the world. Maybe Greta would be less fearful about climate change if she knew what Scripture had to say about the future?</p>
<p>Taking a Biblical view of the future helps us say that no, we are not facing the end of human existence in the next 10 years. Not even the next 100 years.</p>
<p>Jesus promises that he will return to earth at the end of the yet-future seven-year period of time that prophecy experts call the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">Tribulation</a>, and he will set up a kingdom where he will rule from Jerusalem for 1000 years! (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<p>During Jesus' <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">Millennial Kingdom</a>, nature is going to be <em>even better</em> than it is now!</p>
<p>God prophesies that the environment will be so conducive to farming and produce so much food that the people who are harvesting the crops will not have enough time to collect it all before it is time to plant again for the next season (Amos 9:13). There are prophecies of people living in cities, having vineyards, and growing fruit (Amos 9:14, Micah 4:4).</p>
<p>There are promises that there will be lots of rain for crops, and plenty of food:</p>
<p>"And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork" (Isaiah 30:23-24).</p>
<p>Nature will flourish. Isaiah says "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing" (Isaiah 35:1-2).</p>
<p>Futhermore, "For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water" (Isaiah 35:6-7).</p>
<p>Perhaps this will be the fulfillment of what nature has been longing for from the time it was cursed after the fall of humanity, as described in Romans 8:19-23 (NRSV):</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.</span></p>
<p>So we don't have to worry about the world permanently turning into a barren, dry, overheated place. God has promised it won't, and instead, God has promised that the planet's best days seem to be ahead of us.</p>
<p>If carbon dioxide is plant food, perhaps higher concentrations of it in the atmosphere would actually <em>enable</em> such a future time of lush vegetation and plentiful crops as described by Scripture?</p>
<p>Some researchers say more carbon dioxide in the air and higher temperatures might be beneficial for plant growth.<cite>1</cite> For example, NASA did a study that showed that higher carbon dioxide in the air has contributed to about 70% to the increase in plant growth on the planet over the last 35 years! The earth now has 25% to 50% <em>more</em> green plants on it than it did 35 years ago.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Climate change may indeed be occurring, even if humans have no effect on the climate. But the climate is <em>always</em> changing, because in the past it has been both warmer and cooler than it is now, with sea levels higher and lower, and humans have adapted to it. Why should now be any different?</p>
<h2>Climate Change Is a Convenient Excuse for World Government</h2>
<p>The excessive urgency and hype around climate change makes me wonder if there's not something more behind it.</p>
<p>After all, if it is true that people are having an impact on the climate, then why don't we see environmentalist leaders actually <em>changing their lifestyles</em> in order to be examples for others to follow?</p>
<p>But no, Al Gore, David Suzuki, Elizabeth May, etc. still have mansions, private jets, and SUVs. Barack Obama recently bought beachfront property,<cite>3</cite> which is a pretty silly thing to buy if global warming is really going to increase the sea level and make coastal areas uninhabitable.</p>
<p>So the elites who cry so much about climate change being the end of the world are happy to fly around the world to climate conferences in their private jets, drinking out of non-reusable coffee cups,<cite>4</cite> and living fossil-fuel dependent lifestyles. </p>
<p>At least Greta lives out her conviction to not fly in airplanes, which has now left her stuck in North America after the UN suddenly moved its important climate conference in December from Chile to Spain.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>Clearly these other hypocritical leaders are not so afraid of climate change that <em>they</em> feel the need to change their lifestyles. They just seem to want the power to tell <em>others</em> how to live.</p>
<p>For example, in 2019, Prince Charles has claimed that if we're going to save the planet so that humanity doesn't become extinct, then major changes need to be made to our society in just 18 months.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>The UN also wants to bring in its Agenda 2030 by 2030.<cite>7</cite> On the surface these goals seem noble, such as sustainable economic development and environmental protection. Yet "These are universal goals and targets which involve the entire world, developed and developing countries alike." Many similar statements about "all countries" echo throughout the document. They specifically say they want "all States to work for an ambitious and universal climate agreement."</p>
<p>What better excuse is there for giving government unlimited control over everyone's lives on the planet than with the claim that if they don't, then the planet will become uninhabitable?</p>
<p>After all, to "save the planet" from that awful carbon dioxide, the government would have to have absolute control over things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>How much food and what sort of food everyone eats.</li>
<li>How you travel around your city (transit/bike/walk/car-share).</li>
<li>How large of a home you're allowed to have.</li>
<li>How many children each family is allowed to have (to avoid overpopulation).<cite>8</cite></li>
<li>What sort of vehicles you're allowed to have (electric or hybrid?).</li>
<li>What sort of appliances you're allowed to buy or that you must buy (solar panels?).</li>
<li>How much you are allowed fly or travel long-distance.</li>
<li>What sort of products you have access to in your local stores (international shipping produces lots of carbon dioxide).</li>
</ul>
<p>It would require them to have total control over the economies of the entire world, to determine what is allowed to be produced, by who, where, in what quantity, and using which sources of energy. But when has that level of government control over the economy ever worked out to anyone's benefit? (Hint: see the horrific history of 'centrally planned' economies).</p>
<p>It would probably lead to some sort of global carbon-credit system, which would turn into a rationing system of carbon credits where you only get so many credits per month. If you run out, you have to pay more, but if you use less, then you can sell them. This sort of system is already being used in countries around the world for large businesses.</p>
<p>So I think that the hype is probably an attempt to implement global government using people's fear of climate change. And of course, God tells us where global government leads:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Revelation 13:7)</span></span></p>
<p>This is referring to the "Beast" of Revelation. Satan claims to already have power over the nations of the world and to give them to whoever he wants (Matthew 4:8-9). But can we imagine how much more convenient it would be for him if there were a one-world government?</p>
<p>No more pesky democracy to worry about getting in the way of his ultimate plans for the world. All Satan would have to control would be the leader of this world-government, who is usually referred to by Bible-prophecy scholars as the "<a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>".</p>
<p>Daniel metaphorically describes such an authoritarian world-wide government as a beast which is "exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet" (Daniel 7:19). Basically, this future government will crush all resistance and dominate the world.</p>
<p>Jesus says this situation will come as a "snare" or a "trap" upon the whole world (Luke 21:34-35). With a one-world government, you are indeed trapped—there's no place you can run to escape it. This is the government which will make war on God's saints and overcome them (Daniel 7:21, Revelation 13:7). This would be a truly terrifying situation for Christians on earth during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>But it gets even worse. The "false prophet" in league with the Antichrist will then set up an economic system where "it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">buy or sell unless he has the Mark of the Beast</a>, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name" (Revelation 13:16-17).</p>
<p>To me, this sounds like exactly the sort of economic control that could be implemented through a mandatory worldwide carbon-credit exchange system, which would track every purchase or exchange of credits anyone anywhere makes. Without the Mark of the Beast that enables your access to such a system, you can't buy or sell anything. But if you <em>do</em> take the Mark of the Beast, then you get to face God's eternal punishment (Revelation 14:9-11).</p>
<p>The prefix "anti-" in the term "Antichrist" can also mean this person is not just "against" or "opposed to" Christ but comes "instead of" or "in place of" Christ.<cite>9</cite> The "anti-Christ" will want to be worshipped by everyone as if he were God: he "opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God" (2 Thessalonians 2:4).</p>
<p>If people are scared enough of climate change, they may very well look to world-government to save us from our environmental "sins" if it promises "salvation" to us if only we will do whatever it demands. The one-world government would become a sort of savior, replacing Christ as the one in whom all people should place their hope for their future and to whom they owe our ultimate allegiance.</p>
<p>Those who follow and worship the Antichrist and take his Mark of the Beast will realize too late that they have sacrificed their eternal future for their temporal future when Jesus returns and they are eternally destroyed in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14-15).</p>
<h2>It's Not God's Judgment, It's Just Climate Change!</h2>
<p>Conveniently, many of the natural disasters in the book of Revelation that are a result of God's end-times judgment on the world could perhaps be explained away as catastrophic results of climate change. See:</p>
<ul>
<li>people being killed by "famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth" (Revelation 6:8).</li>
<li>a third of the trees and all the grass being burnt up (Revelation 8:7).</li>
<li>a third of the sea turning into blood, and a third of the creatures in it dying (Revelation 8:8-9).</li>
<li>a third of the fresh water turning 'bitter' (Revelation 8:10-11).</li>
<li>every living thing in the sea dying (Revelation 16:3).</li>
<li>rivers and springs becoming like blood (Revelation 16:4).</li>
<li>people being scorched by the sun's "fierce heat" (Revelation 16:8-9).</li>
<li>the Euphrates river drying up (Revelation 16:12).</li>
<li>extremely large hailstones (Revelation 16:21).</li>
</ul>
<p>And these are only some of God's judgments that will be poured out on the Christ-rejecting, rebellious world during the Tribulation.</p>
<p>God warns us that nature is under His control, and can be used as judgment on sinful people in Hosea 4:1-3:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel,for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.</span></p>
<p>If we're seeing nature become uncooperative and inhabitable, and we see animals becoming extinct at faster rates, we should consider that maybe this is a form of God's judgment on a sinful world. Unfortunately, the book of Revelation seems to say it will get much worse before it gets better.</p>
<p>So yes, perhaps Greta should be afraid after all. But not because of climate change.</p>
<h2>Christians Today Should Have No Fear</h2>
<p>Yet for Christians today, we can be comforted by Jesus' words:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. <span class="blockquote-verse">(John 14:1-3)</span></span></p>
<p>Jesus' return for Christians can happen anytime in the event called the Rapture. Paul describes this event in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.</span></p>
<p>We are guaranteed that this will happen before any of the judgments in Revelation occur, because of God's promises in Scripture.</p>
<p>For example, Paul says Christians shouldn't worry about the end-times because "God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:9).</p>
<p>In contrast, Jesus describes the Tribulation as the worst time in the history of the world (Matthew 24:21), and it is called "the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16-17).</p>
<p>In Revelation 3:10 God promises the faithful church that "Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth."</p>
<p>There is no reason for God to keep faithful Christians on earth during that time.</p>
<p>There will be some people who convert to Christianity after the Rapture, but it will be too late for them to escape and they will be the ones who will be persecuted and probably killed by the Antichrist. But they will be resurrected at the end and rewarded for their faith (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">other good arguments</a> for why the Rapture will be before the Tribulation begins. But right now that's not the point.</p>
<p>My point right now is that the Tribulation is what non-Christians today should <em>actually</em> be worried about, far more than climate change. The signs that the Tribulation is near are so numerous that someone who is paying attention can see them everywhere.</p>
<p>And that means the Rapture is even nearer, and so Christians today shouldn't be scared about climate change or the Tribulation. Instead, what we can do is share with our friends and family the good news of Jesus' death for our sins, so that others can believe and have eternal life. Then they can also look forward to the Rapture, and have peace about their eternal future, no matter what happens in their temporal lives.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So if you meet someone who is overly fearful about climate change, perhaps sharing with them these points can help. Remind them that God is in control of nature, and that God has promised that humans will be around on earth for a long time to come.</p>
<p>And share the gospel with them, because despite all the signs of the approaching Tribulation, each individual may face God sooner than that since we are never promised our next breath (Luke 12:20). Eternal life is infinitely more important than temporary life on this planet.</p>
<p>But if you have trusted in Christ, then be at peace. The world is in God's hands, and your future is safe. You will get to see nature restored and flourishing during the millennial kingdom of Jesus, and forever on the New Earth (Revelation 21:1). It's going to be amazing. In comparison, the most beautiful sunset or nature scene that you've seen in your life will seem like a dull, half-dead thing.</p>
<p>So encourage one another with our Biblical hope of the soon return of Christ for the Church, and look forward to Christ's coming kingdom where all things will be set straight—including nature.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> S.B. Idso, B.A. Kimball, M.G. Anderson, J.R. Mauney, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0167880987900235?via%3Dihub">"Effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on plant growth: the interactive role of air temperature"</a>, Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment Vol 20, Issue 1 (November, 1987). Available at ScienceDirect.com.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Karl B. Hille, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth">"Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds"</a>, NASA.gov, April 26, 2016.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> WND Staff, <a href="https://www.wnd.com/2019/08/rush-limbaugh-why-would-obama-buy-doomed-beach-house/">"Rush Limbaugh: Why would Obama buy 'doomed' beach house?"</a>, WND, August 23, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Matt Gurney, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/matt-gurney-elizabeth-mays-faked-mug-is-a-perfect-symbol-of-climate-hysteria">"Matt Gurney: Elizabeth May's faked cup is a perfect symbol of climate hysteria"</a>, The National Post, September 25, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Aylin Woodward, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/greta-thunberg-is-stuck-on-the-wrong-continent-after-the-years-most-important-un-climate-change-summit-got-moved-from-chile-to-spain/articleshow/71859778.cms">"Greta Thunberg is stuck on the wrong continent after the year's most important UN climate change summit got moved from Chile to Spain"</a>, Business Insider India, November 2, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Marc Morano, <a href="https://www.climatedepot.com/2019/07/16/prince-charles-at-it-again-issues-yet-another-climate-tipping-point-deadline-after-previous-100-month-deadline-expires/">"Prince Charles at it again: Issues new 18-month climate tipping point after previous ‘100 month’ deadline expires"</a>, Climate Depot, July 16, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld">"Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"</a>, United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, </li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Eric Roston, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191105195732/https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/population-control-critical-part-climate-150004993.html">Earth Needs Fewer People to Beat the Climate Crisis, Scientists Say</a>, Bloomberg.com, November 5, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Mark Hitchcock, <em>Who Is The Antichrist?</em> (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2011), 41.</li>
</ul>Why Doesn't God Prevent More Evil?2019-09-01T00:00:00+00:002019-09-01T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-09-01:/article/why-god-does-not-prevent-more-evil/<p>In a <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">previous post</a> I talked about the 'problem' of believing that God is fully good and loving while accepting that sometimes God punishes people with death because of their sins, and how I make sense of that.</p>
<p>Another frequent accusation against God's goodness is that if God was really …</p><p>In a <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">previous post</a> I talked about the 'problem' of believing that God is fully good and loving while accepting that sometimes God punishes people with death because of their sins, and how I make sense of that.</p>
<p>Another frequent accusation against God's goodness is that if God was really totally good and all-powerful, then God should prevent more evil. Skeptics say the only reason why there is evil is that either God doesn't exist, God is not all-powerful, or at worst, God is not all-good or all-loving.</p>
<p>I've seen this problem referred to in numerous accounts of why some people have left Christianity. They might have experienced an incident of evil that they thought God should have prevented. Or they might consider all the suffering they see on the news all around the world, and be outraged that God doesn't do more to stop it.</p>
<p>So here I will present the best arguments I've found which can explain why an all-powerful, perfectly loving God might not prevent all evil in the world. I hope this will help Christians make sense of this difficult topic, as well as understand some possible reasons behind their own experiences of being afflicted by evil or suffering.</p>
<h2>Why Not Just Say God Isn't Omnipotent?</h2>
<p>It would seem that the easiest solution to the problem would be to say that God is not omnipotent. That is, God is not all-powerful, because God gave away some power to humans and fallen angels, who misuse their power to do evil.</p>
<p>This is the approach taken by Thomas J. Oord in his book <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (2015). He says it is more comforting to believe that God is always doing everything God can to prevent and restrain evil, and that God never chooses to allow any evil to occur that God <em>could</em> prevent.</p>
<p>So for example, Oord tells the story of a woman who was horribly raped by gangs and suffered severe injuries that caused pain for the rest of her life. He thinks it is better for Christians to say that God did not want this to happen but God <em>could not</em> prevent it, because a God of pure love would never allow any evil that He could prevent.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Oord argues that it's better to say God gives all creation real, irrevocable freedom and <em>never</em> takes it away, even when free creatures use it to do evil, or when the freedom inherent in creation leads to negative consequences like natural disasters.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>And because God is spirit and does not have a body, Oord says, God literally <em>cannot</em> override all evil since God can't physically intervene in the world, but must influence others to intervene on His behalf, if they so freely choose.<cite>3</cite> So if people disobey God, there's nothing God can really do about it.</p>
<p>But to me, this position is actually <em>terrifying</em>, because it means that there is some force out there that is <em>actually more powerful</em> than God! And not only that, but this force is <em>not</em> fully loving or good!</p>
<p>Whether that force is sinful human free will, evil demons, or the chaotic nature of fallen creation, in any case, God would seem to be stuck in an eternal struggle against this force, and there would be no guarantee that God would be able to overcome it in order to vanquish evil once and for all. </p>
<p>I'd rather live in a world where, for some reason, God temporarily allows evil, even if God could wipe it out at any time.</p>
<p>So what are some reasons why an omnipotent and loving God would allow evil to exist temporarily?</p>
<h2>Preventing More Evil</h2>
<p>I've touched on this point briefly in the past in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/theodicy-as-criteria-for-theology/">this post</a>, but I want to expand on this here.</p>
<p>One simple argument we can make for why God doesn't prevent more evil, is that if God were to prevent the 'worst' evils, then eventually, it would lead us to demand that God prevent <em>all</em> evil.</p>
<p>Let's imagine that God does intervene to prevent the 'worst' moral evils. Things like the holocaust, genocide, and the massacres under communist dictators like Stalin and Mao do not occur because God prevents them.</p>
<p>Then, since we would be unaware of these 'worst' evils that God prevented, we would demand that He also prevent the next-'worst' moral evils that we do see occurring. For example, now we would demand that God stop all murder, all rape, all drunk driving, all instances of bullying of children, and all divorce. After all, a loving God surely doesn't want these things to happen either, right?</p>
<p>So let's say God prevents these incidents of moral evil also. Now the 'worst' moral evils in the world are things like prank calls, shoplifting, gossiping, and graffiti. But, if we were totally unaware of all the other evils God has already prevented, we would again insist that God stop these things also, for these would be considered as leading to unacceptable levels of suffering. We would complain "Why would a good and loving God allow some punk to spray-paint my garage door? Doesn't God love me?"</p>
<p>So as you can see, if God were to prevent every instance of evil because we find it intolerable, it would mean God would have to override <em>all</em> human free will, so that no moral choices would be possible. Therefore, it is understandable that God does not prevent all moral evil, because to prevent all evil would override all free will.<cite>4</cite></p>
<h2>Why Is Free Will Important to God?</h2>
<p>However, this raises the question of why God would value free will.</p>
<p>Some people make the mistake of saying that God values free will <em>in itself</em>, as if God is a sort of libertarian who values freedom above everything else, and would never take away or limit anyone's freedom to act however they want.</p>
<p>For example, the open theist John Sanders was asked if he would want God to override his daughter's free-will if she were wandering down a rail track with a train approaching and force her to move off the track. He replied that taking away her free-will is not God's only option to prevent a tragedy, but, if God did warn her to move, he believed his daughter would retain the freedom to ignore God's Holy Spirit warning her to move off the track.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>From this, I get the impression that to Sanders, free will is 'untouchable' by God, because it would be unacceptable for God to override or restrain someone's free will even if their lives were in danger.</p>
<p>I sometimes see this same idea that God would never restrain free will because God values free will in itself made by Arminian apologists who are debating with Calvinists. But if this was true, and God loves and honors free will for free will's sake, then it doesn't make any sense why God would get angry at sin or punish sinners. After all—sin is just someone using their free will!</p>
<p>And why should God restrain <em>any</em> evil, if what God loves most is free will? It would seem that if God truly loved freedom for freedom's sake, then God would back off completely and avoid intervening in our world at all, and leave everything entirely up to our free will.</p>
<h2>Free Will Necessary for Love</h2>
<p>So God does not value free will for free will's sake. Free will is only good insofar as it serves God's higher purposes, which is loving relationships. </p>
<p>The Bible says God <em>IS</em> love (1 John 4:8), and as I explain <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">here</a>, God's reason for creating the universe is to create more loving relationships for Him to participate in and enjoy, and so love is what God loves.</p>
<p>Now, loving relationships are not possible without free will. If God <em>forced</em> anyone to love Him, that love would not mean anything to God. It would be as meaningful as if you programmed you computer to say "I love you" each morning—which is to say—not meaningful at all! (I talk about this idea more in my argument against universalism, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">here</a>)</p>
<p>But, this raises the question of <em>how much</em> free will we really need to fulfill God's purposes. And I believe that amount is <em>much less</em> than we typically assume.</p>
<p>After all, no one has absolutely unimpeded free will. We do not choose many things about ourselves. We don't choose when or where we are born, our parents, or our DNA. We don't choose our intellectual capabilities, our personalities, or our gifts. We can't change past history. We don't even have total control over our own bodies and whether we face illnesses. And clearly, we don't have control over the choices of others, which can have significant impact on our lives.</p>
<p>So when it comes to God's ultimate purpose for humanity, I think we really only need one 'free' choice, which is: do we choose to love God or not. This is what I argue in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">my theory of Christian inclusivism</a>.</p>
<p>And if this one choice is made wrongly, it will naturally and necessarily lead to sin and evil.</p>
<p>For if anything is truly good and in alignment with our purpose of loving God and loving others, then God allows it (Matthew 22:37-40, Romans 13:9-10). The only reason God does <em>not</em> allow some things, and labels those things as sin and evil, are because they are inherently bad for us, and therefore, they automatically lead to suffering sooner or later. That's exactly why sin angers God, and why God instructs us to avoid sinning!</p>
<p>By choosing to not love God, who is pure Love, and hence, who is also pure Goodness, humans are effectively choosing <em>not-love</em>, and <em>not-goodness</em>: that is, sin, evil, and suffering. We are saying to God "I do not want to act in ways that align with perfect Love and perfect Goodness". For if we truly loved God, who is Love, then we would also love to act in ways that are perfectly loving, for <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">all God's commands are summed up as love</a>. When we sin, we do not love God, we do not love others, and we do not even love ourselves, and instead we act in ways that hurt others and hurt ourselves.</p>
<p>Therefore, choosing to not love God, is by default choosing what is sinful and evil, which inherently leads to suffering.</p>
<h2>But Why Must God Allow So Much Sin and Evil?</h2>
<p>So we've seen that because God loves loving relationships, God allows each human enough free will to love God or not. And if humans choose not to love God, because God's nature is perfect love and perfect goodness, by not loving God, we are sinning, which leads automatically to evil and suffering.</p>
<p>And therefore, God must allow at least enough free-will for each person to potentially sin at least once in their lives. And Scripture says that <em>all</em> humans sin (Romans 3:23), and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">every sin is worthy of eternal death</a>.</p>
<p>One sin per person would be the <em>absolute minimum</em> of sin and evil that God would theoretically have to allow in the world.</p>
<p>So why can't God just give us just enough freedom so that each person <em>only sins once</em>? Even if it would lead to some suffering, it would surely be much better than this world, right?</p>
<p>But I think the problem is that humans as a species are really dumb. We're also really, really good at trying to justify ourselves in our own eyes and in the eyes of others and make excuses for ourselves (e.g. Genesis 3:12-13).</p>
<p>Let's say we each only sinned once. We would say to God "Well, it was just an accident! I'm actually still a very good person—I don't have a problem with sin in my heart. It was just bad judgment. I was too curious for my own good. In fact, I was deceived - just like how Eve was deceived (Genesis 3:13). It's not my fault! If you punish me for this one accidental sin, without giving me a second chance, then you're being unfair! In fact, you would be totally unloving!"</p>
<p>And we would make the same excuse the next time also.</p>
<p>So I think God allows enough human free will, and enough sin and evil (and thus, enough suffering) to exist in the world to prove it to us that we really have a major problem in our hearts.</p>
<p>It's not that we slip up once and accidentally sin, despite being otherwise good people. Instead, history and our own consciences prove to us that the human heart is continually evil and corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9, Genesis 6:5), and that there's nothing we can do on our own to solve the problem ourselves.</p>
<p>History shows us that the solution to sin is not better education, better parenting techniques, more welfare, more 'tolerance' for differences, more 'reconciliation' between people groups, excluding/eliminating some people groups, less pollution, more organic food, more democracy, more socialism, more laws, less laws, banning guns or nuclear weapons, the uniting of all religions into one, the banning of all religion, or even better technology.</p>
<p>The history of humanity as described in the Bible shows that humans fail again and again, under every circumstance imaginable:</p>
<ul>
<li>We fail when we're left to live according to our own consciences, as humanity was before the Flood, ending up in a world full of violence where most people's thoughts were continually evil (Genesis 6:5).</li>
<li>We fail even when God starts over with only relatively 'good' people like Noah and his family, and even when Noah is given the authority to restrain evil by putting murderers to death (Genesis 9:6).</li>
<li>We fail when God chooses one guy to start a new nation by which God will reveal Himself to humanity (Israel) by giving them God's laws (the Torah) which, if followed, would have led to a relatively good society, and gave them the authority to punish those who broke these laws. On top of this, God threatened the entire nation with various punishments for mass rebellion which should have encouraged obedience. But they repeatedly turn away to idolatry and sinful practices, leading to repeated judgments and finally, to rejection of their Messiah.</li>
<li>We fail even after God comes to us in the human form of Jesus and teaches us <em>in person</em> what God wants us to do, and demonstrates it to us in His own actions. But, we decide we'd rather torture and kill Him, and actually do so.</li>
<li>We fail even after the Church is created, and Christians with the Holy Spirit indwelling us take God's love into the world as salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16). But Christians remain imperfect and act in hypocritical and sinful ways, leading to much suffering and evil committed by various Christian leaders and denominations. Most of the world continues to reject the Church's testimony about Christ and persecutes Christians.</li>
<li>Even the Millennium, when Jesus reigns over the world personally from Jerusalem (Isaiah 9:6-7), with the incorruptible government of resurrected Christians (Revelation 20:4), when Satan is bound in the pit (Revelation 20:1-3), and starting over with only a population of people who love God (Matthew 25:31-34), will end in another rebellion of sinful humanity (Revelation 20:7-9).</li>
</ul>
<p>So I think God lets us sin enough to prove to us that we have no excuses left. Under every system of government, under every situation of divine law or lack thereof, in every country and culture around the world, and despite the huge variation we see in personal circumstances, <em>every single human sins</em>, and probably sins at least once every day, if not more.</p>
<p>Now, you think this should get humanity to wake up and realize we've got a sin problem in our hearts which cannot be blamed on anyone or anything besides ourselves, and that we can't do anything to fix it on our own. This should help us see that we need God to step in, to save us from ourselves, and from the situation we created by rebelling against God and God's desires for ourselves. This should make us see that we deserve God's judgment and wrath, and need Jesus as our savior.</p>
<h2>But Can't God Negate the Negative Consequences of Sin?</h2>
<p>Someone might argue that God should allow us to make free choices but also miraculously prevent the negative results of our sinful choices. But I believe Millard Erickson got it right when he says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Libertarian freedom must include the power of actions to carry to their consequences. If not it is a rather spurious form of freedom...This would seem to be a denial of freedom, not in the sense of precluding the action, but of negating its intended effect.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Richard Rice agrees, and says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God must respect the consequences to which our actions lead. For actions to have real integrity, they must have real results. After all, freedom is more than making a decision, it also involves making a difference.<cite>7</cite></span></p>
<p>So if God interrupts a person’s thought to shoot a gun at someone, for example, it is denying that person the ability to use their free will to have a real effect in the world.</p>
<p>Even if God let them go through with it but then miraculously diverted all the bullets from hitting anyone, it would still be overriding the shooter’s free will. Not in the sense of controlling their will, but by denying them the ability for their actions to make any difference in the world.</p>
<p>We do occasionally hear stories of things like a mass-murderer's gun getting jammed, or other similar events where an evil person's intention is thwarted by something outside of their control. So God does not have to allow all instances of sinful intention to always carry through to sinful action.</p>
<p>But these quotes show that God cannot prevent <em>all</em> negative consequences of sin, or then God really would be effectively denying <em>all</em> free-will to make sinful choices, which as we've already seen, would thwart God's purposes for the world. The reasons why God may allow or prevent any particular instance of evil will be discussed later in this article.</p>
<p>Additionally, it could be that God often allows the consequences of sin to occur, because otherwise, if God prevented us from seeing the suffering that sin naturally will lead to, then we would start to wonder if sin is really as bad as God says it is. The horrible consequences of sin should persuade us and others that sin should be avoided for our own good, thus, confirming the earlier argument that sin is forbidden by God because it leads to suffering.</p>
<h2>Ok, But Why Not Prevent More Natural Evil?</h2>
<p>So, let's say my argument is valid up to this point and we can see why God allows some moral evil to exist. An objector might say, well, what about <em>natural</em> evil, such as disease, accidents, natural disasters, predation, and so forth? Why doesn't God just kill all those mosquitos, to spare us from their bites? Why not prevent all earthquakes, tornadoes, and cancer?</p>
<p>These natural evils are all explainable as the byproducts of a fallen world, which goes back to the first sin of Adam and Eve.</p>
<p>God said that as a result of their sin, nature would no longer be as idyllic as it first was. Now, things like thorns appear in the ground (Genesis 3:17-18). And although it's not stated explicitly, we can say that all other natural evils also began at this time, because these things are surely not God's desire for his people or his creatures. When God finished creating the world, God said it was "very good" (Genesis 1:31). </p>
<p>But the suffering caused by disease or deformities are never seen as 'good' in Scripture. The death and destruction caused by natural disasters is not good. Animals did not originally eat one another (Genesis 1:29-30), and so carnivory must have been a result of the change of nature which occurred after the first sin.</p>
<p>Even some forms of entropy and decay may be results of the first sin, such as rust and the wearing out of clothes (Matthew 6:19), and the suffering caused by ageing which is really just the gradual death of our bodily cells as a reminder of our approaching death, which is <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">a punishment for sin</a>.</p>
<p>All of this makes total sense. For when Adam and Eve sinned, they basically said to God "We don't need you—now we're going to be like gods! Go away, we can take care of ourselves."</p>
<p>So, it seems God effectively said "Ok, you don't want me around? You don't want my influence in the world, even though I'm the source of everything that is good in it? Let me show you a small sample of what a world without Me is like..." And so God withdrew some of His sustaining influence over the world, which meant that things started going awry.</p>
<p>Now, there are times in Scripture where God chooses to override these things. For example, God does cure disease (e.g. 2 Kings 5:14), does heal deformities and disabilities (e.g. Acts 3:7-8), and can even prevent clothes from wearing out (Nehemiah 9:21). So God clearly <em>can</em> override natural evil if God wants to.</p>
<p>But I think if God got rid of <em>all</em> natural evil, then God would basically be undoing the curse of nature placed on the world as a result of Adam and Eve's sin. And since each of us descended from these first two humans also inherited their sinful, rebellious tendency, we also deserve to live in such a world where God's sustaining power and presence is reduced. God doesn't owe rebels a perfect life in a perfect world. Technically, the fact that we're even still alive and the world is as good as it is is a testament to God's mercy and grace!</p>
<p>In the future <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">Millennial kingdom</a> which Jesus will establish after his return to earth after the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">Tribulation</a> (Isaiah 9:6-7), God will bring back some of God's sustaining power to creation.</p>
<p>This means we will get things like wolves who no longer eat lambs (Isaiah 11:6, 65:25), and infants who can play with poisonous snakes without being hurt (Isaiah 11:8), and the ground will produce food much more easily than it does now (Amos 9:13). But this won't be absolute paradise, for there will still be sin (Isaiah 65:20), and sin will still lead to negative consequences for people.</p>
<h2>Temporarily Allowing Evil and Sin is Necessary for Redemption</h2>
<p>Of course, God could have justly chosen to kill Adam and Eve on the spot after they sinned, since death is the penalty for sin (Genesis 2:16-17). And God could justly choose to withdraw more of God's influence over nature, which would mean there would be even more disasters and diseases in the world.</p>
<p>But God loved them so much that God did not instantly kill them, and instead promised to redeem them (Genesis 3:15) by providing a way so that anyone who wanted to could be saved from the punishment of eternal death for sin (John 3:16). This is why Jesus came to earth, to die on the cross, absorbing God's wrath at sin on behalf of sinners, so that God can forgive us, if we accept God's offer by believing that Jesus died for our sins.</p>
<p>Therefore, if God wants to redeem humanity, God must temporarily allow sin and evil to exist. Because again, without taking away all human free will or wiping out all humanity, there is no way to avoid all human sin or evil, and at least some minimal level of free will is necessary for the possibility of loving relationships which are God's goal, as discussed above.</p>
<h2>God Does Place Limits on Evil In General</h2>
<p>Despite all of the above, there is still a whole lot of evil that I believe God does prevent. </p>
<p>We can see this when we look at several conditions that are necessary in order for God's promises and purposes to be fulfilled:</p>
<ol>
<li>God must prevent the total self-destruction of humanity.</li>
<li>God must prevent the ultimate victory of Satan.</li>
<li>God must prevent the complete overthrow of the Church, thus, ensuring the gates of hell will never prevail (Matthew 16:18).</li>
<li>God must prevent the total destruction of his people Israel and the Jews (in fulfillment of OT promises like Joel 3:20, and for future prophecies regarding Israel like Romans 11:25 to be fulfilled).</li>
<li>God must allow generally enough stability and goodness in the world that people can usually live without being in a constant state of minute-to-minute survival. For it's hard to have time to think about abstract ideas like God or do good works when under constant imminent threats of injury or death.</li>
<li>God must prevent enough evil and suffering that most people's lives are tolerable enough that they do not want to kill themselves on a day-to-day basis, and that people generally live long enough so that humanity as a whole will continue to procreate and raise children. (Even though this is sort of just a variation on point #1).</li>
</ol>
<p>Within these above limits, I believe God can choose to allow or prevent evil according to a number of factors:</p>
<ol>
<li>God can allow evil if it is the only way to fulfill God's greater good purposes (e.g. the crucifixion of Christ, see Luke 22:53, Matthew 26:53-56).</li>
<li>God can prevent more evil if more people pray for God to intervene in the world, or if more people commit to obeying God's will.<cite>8</cite></li>
<li>God can allow evil as judgment on a people or an individual if they have rejected God.</li>
</ol>
<h2>But Why Does God Allow Any Particular Instance of Evil?</h2>
<p>Ultimately, I agree with Gregory Boyd that we cannot know exactly why God allows or prevents any particular instance of evil, because we do not know all the different factors that affect God's decision.<cite>9</cite> We don't know why God heals one person but not another, or why God saves one person from experiencing evil but not someone else.</p>
<p>It might be that we have some responsibility to try to make wise choices for our lives, and if we make poor choices, then there's a greater chance we will experience negative consequences, which God allows to teach us wisdom, to develop our character, and to learn to avoid sin.</p>
<p>It might be explained by spiritual warfare in the invisible parts of reality.</p>
<p>It might depend on how many people choose to obey God, how many people pray for something, or how strong the faith of various people who pray is.</p>
<p>And some of it depends on God's wisdom and providential plan regarding how He is currently working in history to fulfill His prophecies, to convict people of sin and their need for repentance, to judge or restrain evil, or whatever else falls within God's good purposes.</p>
<p>The exact method behind how God may allow or restrain evil is the topic for another post, but at least we can say that since God is fully good, evil and sin is never ever caused by God's positive action or inspiration. God can withdraw and let evil happen, but the source of evil is always the misuse of the free will of God's created beings, whether human or demonic.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>I hope this post has shown that there are indeed answers to the difficult question of why a loving God would not prevent all evil, and why God allows there to be as much evil in the world as there is. But we may not know at least in this life all the reasons why God allowed any particular instance of sin or evil.</p>
<p>The topic of theodicy is a difficult one, but it is one that I believe Christians need to have answers to, not only for when we personally are afflicted with evil and ask God why it happened, but to have answers ready for skeptics, or for Christians to help them not give up on faith when they see evil in the world or experience suffering.</p>
<p>And Christians can have confidence that regardless of how dark the world gets, or how powerful evil seems to be, God will one day utterly destroy it, and all that will be left for eternity will be the New Heaven and New Earth, where every tear will be wiped away, and there will be no more pain or evil at all (Revelation 21:1-4). </p>
<p>In the meantime, let's do all we can to do good, and to pray for God to restrain evil in our world. Let's try to overcome sin in our personal lives, and encourage others also, while spreading the good news that Jesus has died for our sins so we can have eternal life!</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Thomas J. Oord, <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 140-143.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Thomas J. Oord, <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 169-175.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Thomas J. Oord, <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 176-180.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Bruce Reichenbach, "God Limits His Power," in <em>Predestination & Free Will</em> eds. David and Randall Basinger (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 122.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Christopher A. Hall and John Sanders, <em>Does God Have A Future?</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 38 and 42.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Millard Erickson, <em>What Does God Know and When Does He Know It?</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 194-195.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Richard Rice, <em>Suffering and the Search for Meaning</em> (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2014), 100.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Gregory Boyd, <em>Is God to Blame?</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 123-139.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Gregory Boyd, <em>Is God to Blame?</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 79-80, 119-124.</li>
</ul>Christianity is Not A Feel-Good Religion2019-08-26T00:00:00+00:002019-08-26T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-08-26:/article/christianity-is-not-a-feel-good-religion/<p>There was a news article I read recently that has made me quite concerned for the future of Christianity and free speech in Canada.</p>
<p>In this article, two people were complaining that some teachings of Christianity regarding sin make people feel bad about themselves. They say that being told they …</p><p>There was a news article I read recently that has made me quite concerned for the future of Christianity and free speech in Canada.</p>
<p>In this article, two people were complaining that some teachings of Christianity regarding sin make people feel bad about themselves. They say that being told they are sinning made them feel shame, embarrassment, and even fear. Therefore, they say, such preaching and teaching about sin in church or in Christian schools should be a crime.</p>
<p>The quote from the article was:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It should be a crime to preach against [a particular sin] in a church. It should be a crime to teach against [a particular sin] in a school.</span></p>
<p>I will not provide a link to the article, because the exact issue it was discussing is not my main concern, and I don't want to bring it up as a distraction from my argument here. What <em>is</em> my concern is the claim that Christians should never preach or teach anything that makes anyone feel bad about themselves. And I am especially concerned by the idea that such preaching or teaching should be illegal.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, while some might say that Christianity can adapt by being less negative about some sins or even by accepting certain sins, these people who suggest this are missing the entire point of Christianity, which is: <em>Christianity is not meant to make you feel good about yourself!</em></p>
<p>In fact, preaching the true Christian gospel must include preaching about sin, which is actually meant to make us <em>feel bad about ourselves</em>, at least temporarily. And we <em>should</em> rightly <em>feel bad</em> about our sin.</p>
<p>But, despite this, Christianity <em>does</em> actually lead to true happiness, joy, peace, and love. Therefore, actually, if you do really want to <em>feel truly good</em> for eternity, then it's worth hearing the uncomfortable or unpleasant things that Christianity says about sin and about ourselves as sinners.</p>
<p>For if we stop preaching about sin, then true Christianity and the true gospel ceases to exist. If preaching or teaching about sin becomes illegal, then true Christianity also becomes illegal.</p>
<h2>You Can't Have True Christianity Without Preaching About Sin</h2>
<p>Those who say that Christians should never make people feel bad about themselves seem to have missed the entire point of Christianity.</p>
<p>Anyone who has heard the gospel should understand that Christians believe there is a problem with humanity. That problem is called <em>sin</em>. People have rebelled against God's desires for their lives, and have set ourselves up as our own judges of right and wrong. We think we can live in whatever way we want to, or that, if something makes us feel good temporarily, that it is good for us.</p>
<p>Then, when God says that certain things are <em>sins</em> and should not be done, we think God is just being mean, judgmental, and trying to deprive us of our fun. In fact, there's a funny saying that Puritanism (one of the 'strictest' versions of Christianity which was concerned about holy living), is "the fear that somewhere, somehow, someone is having fun."</p>
<p>People say that if God would just 'lighten up' a little about sin, then they might consider coming to church or becoming Christians. They say that sin is an imaginary problem that God invented, and if God would just get over His whole irrational <em>sin</em> issue, then God would be a much nicer guy. They ask why Christianity can't just preach "feel-good" doctrines like God's love and acceptance of all people, regardless of how we behave?</p>
<p>But the problem is that sin is a core doctrine of Christianity. Sin is the reason Jesus had to come die on the cross. Sin is the reason why people need to believe in Jesus as their savior in order to have eternal life, and avoid eternal death. Sin is why the gospel (the "good news") is summed up in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."</p>
<p>If Christianity stops talking about sin, then Christianity ceases to exist. The gospel makes no sense without teaching or preaching about sin. Without sin, Jesus' death on the cross, the centerpiece of Christianity, becomes pointless, useless, and nonsensical.</p>
<p>But yes, being told that you are a sinner who deserves God's judgment is not a pleasant experience. Being told that we are doing something that makes God unhappy, or even angry, <em>should</em> lead to feelings of shame, embarrassment, and fear! If it doesn't, then there's something wrong with our consciences.</p>
<p>While the Bible says that God loves everyone, it <em>never</em> says that God loves our sinful behavior. Instead, our sins make God sad and angry, even though God still loves us. Let's learn why that is.</p>
<h2>Sin Is Opposed To True Human Happiness and Well-Being</h2>
<p>When people say that God should just get over His problem with sin, they show a fundamental misunderstanding of what sin is, and why it's a problem.</p>
<p>Sin is a problem because sin is inherently opposed to true human happiness and flourishing. The reason God forbids some things is not because they are enjoyable or good for us, but precisely because <em>they are bad for us</em>! No matter how 'good' a sin might appear on the surface, or how much brief pleasure it might bring, ultimately, all sin leads to suffering and death.</p>
<p>As James writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. <span class="blockquote-verse">(James 1:14-15)</span></span></p>
<p>So just because we might desire something doesn't mean it's always good for us. In fact, we wouldn't choose to sin <em>unless</em> we thought it was attractive or good for us! No one wants something which they think is disgusting or harmful. That's why sin always appears on the surface to be a good attractive thing.</p>
<p>But God, as the designer of humanity, knows that certain behaviors are ultimately harmful to humans as individuals, or harmful to human interpersonal relationships, or harmful to human society as a whole. This is why God forbids these things.</p>
<p>For example, let's imagine an engineer creates a little robot with artificial intelligence and free will, and then explains to the robot,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Ok, I've made you this way, and this is what you're meant for. You're going to be happy and feel good if you operate according to this instruction manual I'm going to give you. But, watch out for these certain things because they are not compatible with your systems. If you go into water, you're going to short circuit. If you plug into the wrong socket, you're going to blow out your electrical system. If you don't tighten your screws regularly, your arm or leg might eventually fall off. And remember to charge yourself daily.</span></p>
<p>Now, let's imagine the robot says to its creator,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">No, I'm not going to follow your instruction manual! You're just trying to control me and keep me from having fun! Who are you to tell me what is good for me? I'm smarter than you are. I'm going swimming... WEEEEE!</span></p>
<p>And we know what happens next.</p>
<p>That's essentially what humanity does whenever we rebel against God's instructions for our lives. It might feel fun or good temporarily, but ultimately it's going to hurt us. But unfortunately, when we sin we don't just hurt ourselves—we also hurt others, and hurt our society as a whole.</p>
<p>The problem is that—unlike the immediate destructive effect of a robot jumping into water—these negative effects of sin can take a while to appear. So people see only the immediate pleasures of sin and forget that it is actually harmful until negative consequences of it eventually pop up in their lives or in society as a whole.</p>
<h2>So Why DOES God Hate Sin So Much?</h2>
<p>Sin makes God sad because God knows what <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">he has designed humanity for</a>, and this can be summarized as living in loving relationships with God and with all others. We find our ultimate happiness and true fulfillment when we do these two things.</p>
<p>So any sin is ultimately a violation of one of these three things: loving God, loving others, or (truly) loving ourselves. </p>
<p>After all, Jesus said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Matthew 22:37-40)</span></span></p>
<p>Or as Paul says, </p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Romans 13:9-10)</span></span></p>
<p>So every commandment of God, in some way or another, was meant (or is meant) for the good and flourishing of humans and human society. </p>
<p>Yes, some commands in the Old Testament no longer apply to Christians today, such as the ceremonial sacrifices or the purity and food laws. But back then these laws were important given the ancient Israelite culture, the surrounding cultures, and the limited knowledge of health and hygiene that people had. The ceremonial laws taught how God wanted people to relate to Him, to teach them about sin and foreshadow what Christ would do for us. Now that Jesus has come, those laws no longer apply.</p>
<p>So, for example, Christians no longer have to keep the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8), because technically, the Sabbath is <em>Saturday</em>. Even though the principle that we should have at least one day off per week to rest, relax, and worship God is still a good idea for human well-being.</p>
<p>But there are still some things that we know God does not want people to do because these are repeated in the New Testament, mostly involving our ethical behavior. For example, see some lists of sins in Mark 7:21-22, Galatians 5:19-21, Romans 1:28-32, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:9-10, and Revelation 21:8.</p>
<p>And even having a sinful thought counts as a sin (Matthew 5:27-28).</p>
<p>So yes, if you read those verses, you'll probably feel convicted of at least one sin, if not more than one sin. You might even feel bad about that. That's good!</p>
<p>Now comes the good news. After the 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 list of sins, Paul writes that if you believe in Jesus as your savior, then:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified [i.e. made holy], you were justified [i.e. counted as righteous or sinless] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 Corinthians 6:11, brackets mine for clarity on technical terms)</span>.</span></p>
<p>Jesus takes our sin and gives us His righteousness/sinlessness, for God "made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).</p>
<p>That's why the gospel is good news, even though it begins with some bad news. All people are sinners and deserve God's judgment (Romans 3:23). But, we can be entirely forgiven because of Jesus' death on the cross for our sins.</p>
<p>When we believe that Jesus died for us so that God can forgive us, then:</p>
<ul>
<li>your sins are taken away from you as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).</li>
<li>your sins which previously were a red stain have been washed as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18).</li>
<li>you are now clothed with Christ's righteousness (Isaiah 61:10), which is a good thing, because God expects us to be <em>perfect</em> (Matthew. 5:48, 5:20), and no one has ever been perfect except Jesus.</li>
<li>you are now a new creation, your old sinful self is considered dead and gone as far as God is concerned (2 Corinthians 5:17), even though we are still stuck with our old sinful selves to some extent in this life (Romans 7:14-25).</li>
</ul>
<p>Therefore, only people who do not have their sins forgiven on the basis of Christ's death will be punished for their sin.</p>
<h2>But Why Does God Have to Punish Sin?</h2>
<p>So why does God have to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">punish sin with death</a>? Isn't that a bit extreme? Yes, God might get angry or sad at sin, but can't He just get over it?</p>
<p>Let's look at this from the angle of parent-child relationships. To most parents, their child is the most precious thing in the universe, which they love so much that they would be willing to die to protect their child. Parents generally want their children to grow up well and learn what they need to in order to have fulfilling, happy, pain-free lives.</p>
<p>Now, let's say someone comes along and hurts their child. A parent is usually going to be absolutely furious at the individual who hurts their child, and will probably wish to inflict equal if not greater suffering upon the perpetrator. If the parent does not become angry when their child is hurt, then that's probably a sign that they do not truly love their child.</p>
<p>Parents also hate it when their child does things to hurt themselves. For example, when teenagers start drinking alcohol, doing drugs, or participating in risky behaviors, loving parents are going to be concerned, and loving parents will get angry with their teenager if the teenager hurts themselves through these activities. Not because the parents hate their teenager, but because they <em>love</em> their teenager!</p>
<p>And God loves all people even more than parents love their children!</p>
<p>So when we hurt one another, God becomes passionately angry on behalf of the victim, wanting justice to be done and the perpetrator to be punished. When we hurt ourselves, God is angry with us, while simultaneously loving us. And I believe that all sin will eventually hurt someone else besides just the individual sinner, and all sin hurts our relationship with God, which is the very reason why God created us in the first place!</p>
<p>God is perfectly good and holy. Therefore, God simply <em>cannot</em> tolerate evil of any sort, no matter how small or inconsequential it might seem to us. He can't just pretend it didn't happen, or overlook it. He must punish it and destroy it, and if He did not, then God would be partly evil Himself. Like a judge who just lets a criminal go without punishment, even though the criminal has hurt the victim and the victim's family, and even though the criminal is probably going to go right back out and do more things that hurt others.</p>
<p>It would actually be terrifying if a God who can tolerate sin or evil was in control of the universe, and so, it's a good thing that God cannot tolerate evil—not even one tiny bit; not even a haughty or prideful look (Proverbs 6:16-17). Despite all the emphasis on <em>tolerance</em> in our culture today, Christians can say that God is actually an <em>intolerant</em> God, and this <em>intolerance</em> of sin is what makes God fully holy, righteous, trustworthy, and beautiful.</p>
<p>But, God also loves humanity. Therefore, God faced a conundrum. How can God satisfy God's perfect justice which His love for the victims of evil compels Him to achieve, while upholding God's love for the sinner who perpetrated the evil? How can God punish sin without destroying sinners?</p>
<p>That's why God sent Jesus, who was God's eternal Son, one of the three Persons within God, to live a sinless human life. All sin deserves the penalty of death (Romans 6:23), because God is Life and Goodness which means He cannot allow sin or evil to exist.</p>
<p>Then, because Jesus lived a perfect, sinless human life, God could <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-made-in-image-of-God/">transfer our sins to Jesus</a> so that Jesus could experience all the punishment that our sins deserve on our behalf. But God wasn't just punishing some innocent guy. Jesus, because He was <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-jesus-must-be-fully-divine/">fully human and fully God</a>, was totally on-board with this plan, and did it out of His love for all the rest of humanity! So on the cross, God is actually <em>absorbing His own wrath and anger at our sin</em>, enabling forgiveness for us while satisfying God's holy and good need for justice.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Now, if there were no sin, there is no reason for Jesus to die, and no reason for God to punish anyone with death, and thus, no need for a savior. And thus, no need for Christianity.</p>
<p>So Christians simply <em>cannot</em> stop preaching or teaching about sin. If someone were to make a law saying Christians can't talk about sin because it makes some people feel bad, then that law would <em>essentially be making Christianity itself illegal</em>.</p>
<h2>Satan's Tactics To Persecute and Destroy Christianity</h2>
<p>In fact, I think this idea that preaching about sin should be illegal because it makes people feel bad about themselves comes straight from Satan himself.</p>
<p>Satan was a high-ranking angel who decided that he would rather be worshipped instead of worshipping God (Ezekiel 28:12-19). This pride led him to lead a revolt against God, which inspired a third of the angels also to rebel against God (Revelation 12:4, 7-9). Satan hates God and hates everything that God stands for, such as life, goodness, justice, and love. (And yes, I do believe Satan is a real being, and demons are real spirits, and thus, spiritual warfare is very real, even if we don't see it because it happens on the spiritual side of reality.)</p>
<p>Therefore, Satan also hates what God loves, which is humanity, who are made in God's image (Genesis 1:27) and who are made to love God and enjoy God forever. But unlike God, we are not invulnerable or omnipotent. And so just like the villains in superhero movies, if the superhero is invincible, the villain goes after what the superhero loves most—family, friends, or a significant other—because by hurting or killing a person that the superhero loves, they are inflicting pain on the superhero.</p>
<p>So Satan, to hurt God, tempted Adam and Eve to sin (Genesis 3:1-5), knowing that it would lead to all the rest of humanity being born with a tendency to sin, in a state of separation from God, and under threat of eternal destruction unless we accept God's offer of salvation through Christ. Since Satan knows that God loves people, Satan tries to convince people to do harmful, hurtful things to themselves, to one another, and ultimately, to end up being eternally destroyed because people reject God's love and God's purpose for themselves.</p>
<p>Therefore, Satan wants as many people to be eternally destroyed as possible. To do so, Satan must attack Christianity to keep Christians from preaching to people about how to be saved through faith in Jesus. Before Christians existed, Satan would attack Israel and the Jews, because they were preaching essentially the same message to the world as Christianity does. (Christianity is just an apocalyptic, messianic sect of Judaism, as one of my professors liked to say.)</p>
<p>Today it seems that the way Satan is attacking and attempting to destroy Christianity in Western countries is not by outright violent persecution like in other countries, where Christians are frequently killed for their faith.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Instead, Satan turns the Christian values which have become a core part of Western civilization against Christianity itself. It's ingenious, really. And the accusation made by the people in the news article I referred to is part of that plan, whether these people know it or not.</p>
<p>The Bible describes God as love (1 John 4:7-8), and God commands Christians to love others, as we have seen.</p>
<p>So then, Satan turns the Christian value of love for others against Christians themselves! Satan says it is 'unloving' to make anyone feel bad about themselves. It is 'unloving' to tell someone that they should not do what they want to do, even if God says that thing is going to hurt themselves and others. Therefore, to be 'loving', Christians should just tolerate all sorts of evil and sin.</p>
<p>The problem is, that then, out of 'love', Christians give in to this idea. They say, well, if the sin doesn't seem to be hurting anyone else, then why not let people do what they want to do?</p>
<p>But then, more and more people start acting in sinful ways. As these people grow in number, they start making demands. Now, their sin being tolerated by society is not good enough. Now they want their sin to be publicly acceptable so that they are not looked down on by anyone else, or insulted, or excluded by anyone because of their sin.</p>
<p>Then Christians, again, out of 'love', say yes, well, we should love these people, and should not look down on them or exclude them or deny them 'rights' to practice their sins in whatever way these people want to do. So the sinners become even more bold, and start expecting society to outright <em>recognize</em>, <em>enable</em> and even <em>celebrate</em> their sin.</p>
<p>But then, when most Christians refuse to go that far and appeal to freedom of speech and freedom of religion as our defense, then the final step is to claim that even <em>speaking</em> negatively about sin should be a crime. They say, it's 'unloving' to make people feel bad about themselves and their sin by saying that God dislikes what they do. They accuse Christians, who are attempting to love others as God loves us, of being 'unloving', 'intolerant', and even 'hateful' for not agreeing with them that their sin is not really sin at all.</p>
<p>Then, they appeal to government to try to make Christian preaching about sin illegal, knowing that by doing so, they are essentially making Christianity <em>itself</em> illegal. They know that Christians do not want to be thought of as 'unloving', and so, by accusing anyone who might stand up against such a proposed law as 'hateful', most Christians will want to be quiet to not be labelled in such a negative way.</p>
<p>There were Christian movies made back in the 1990s which predicted that in the end-times Christians will be called "Haters", and that it will be the law that people must report "Haters" to the anti-Christian government. Back in the '90s this idea seemed bizarre. How could anyone label Christians, who preach about God's amazing love for us, and who attempt to love all other people as "Haters"?</p>
<p>But now, it seems that is indeed the way of the future. Very soon, it seems that when any Christians stand up against sin we will be called "Haters", and potentially fined or jailed.</p>
<p>Thus, we can see the subtle, Satanic progression from <em>tolerance</em> of sin to <em>oppression</em> of Christians who stand for righteousness and the gospel.</p>
<p>And although it might seem I'm writing this article with one particular sin in mind, I believe the same pattern holds for any other sin.</p>
<p>It is just unfortunate that in our culture a particular sin takes pride in boasting about its "loving" ways, and claims that by opposing "love", Christians are being especially "hateful" and "intolerant".</p>
<p>Never mind that those who endorse said sin are not being particularly <em>loving</em> or <em>tolerant</em> towards Christians when they call us names or attempt to take away our freedom of speech or freedom of religion under the guise of "hate speech" and "making people feel bad about themselves"!</p>
<h2>Christianity Is Inherently Offensive</h2>
<p>But Christianity <em>is</em> an offensive idea. If society wants to ban all ideas that are "offensive", then Christianity will be targeted for sure.</p>
<p>Christianity is offensive to non-Christians because humans are inherently prideful. We don't like the idea that there could be something wrong with us, or that we might do things that are not good or that deserve God's punishment or wrath. We prefer to blame anyone else for our mistake rather than admit that we did something wrong.</p>
<p>So people generally do not like how Christians go around preaching that people are <em>not</em> perfect just the way they are. They don't like it when we say that God is unhappy about some things that people like to do, and that those things are not good for individuals or society and should not be allowed.</p>
<p>Jesus warned that some would find Him offensive (Matthew 11:6, Luke 7:23). He offended the religious leaders of His day (Matthew 15:12) by saying that they had misplaced their priorities and were really just religious hypocrites who wanted to look good to the rest of society, but did not actually love God or love others. They hated Him so much that they conspired to have him killed.</p>
<p>And so Jesus warned that if the sinful, prideful, self-loving world hated Him, then it will also hate Christians (John 15:18-23). In fact, we should expect this, and it should not surprise us (1 John 3:13), and it is fulfilling Jesus' prophecies about the approaching end-times (Matthew 24:9-10).</p>
<p>If Christians found ourselves being congratulated and loved by the world, it probably means we've compromised the gospel in one way or another. Instead, we are actually <em>blessed</em> when the world hates us (Luke 6:22)! Being hated for being Christians actually shows us that we're right on target. As the military saying goes: "If you're taking flak, you're over the target", meaning that, if we are encountering resistance, it's because we are correctly pointing out the problem.</p>
<p>Even though such hatred by the world is ultimately irrational, for by rejecting God's purpose for their lives, they are rejecting the only true source of happiness and joy and peace, as well as eternal life. Rejecting God for the sake of personal pleasure is about as smart as bashing one's head into a brick wall in order to feel good.</p>
<h2>But The Gospel Is Greater Than The Offense of Sin</h2>
<p>So even though Christianity preaches about sin, it also preaches a much greater message, which is that God does not leave us in our sin.</p>
<p>God loves us so much that rather than destroy us, He came down to suffer death in our place, so that we can have eternal life in a perfect society, leading to perfect happiness, and total freedom from evil or sin.</p>
<p>By knowing that God loves us and forgives our sin, and that we are guaranteed to have eternal life from believing in Jesus as our savior, Christians can find true happiness, true peace, and true joy. But, we can't have these things without recognizing our sin as sinful.</p>
<p>Christianity also teaches us that God loves us even though we are sinners. Christians are still sinners too, and we all are born with temptations to sin in various ways that seem natural to us. So Christians do not "hate" sinners. We all <em>are</em> still sinners, and will be until we are finally perfected in heaven!</p>
<p>So Christians love sinners just as much as God does, who was willing to come die for sinners (1 John 4:10)! Therefore, it is not out of "hate" for anyone that Christians preach against sin.</p>
<p>It is because we love people, and want them to see that sin is only going to lead to suffering and death, and that they need God's forgiveness so that they can have true happiness in heaven, forever and ever. This applies to <em>all</em> types of sin, not just whatever is currently the hot-topic sin of the day.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>As Christians, let's not give in to those who want Christians to just roll over and shut up about sin. If we do, then the gospel disappears, because the gospel is only good news precisely because of sin!</p>
<p>If we give up preaching about sin and the need for a savior because we are sinners, then all that is left are 'feel-good' sermons:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth. <span class="blockquote-verse">(2 Timothy 4:3-4)</span></span> </p>
<p>Self-esteem, self-affirmation, sinful self-love at the expense of others, and <em>tolerance</em> of evil and sin are <em>not</em> a part of the Christian gospel.</p>
<p>But the gospel offers something far greater than feeling good about ourselves:</p>
<ul>
<li>It offers knowledge of God's love for us, which is so great that God would rather suffer and die than have us suffer and die.</li>
<li>It offers the peace of knowing that we can be accepted by God because Christ has absorbed God's wrath at our sin, so that we can be forgiven and look forward to a wonderful eternity in heaven, in a society of perfect love with all other perfected people, angels and the Triune God of perfect holiness, where we will be truly eternally happy and free of all sin and evil and the suffering these things bring. </li>
<li>It offers the love we gain through having a personal loving relationship with God who will never leave us or forsake us, so that we will never be alone or unloved ever again.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you get rid of sin, you get rid of all of this. We can't have all the good of the gospel without the 'bad news' of sin.</p>
<p>Therefore, please, let us all stand up against attacks on the Christian faith by those who want to wallow in their sin and don't want to hear any warnings of what their sin leads to.</p>
<p>Let's stand up for <em>true</em> tolerance by upholding freedom of speech, even offensive speech if necessary, because the gospel is an offensive thing that people don't like to hear, even though it is for our own good.</p>
<p>For if we don't stand up for the right of Christians to preach about sin, then we might very well be facing the criminalization of true Christianity in the near future in Western countries.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Timothy Keller, <em>The Reason for God</em> (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2008), 194-195.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Barbara Kay, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-our-politicians-may-not-care-but-christians-are-under-siege-across-the-world">"Barbara Kay: Our politicians may not care, but Christians are under siege across the world"</a>, <em>The National Post</em>, May 7, 2019.</li>
</ul>Defending God's Justice Regarding Death2019-08-11T00:00:00+00:002019-08-11T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-08-11:/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/<p>One of the frequent objections that atheists or opponents of Christianity frequently raise is about all those times in the Old Testament when God kills people, or tells the Israelites to kill certain people.</p>
<p>These critics claim that a God of love would never act like this, that it is …</p><p>One of the frequent objections that atheists or opponents of Christianity frequently raise is about all those times in the Old Testament when God kills people, or tells the Israelites to kill certain people.</p>
<p>These critics claim that a God of love would never act like this, that it is unjust and barbaric. They say it's wrong for Christians to worship such a God.</p>
<p>Sometimes, even Christians believe this, and then try to find ways to get around these problems. Usually, though, that involves ignoring these stories, making up excuses for why we shouldn't take them seriously, or explaining why we shouldn't even believe that they actually happened.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are also plenty of places in the New Testament where Jesus threatens to kill people (e.g. Luke 19:27, Matthew 22:7, Mark 9:42) and actually does at the second coming (Revelation 19:21). So if these critics reject the Old Testament for its 'violence', then they have to start editing or selectively reading the New Testament also.</p>
<p>So what should Christians who don't want to edit their Bibles do? How can we make sense of these difficult events when God kills individuals or even large numbers of seemingly 'innocent' people, while maintaining that God is perfectly loving?</p>
<p>In this post I will discuss how I've made sense of understanding God's justice when He sentences people to death, while upholding His perfect goodness and holiness.</p>
<h2>When God Kills People</h2>
<p>Just to get an idea of the scale of the supposed 'problem' of God killing people, let's look at some examples in Scripture.</p>
<p>Here's some verses about God killing large numbers of people (or instructing others to kill people):</p>
<ul>
<li>God wipes out pretty much all humanity except for 8 people in the worldwide flood (Genesis 7:21-23).</li>
<li>God kills all the first-born of Egypt (Exodus 12:29).</li>
<li>God wipes out the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24-27).</li>
<li>God kills many Israelites who rebel against Moses (Numbers 16:31-33).</li>
<li>God tells the Levites to kill many unfaithful Israelites (Exodus 32:26-28).</li>
<li>God tells Joshua to kill Achan and his family (Joshua 7:24-25).</li>
<li>God tells the Israelites to wipe out the people living in the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 7:1-2).</li>
<li>God tells King Saul to wipe out the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:3).</li>
<li>God sends an angel to wipe out 185,000 enemy soldiers (2 Kings 19:35).</li>
<li>God sends bears to eat youths who were threatening the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 2:23-24).</li>
<li>in the future Tribulation, the sixth seal judgment wipes out 1/3 of the world's population (Revelation 9:15-18).</li>
<li>after the final judgment, God will eternally destroy everyone who does not have their name in the book of life (Revelation 20:13-15).</li>
</ul>
<p>And just to prove that not all deaths which occur as divine punishment can be traced back to natural causes or other this-worldly factors, let's take note of a few people who were killed directly by God's power:</p>
<ul>
<li>Aaron's sons who did not perform their priestly duties as required (Leviticus 10:1-2).</li>
<li>Onan, who would not fulfill his cultural duty to provide for his deceased brother's childless widow (Genesis 38:8-10).</li>
<li>Uzzah, who touched the Ark to keep it from falling over (2 Samuel 6:6-7).</li>
<li>Ananias and Sapphira who lied about the extent of their generosity to the early church (Acts 5:1-10).</li>
</ul>
<p>Therefore, I agree with the critics that Christians need to explain all this killing, since we believe God is Love (1 John 4:8, 4:16), and it seems on the surface to be rather un-loving to kill so many people.</p>
<h2>This Is Not A New Problem</h2>
<p>While it might seem that this is a new problem, created only by the modern sensitive conscience, it is actually a very old problem.</p>
<p>One early Christian leader named Marcion also thought it was a problem. Among other issues which he had with the Old Testament, Marcion said that Yahweh was an arbitrary and vindictive God who was all about punishing people who didn't obey Him, and thus could not be the loving Father of Jesus Christ, and so he labelled Yahweh as some lesser and possibly even evil sub-deity. Marcion's solution was to reject the entire Old Testament, and many books of the New Testament also, as authoritative for Christians.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Unfortunately, modern authors seem to want to repeat Marcion's mistake.</p>
<p>For example, Eric Seibert in his book <em>Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God</em> (Fortress Press, 2009) essentially rejects any portrayals of God in the Old Testament that don't match with his idea of Jesus. I say "his idea of Jesus" because he also rejects the 'disturbing' sayings of Jesus in the New Testament.</p>
<p>This makes his argument entirely circular: How do you know what accurately represents Jesus in the Bible if you're not basing your understanding of Jesus on what we know about Him as described in the Bible? Like Marcion, Seibert questions the inerrancy of Scripture and wants to selectively pick and choose what he believes is true. As I've already discussed, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/">rejection of inerrancy</a> is a huge problem for consistent Scriptural interpretation.</p>
<p>I haven't actually read Gregory Boyd's two-volume <em>Crucifixion of the Warrior God</em> (Fortress Press, 2017), but I've heard from others that his approach fits in this category as well, by saying that God allowed the Israelites to mistakenly attribute commands to wipe out their enemies to God, when in fact, God did not command them to do so. This would also raise questions about the inerrancy of these portions of scripture, and so I would reject this as a viable approach to solving this problem.</p>
<h2>Some Attempts To Solve the Problem</h2>
<p>As seen, some Christians prefer to pretend the problem never actually happened. Others accept the descriptions in Scripture as accurate, but attempt to explain or minimize the problems in various ways.</p>
<p>For example, four authors take tries at solving the problem of God commanding Holy War in <em>Show Them No Mercy: Four Views On God and Canaanite Genocide</em>.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>The most convincing explanations I've heard so far regarding Holy War was in a course at Tyndale Seminary with Dr. William J. Webb and Dr. Gord Oeste. They are currently writing a book about this subject, which is scheduled to be released in December 2019.<cite>3</cite> Thus, there are no page citations for what follows.</p>
<p>They suggest that part of the problem of the Israelite invasion of Canaan can be solved, or at least reduced, by considering several factors.</p>
<p>First, God had already attempted to gradually drive out the Canaanites through non-lethal means (Exodus 23:27-30). This would have reduced the numbers of those who stubbornly remained in the promised land who might be killed through violent warfare.</p>
<p>Next, we should understand the rhetoric of ancient warfare, where kings regularly exaggerated their conquests and claimed to have wiped out everyone, when actually, they did not kill literally <em>everyone</em> and had just achieved a good victory (or may have killed only the opponent's king). Everyone back then knew what they meant, because it was a frequent idiom—sort of like when you say your favourite sports team "totally slaughtered" their opponents.</p>
<p>There is a clear example of this sort of hyperbole in Scripture. Just after telling the Israelites to "devote to destruction" all the other people in the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 7:1-2, God also says not to intermarry with them (Deuteronomy 7:3). Clearly, intermarriage would be impossible if they were all dead! So the number of actual deaths may be significantly fewer than we often assume.</p>
<p>Webb and Oeste also point out how God limited what the Israelites could do during war, which meant the Israelites treated their captives much more humanely, and were not as violent as surrounding nations were. Back then, you would much rather be invaded by Israel than by the Egyptians, Babylonians, or other groups.</p>
<p>Also, in those ancient cultures, wars were a regular way that nations would test their gods and see whose god was strongest. A victory on the field of battle was seen as proof that their god was stronger than the other nation's god. So when God helped the Israelites win battles, it was a sort of 'evangelism', of proving that God is greater than the false gods of the other nations, and should have led to conversions of the remaining defeated enemies.</p>
<p>For example, Rahab seems to have feared God because she heard news of Israelite victories (Joshua 2:9-11), which led her to side with the Israelite spies and thus saved her and her family from being killed in the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6:17).</p>
<p>Yet even then, there are clues that God was not pleased with this warfare, even though it was a necessity to defend his people and give them a homeland and protect God's reputation among the nations.</p>
<p>For example, God forbids King David to build His temple, because David has too much blood on his hands (1 Chronicles 22:8, 28:3), even though God helped David win numerous victories in war. As Webb and Oeste note, this was unlike the practice of the surrounding nations, where the victors of war often built temples to honor their gods.</p>
<p>So Webb and Oeste suggest that while God did command warfare, it was an unfortunate practical reality (and a last resort) to establish and defend Israel in the promised land, in the midst of a sinful world, because Israel was chosen to be the means for God to reveal Himself to the rest of the world.</p>
<p>However, while these explanations may partly deal with the difficult situations when God instructs Israel to go into battle or kill certain other people groups, it doesn't really explain all those situations listed above where God kills people directly. So what do we do with those?</p>
<h2>The Wages of Sin is Death</h2>
<p>To solve this problem, we need to go back to the very first sin, committed by Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.</p>
<p>God specifically told them that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Genesis 2:16-17)</span></span></p>
<p>And Scripture relates death to sin. Some of the clearest verses are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."</li>
<li>Romans 5:12-15, NRSV: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned — sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many."</li>
<li>James 1:15: "Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."</li>
</ul>
<p>Therefore, death is the punishment for sin, and it is the worst punishment God can inflict on someone. Jonathan Edwards sums this up nicely when he writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Death is spoken of in Scripture as the chief of calamities, the most extreme and terrible of all those natural evils, which come on mankind in this world. Deadly destruction is spoken of as 'the most terrible destruction' (1 Samuel 5:11). Deadly sorrow, as 'the most extreme sorrow' (Isaiah 17:11, Matthew 26:38), and deadly enemies, as 'the most bitter and terrible enemies' (Psalms 17:9). The extremity of Christ's sufferings is represented by his suffering unto death (Philippians 2:8 and other places). Hence the greatest testimonies of God's anger for the sins of men in this world, have been by inflicting death.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>Death is especially awful for humans, because we know it's coming and can fear it:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Death, with the pains and agonies with which it is usually brought on, is not merely a limiting of existence, but is a most terrible calamity; and to such a creature as man, capable of conceiving of immortality, and made with so earnest a desire after it, and capable of foresight and of reflection on approaching death, and that has such an extreme dread of it, is a calamity above all others terrible, to such as are able to reflect upon it.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>I agree with Edwards that death is the 'worst' calamity that creatures can experience, and thus, why I think eternal <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation is the ultimate punishment</a> for sin, which will be experienced by those who finally reject God's love. After all, if God is the source of life and goodness who creates humans to live in an eternal relationship with God, and you reject these things, you're basically opting for death as the only alternative.</p>
<h2>Why Not 'Spiritual Death'?</h2>
<p>And no, I don't believe we can restrict this punishment for sin to 'spiritual death', as some Christians claim.</p>
<p>Some Christians say that clearly, since Adam and Eve didn't immediately die physically after they sinned, instead they immediately died 'spiritually'. Usually, this 'spiritual death' is explained as Adam and Eve losing their close relationship with God, or the departure of the Holy Spirit from them.</p>
<p>Usually, those who take this 'spiritual death' position say that Adam and Eve would still have died physically eventually even if they had never sinned, simply because they are finite creatures, but death wouldn't have been nearly as traumatic as it is now. </p>
<p>But I don't get that argument.</p>
<p>Let's say Adam and Eve never sinned, but still physically died eventually. I ask, what would be the point? How would their death benefit anyone, whether God, themselves, or their descendants? What purpose would death have served if there was no sin in the world? Why would God have everyone die eventually, only to resurrect them at some undisclosed point later on, if instead God could just keep them alive until everyone He wanted to create was created, and have them all live forever, just as we will after being resurrected to live on the restored New Heavens and New Earth?</p>
<p>Thus, the 'spiritual death' position does not answer any questions, and is pure speculation which actually contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture.</p>
<p>It only seems to be a compromise to try to keep Christians looking 'respectable' to atheistic evolutionists, who think that a world without death is ridiculous and impossible. Since, for evolutionists, death is how nature selects the 'fittest' creatures to go on and evolve into new creatures, and thus death is a core part of their philosophy. But according to the Bible, a universe without death <em>will</em> be possible in the New Heaven and on the New Earth, so why was it so impossible in the garden of Eden?</p>
<p>There's no reason to try to compromise on this clear Biblical teaching in order to appease atheistic evolutionists. Why should we care so much what atheists think of us, when they've already rejected belief in the existence of God and the authority of Scripture? The only way to earn their respect is to give up Christianity completely. If we're not willing to do that, then let's agree with what the Bible says.</p>
<p>Trying to make evolution fit with a creator God is pointless, as the theory of evolution is intentionally designed to explain the origin of life and the existence of all living things <em>specifically without</em> any need for a God! By the way, evolution also not scientifically or statistically possible,<cite>6</cite> and is losing favor even among atheistic scientists.<cite>7</cite> Let's not jump onto a sinking ship by compromising with a failing theory.</p>
<p>If you've got some scientific questions about this idea of there being no death before the first sin, the next section of this blog post may interest you. If not, feel free to move down to the section on "Ageing".</p>
<h3>Excursus: No Death Before the First Sin?</h3>
<p>The fact that Scripture clearly says that death is a punishment for sin is why I do not believe there was any physical death of higher lifeforms before the sin of Adam and Eve.<cite>8</cite> This, of course, will bring on the questions of "But where did all the fossils come from?" and "But what about the bunny rabbits in Eden?".</p>
<p>Young-earth Creationists explain fossils not as a record of millions of years of death and suffering in evolution, but as evidence of a worldwide flood exactly as per Genesis chapters 6-9.</p>
<p>The flood rapidly buried all sorts of creatures, beginning with those lowest down in the oceans, and only later covering those animals and people who were smart enough to avoid the flood waters for as long as possible, for example, by running uphill.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>After all, organisms must be rapidly buried in order to be fossilized—if they just die in the ocean or on land, they decompose and are eaten by other organisms, leaving no traces behind to make fossils.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>The flood makes the most sense of the huge numbers of fossils we see, which show the influence of a post-fall world,<cite>11</cite> such as disease,<cite>12</cite> and which are posed in ways that show they died quickly and violently.<cite>13</cite> Most fossils are marine fossils anyway, which is what we would expect from a worldwide flood.</p>
<p>As to the claim that certain creatures such as bunnies would overrun the planet if there was no death, I think it's easily solved. Even if Adam and Eve had not sinned, eventually, the world would have reached maximum capacity of people and animals, and at that point, God could have taken away creaturely fertility so that the world would not become overpopulated. God's goal to 'fill the earth' would have been achieved (Genesis 1:28), and there would be no more need for reproduction.</p>
<p>While plant 'death' is necessary if every creature was originally vegetarian (Genesis 1:29-30), there is never any hint in the Bible that God considers plant consumption equivalent to the death of animals or humans. So that's not a problem.</p>
<h2>Ageing</h2>
<p>I saw someone on a discussion forum say that "We're all living on death row."</p>
<p>This is quite true. Eventually, because of sin, all of us will die, except for Christians who are lucky enough to be alive at the time when Christ comes to take all Christians home to heaven, in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, before the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/signs-of-the-end-times/">Tribulation</a> (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).</p>
<p>But unlike criminals on death row, we don't know when we will die.</p>
<p>Even as we live, we see signs of death in our bodies now as we age. Our cells die off and don't regenerate as they did when we were younger, which means all our skin, hair, nails, and other organs start degrading.</p>
<p>Even for younger people, our hair follicles and skin cells die, and we have to sweep them up from our floors every week or so (and unclog our shower drains). Even these everyday things are reminders that we are mortal and dying, due to God sentencing us to death as sinners.</p>
<p>In some ways, then, I wonder if aging is actually part of God's grace to us?</p>
<p>By allowing people to get old and experience wrinkles, frailty, impairments, and so forth, it should be a way for people to recognize that they are approaching death, and thus, consider their eternal destiny.</p>
<p>If all people just instantly dropped dead with no warning signs, such as those provided by aging, people would be less likely to know when their time was approaching, and would have less motivation to consider the gospel. One of my friends pastors a church which is growing with increasing attendance from seniors who feel their time here is nearing its end!</p>
<p>Even though ideally we should be prepared to die at any time, because there is no guarantee that we will live to see tomorrow. But for some people it may take the signs of aging before they really start to consider their mortality.</p>
<h2>Premature Death Not Any Worse Than Natural Death</h2>
<p>So if natural death is God's just punishment on sin, what about premature or violent death?</p>
<p>I found something very helpful on the subject from Jonathan Edwards. Edwards calls God's judgments on specific individuals or cities which resulted in death as "very small" in comparison to God's original judgment on sin, for:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">These calamities, thus spoken of as plain testimonies of God's great anger, consisted only in hastening on that death, which otherwise, by God's disposal, would most certainly come in a short time.</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Now the taking off of thirty or forty years from seventy or eighty (if we should suppose it to be so much, one with another, in the time of these extraordinary judgments) is but a small matter, in comparison of God's first making man mortal, cutting off his hoped-for immortality, subjecting him to inevitable death, which his nature so exceedingly dreads; and afterwards shortening his life further, by cutting off more than 800 years of it: so bringing it to be less than a twelfth part of what it was in the first ages of the world. Besides that, innumerable multitudes in the common course of things, without any extraordinary judgment, die in youth, in childhood and infancy.</span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Therefore how inconsiderable a thing is the additional or hastened destruction, that is sometimes brought on a particular city or country by war, compared with that universal havoc which death makes of the whole race of mankind, from generation to generation, without distinction of sex, age, quality or condition, with all the infinitely various dismal circumstances, torments and agonies which attend the death of old and young, adult persons and little infants?<cite>14</cite></span></p>
<p>So basically, Edwards' point here is that if God has already punished humanity with death because of sin, and with further reducing our natural lifespans after the Flood, and considering that not even all children live to grow up, then it's not really all that different for God to punish a particular individual or a city with premature death because of a particular sin.</p>
<p>And vice-versa, if someone <em>does</em> have a problem with God killing certain individuals, then they should also have an <em>even bigger</em> problem with God judging Adam and Eve for their sin and condemning them to mortality and eventual death. If we consider <em>this</em> action of God just, then we can say that all the rest of God's judgments are <em>equally</em> just.</p>
<p>After all, one might make the case that dying a slow painful death from cancer at age 90, for example, might actually be worse than a fairly quick death in a war or a natural disaster. Everyone dies from something, and most death is unpleasant or painful one way or another, unless one is lucky enough to die in their sleep or die so quickly in an accident that it could hardly be felt.</p>
<p>So the fact that God can decide when he wants to bring the judgment of death for sin on any person is up to God, and no matter how that death happens, it is just, because we all deserve death for our sins. (Which is why Jesus' death on our behalf is such great news! Now even if we still die physically, we can have eternal life by <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believing in Jesus as our savior</a>.)</p>
<h2>But What About the Children?</h2>
<p>Of course, all this discussion about death as the penalty for sin might lead someone to proclaim "Well, at least Adam and Eve were adults!", as if children who die as a result of Adam and Eve's sin and God's other judgments are unfairly punished.</p>
<p>But as Edwards has already noted: infants and children are <em>already</em> afflicted with natural death and disease as a result of Adam and Eve's sin, and many of them die as infants and children (and this was even more common in the past than it is today).</p>
<p>Unfortunately, given that children are dependent on their parents, if God judges the parents worthy of death, realistically, the children are probably going to die anyway. The parents, by sinning, should realize they are bringing judgment not only on themselves, but also on their dependent children, and so if anyone should be held guilty of the premature death of these children when God judged their cities, it would be their parents, not God.</p>
<p>But an objector might say that, for example, in Israel's conquering of Jericho, instead of killing everyone (Joshua 6:17), God should have told them to spare the children. While this would seem to be compassionate, I think it would have been ultimately impractical.</p>
<p>It would have placed a disproportionate burden upon the Israelite adults to care for a much larger sudden influx of children into the community, at a time when Israel was not even well-established in the land.</p>
<p>Not only this, but it would be to expect the Israelites to care for children who are not part of the 'chosen people' or descended from Abraham. If extended to every city that the Israelites conquered as they moved into the promised land, Israel would very quickly have become un-Israelite, and could no longer be considered as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in any meaningful way.</p>
<p>And who knows whether these children would ever have fully integrated into society, or posed an ongoing existential threat to Israel when they grew up and remembered what happened to their biological parents.</p>
<p>So, God's decision for the children to perish with their parents in these judgments on the Canaanites as the Israelites invaded is not any different than, say, God's decisions regarding all the children who died in the Flood, or the children who died in the last plague of Egypt.</p>
<h2>Physical Death Does Not Necessarily Mean Eternal Death</h2>
<p>But I think there is a possible solution to at least some of the apparent 'injustice' of children or others dying as a result of God's judgment on their cities or societies as a whole.</p>
<p>Often it seems Christians assume that when God kills someone in this life, whether an adult or infant, that it means that person is automatically also going to hell and will face eternal destruction.</p>
<p>But what if that's not necessarily true?</p>
<p>There seem to be times when God will punish someone with physical death even though that person is eternally saved:</p>
<ul>
<li>Some Christians in the early church became ill and even died as a result of God's judgment because they were abusing the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:30).</li>
<li>King Saul was a genuine believer but was punished by God with defeat in a battle for disobeying God's will, which led him to commit suicide (1 Samuel 28:18-19).<cite>15</cite></li>
<li>Ananias and Sapphira were early Christians who lied to appear more generous than they really were, and God killed them for it (Acts 5:5-6, 5:10-11).</li>
</ul>
<p>Also, John talks about some sin that leads to death, and some that does not (1 John 5:16-17). This cannot be referring to eternal death, because <em>all</em> sin leads to eternal death if not forgiven by God on the basis of Christ's death. </p>
<p>Thus, these people are biblical examples of what Bob Wilkin talks about when he says "salvation in James refers to the deliverance of born again people from God’s wrath".<cite>16</cite> James teaches about temporal judgment on disobedient/sinful believers, which can include physical death (e.g. James 1:21, 2:14, 4:12-17, 5:19-20).</p>
<p>So it seems that sometimes a sin is so serious that, even if committed by believers who are promised eternal life the moment we accept the gospel (Ephesians 1:13-14), it can lead to God punishing believers with physical death. Perhaps the reason is to warn others to not commit the same sin, such as in the examples of Ananias and Sapphira.</p>
<p>We could extend this argument to possibly include others who were killed by God in the sort of mass corporate judgments of individuals listed at the start of this article. Perhaps not all of them are condemned to hell, but will be judged fairly by God. After all, it doesn't say that <em>everyone</em> who is judged at the final judgment is headed for the lake of fire; only those who don't have their name in God's Book of Life are! (Revelation 20:15).</p>
<p>My former professor Dr. William Webb once suggested that corporate judgment on large groups of people in the Bible—while it was a form of practical 'justice' and was a way for God to restrain evil in the world—was only an approximate sort of justice, for some people may have suffered more than they personally deserved.</p>
<p>So, at the final judgment, only <em>then</em> will perfect justice will be given to every individual, who will be judged for their own personal sins, and any injustice that was done to them as a result of temporary worldly 'justice', including God's temporal judgments, will be somehow repaid or negated.</p>
<p>I also believe that God will give everyone at the final judgment (Revelation 20:11-15) one last chance to hear the gospel and believe in Jesus, so they can be eternally saved. For more about my argument, see <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">my theory of Christian inclusivism</a>.</p>
<p>But of course, it should be noted that God never enjoys killing or punishing anyone (Ezekiel 18:23, 18:32, 33:11), He would much rather have people repent from their sins to avoid earthly punishment, and believe in Jesus to have eternal life. We have the freedom to resist God, but we will still face the consequences of our choices.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So in conclusion, I think Christians can say that death is what we all deserve, for we have all sinned (Romans 5:12). It's up to God to determine when or how that death will be experienced by any individual.</p>
<p>Death may come early as part of God's judgment on individuals or groups of people, but it might also come from disease, aging, accidents, or from the sin of others (e.g murder or war). Either way, the end result is the same, and it is well-deserved.</p>
<p>Therefore, Christians don't have to dismiss those parts of Scripture that talk about God killing people as if it ruins God's goodness. Judging sin and destroying evil is a <em>good</em> thing for God to do, because otherwise, the world would become increasingly full of evil. If God didn't punish and destroy sin, He would be like a corrupt judge who lets criminals walk free and go on hurting others.</p>
<p>Therefore, it actually is <em>good</em> and just when God judges sin, and it is not a problem that Christians should try to ignore by rejecting or reinterpreting these parts of Scripture. There are ways of explaining these issues within a Christian worldview, while upholding both Scriptural inerrancy and God's character as perfect Love.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Justo L. Gonzalez, <em>The Story of Christianity, Volume 1</em>, Revised and Updated (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 74.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Stanley N. Gundry, ed., <em>Show Them No Mercy: Four Views On God and Canaanite Genocide</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003).</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> William J. Webb and Gordon K. Oeste, <em>Bloody, Brutal, and Barbaric? Wrestling WIth Troubling War Texts</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019).</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yOjQud2plbw=="><em>Original Sin</em></a>, <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 3, ed. Clyde Holbrook (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 207.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong>Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yOjQud2plbw=="><em>Original Sin</em></a>, <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 3, ed. Clyde Holbrook (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 206.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Royal Truman, <a href="https://creation.com/from-ape-to-man-via-genetic-meltdown-a-theory-in-crisis">"From Ape to Man Via Genetic Meltdown: A Theory in Crisis"</a>, Creation Ministries International, December 4, 2008.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Don Batten, <a href="https://creation.com/geneticist-evolution-impossible">"Plant geneticist: 'Darwinian evolution is impossible'"</a>, Creation 30(4): 45–47, September 2008.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Lita Sanders, <a href="https://creation.com/no-death-before-the-fall">"'No Death Before The Fall'?"</a>, Creation Ministries International, June 3, 2012.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Andrew A. Snelling, <a href="https://creation.com/where-are-all-the-human-fossils">"Where are all the human fossils?"</a>, Creation 14(1): 28–33, December 1991.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Carl Wieland, <a href="https://creation.com/fast-fossils">"Fast Fossils"</a>, Creation Ministries International.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Calvin Smith, <a href="https://creation.com/is-cancer-very-good">"Is cancer 'very good'?"</a>, Creation Ministries International, December 30, 2014.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Carl Wieland, <a href="https://creation.com/first-ever-dinosaur-brain-tumour-found">"First-ever dinosaur brain tumour found"</a>, Creation 26(2): 21, March 2004.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> See the following articles: <a href="https://creation.com/buried-birth">"Buried Birth"</a>, Creation 19(3):38–39, July 1997; Emil Silvestru, <a href="https://creation.com/water-death-throes">"Water and Death Throes"</a>, Creation Ministries International, January 8, 2012.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yOjQud2plbw=="><em>Original Sin</em></a>,<em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 3, ed. Clyde Holbrook (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 208.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/is-king-saul-a-great-example-of-eternal-security/">"Is King Saul a Great Example of Eternal Security?"</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog, August 6, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/what-type-of-salvation-is-james-talking-about/">"What Type of Salvation Is James Talking About?"</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog, November 28, 2018.</li>
</ul>Did God Really Say? Why Biblical Inerrancy Matters2019-07-12T00:00:00+00:002019-07-12T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-07-12:/article/why-biblical-inerrancy-matters/<p>As you may have seen on the About Me page, I agree with the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Basically, the idea of <em>inerrancy</em> as defined in the Chicago Statement is that the Bible is entirely without error in the original manuscripts (and thus, our translated copies are inerrant insofar …</p><p>As you may have seen on the About Me page, I agree with the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Basically, the idea of <em>inerrancy</em> as defined in the Chicago Statement is that the Bible is entirely without error in the original manuscripts (and thus, our translated copies are inerrant insofar as they follow the originals as closely as possible).</p>
<p>This includes when Scripture discusses history and nature. Things like variations in spelling, or rounded numbers, hyperbole, and poetry or metaphor, are not 'errors'.</p>
<p>Thus, this corresponds with a high view of the inspiration of Scripture—that it really is <em>God's</em> word to us, and not just human words about God.</p>
<p>Some Biblical scholars like to nitpick over little things that they think prove the Chicago Statement is misguided or outright wrong. These details are not what I want to focus on now, because there are many books out there that deal with supposed Biblical errors and show how they really are not errors after all.</p>
<p>Instead, in this post I want to talk about why I affirm Biblical inerrancy, which I feel is accurately described by the Chicago Statement, even if I haven't read a convincing solution to every possible Bible difficulty.</p>
<p>For me, the doctrine of inerrancy is more about the philosophical question of epistemology (how do we know what we think we know), and what it means to have faith in God.</p>
<h2>Why People Doubt Inerrancy</h2>
<p>I think there's ultimately two main reasons why someone might reject the Bible as being inerrant:</p>
<ol>
<li>They want to look 'educated' and 'intelligent' to secular historians, archaeologists, and scientists. Or maybe they want to look theologically 'sophisticated' or 'informed' to their professors, pastors, or other established theologians who have already rejected Biblical inerrancy.</li>
<li>They want to justify their own questionable theological position on some topic.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Reason 1</h3>
<p>When it comes to the first reason, it's helpful to ask: are these secular skeptical 'experts' the sorts of people whose opinion of us really matters?</p>
<p>It might, if we want to get hired or gain credibility in a field dominated by such skeptics. But this would be a case of choosing the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/which-race-are-you-running/">worldly race over the heavenly race</a>, and I wouldn't recommend it.</p>
<p>It's important to note that giving up on Biblical inerrancy never impresses skeptics anyways, and doesn't win them over to Christianity. Instead, they just see the Christian who gives up on inerrancy as being an inconsistent compromiser who is desperate to try to cling to whatever parts of the Bible haven't yet been supposedly 'disproven' by archaeology, history, or science.</p>
<p>For example, Richard Dawkins, on the topic of making the Bible compatible with evolution said:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Oh but of course the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn’t it? Symbolic?! So Jesus had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic sin by a non-existent individual? Nobody not brought up in the faith could reach any verdict other than [it's] barking mad!<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>So the idea of preserving some parts of the Bible such as the life and death of Jesus as true, but labelling other parts as 'symbolic' (and thus, not actually true), especially the story of the Fall, is called "barking mad" by Dawkins. Clearly, this attempt to harmonize scripture and evolution is not convincing or persuasive to him and won't earn his respect.</p>
<h3>Reason 2</h3>
<p>When it comes to the second reason, this is really quite obvious.</p>
<p>If there's a verse someone doesn't like because it convicts them of sin, or they can't understand it, or they think it's offensive, then they dismiss that verse as 'uninspired' or 'errant'. They might say it's just Paul's mistaken opinion, or it was God generously 'accommodating' primitive, barbaric people who just didn't <em>know better</em>, like we do now.</p>
<p>This is why I question the work of theologians who are trying to find ways to say that certain things that God has clearly said are sins are actually not (or no longer are) sins, especially when the theologian in question openly participates in that particular sin.</p>
<p>I also question, for example, the arguments of committed pacifist Christians who want to solve the 'problem' of divine violence in Scripture by saying it didn't happen or that the ancient authors mistakenly thought God commanded violence when He actually didn't.</p>
<p>In both cases, I just don't think they can be objective enough on the issue for me to trust that their scholarship is not skewed by their personal stake in their position.</p>
<p>Although it's true that theologians usually have some personal interest in the thing they're researching and the views they promote, ideally we should try to be open-minded and be willing to follow the best evidence and arguments, which those who are already pre-committed to a position because of other factors besides reason and evidence cannot honestly do.</p>
<p>Of course, they would say the same problem happens when women theologians argue that women should be included as pastors and ministers. But I think there's a definite difference in the Biblical strength of the arguments for allowing women to be ministers than the arguments calling for accommodation of sin. For details on this, see Dr. William Webb's book <em>Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis</em> (IVP Academic, 2001).</p>
<h2>Inerrancy and The Trial of Adam and Eve</h2>
<p>I see the debate over inerrancy as going right back to the garden of Eden.</p>
<p>Adam and Eve were in a conundrum. God had told them not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because they would die if they did. But the serpent questioned God's words, and claimed that the fruit won't kill them—in fact, the serpent said it's actually beneficial for them!</p>
<p>So, what do they do? Whose words do they believe? Which one is lying? Is God really trying to keep them limited and contained, by lying to them to not eat from the tree? Or is the serpent untrustworthy? Hmm...</p>
<p>I think each of us is presented with the same conundrum that Adam and Eve were in. We ultimately face only one choice: Do we believe God's word, or not?</p>
<p>Accepting the gospel message is simply choosing to take God as his word! We either believe that God gives us eternal life when we have faith in Christ as our savior, or we don't.</p>
<p>Of course, even those who doubt Biblical inerrancy can believe this is true and will be saved, but I don't think they can consistently explain <em>why</em> they believe it is true, as we will see.</p>
<p>This challenge of believing God's words or not appears over and over in Scripture. Believing God's words is fundamentally called <em>faith</em>! Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." We are told about these unseen things to hope for through God's word.</p>
<p>Abraham believed God's promise that he would be the ancestor of countless people and a blessing to the whole world, even though it seemed impossible (Romans 4:3, 4:20-22, Galatians 3:7-8). In Hebrews 11 we see many others who are credited with believing God's words to them.</p>
<p>Some skeptics say "Well, if God could just appear right now and tell me the Bible is true, then I'd believe it".</p>
<p>Or they say "Why did God use people to write and preserve Scripture, since it makes it look like there's a possibility of error and room to doubt its divine origin? Why not just create the Bible <em>ex-nihilo</em> (from nothing) just like he did for the whole universe? Then, I'd believe it!"</p>
<p>But I wonder: would they <em>really</em> believe this is God's word? Adam and Eve heard God speak to them personally in the Garden of Eden, and apparently they were <em>still</em> able to doubt God's word.</p>
<p>So I think even if we heard a heavenly voice telling us the Bible is true, or had a book miraculously appear on our desk out of nowhere, labelled as "God's Absolute 100% True Word", there would still be room for doubt. We could write it off as a hallucination, a dream, low blood sugar, or even a demonic deception. And even then, like Adam and Eve, we could still ask <em>"How do we know God isn't lying to us?"</em></p>
<p>Thus, it's a simple yes/no question—do we trust God's word, or not?</p>
<p>Therefore, our choice to have faith in Scripture is no different than the choice that faced Adam and Eve and all the other people like Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and Jonah who heard God speak directly to them. It's the same question, only with different content.</p>
<h2>Infallibility and Inerrancy</h2>
<p>I believe there are really only two options when it comes to Scripture. Either we take it all, and trust it is entirely true and without error, or to be consistent, we would have to label it all as untrustworthy and be skeptical of all of it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many Christians today seem to want to have it halfway in-between. This is a position that sometimes says the Bible is <em>infallible</em>, but not <em>inerrant</em>.</p>
<p>Usually, those who say the Bible is infallible but not inerrant say that it means that the Bible is totally accurate in all the 'spiritual' things it teaches about God and the things that are necessary to be saved and grow in spiritual maturity. But, they say the Bible can have errors in things that are deemed to not be directly relevant to whatever 'spiritual' truths it teaches.</p>
<p>I think they may take this approach as a way to think that they are safe from scholarly criticisms of Scripture. If there's something that skeptics or critics think is a problem in Scripture, instead of having to work hard to solve the issue, the believer in 'infallibility' just throws up their hands, and says "Well, that doesn't really matter — only the 'spiritual' things <em>really</em> matter!".</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the sorts of things that the skeptics or critical Bible scholars like to find problems with in Scripture are not just variations in spelling, hyperbole, or rounded numbers, or some difficult verses that appear to contradict.</p>
<p>Instead, they criticize and doubt some very important things, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>that miracles actually occurred as described in Scripture, sometimes including the physical, bodily resurrection of Christ.</li>
<li>that Genesis chapters 1 to 11 accurately record real historical events, including creation of the world in seven 24-hour days, and a worldwide flood that only 8 people and some animals survived in an ark.</li>
<li>that the Exodus and the Israelites' wilderness sojourn actually happened.</li>
<li>that Moses wrote the majority of the Torah as described by Jesus (John 5:46-47), and thus, they say that Jesus was either misinformed or intentionally 'accommodating' the people's mistaken beliefs about its origins.</li>
<li>that prophecy was really written before the prophetic events predicted actually happened.</li>
<li>that Jesus actually said what He is recorded as saying (e.g., the conclusions of the hyper-critical Jesus Seminar).<cite>3</cite></li>
</ul>
<p>Can you hear the echoes of the serpent saying "Did God really say...?"</p>
<p>Of course, instead of being consistent and giving up on Scripture altogether, most Christian proponents of infallibility want to keep the 'spiritual' meaning of these historically 'false' events. This is utterly ridiculous, for <em>there can be no 'spiritual' meaning in an event that did not happen!</em>.</p>
<p>For example, the Exodus story. I've heard some Christians question whether it really happened as an actual historical event. They say the Exodus is simply an Israelite myth devised to give the people who lived in the hills of Canaan a shared cultural and religious identity, when they actually were never in Egypt at all.</p>
<p>Instead they say that the myth of the Exodus was invented and celebrated in the Passover festival simply as a way of portraying the <em>spiritual</em> truth that these ancient Israelites had somehow learned, that Yahweh was a God who loves to deliver his people out of bondage to sin.</p>
<p>But how could the Israelites have possibly gotten the <em>spiritual</em> idea that Yahweh loves to deliver people out of bondage to sin when they never experienced God saving them from <em>real historical</em> bondage to slavery in Egypt? If it was some other situation that taught them the same lesson, then why not just record that actual, real event, whatever it was?</p>
<p>So if the Exodus never happened, then there is <em>nothing</em> that we can learn about God from it. We cannot learn <em>any</em> 'spiritual' truths about God if God never acted in the ways that the Bible records He did. God reveals himself not just in words, but in <em>actions</em>, as the history of Israel demonstrates. If God's words are not supported by real actions in history, there is simply no basis for trusting his words. He would be all talk, no action.</p>
<p>Also, if some of the Bible is not true, such as the story of the Exodus, then how can we trust God's promise that he never lies (Titus 1:2)?</p>
<p>The Holy Spirit is called the "Spirit of truth" (John 16:13-15), and we are told the Holy Spirit inspired <em>all</em> Scripture (2 Peter 1:21, John 14:26, 2 Timothy 3:16-17). So therefore we must say that the Holy Spirit oversaw the writing of Scripture such that only what God wanted to be written was written, no more, and no less, with no errors. Otherwise, God Himself would be lying to us.</p>
<p>I've heard the relationship between divine inspiration and human authorship of Scripture compared to a musician playing an instrument. The sound produced is influenced by the resonance of the instrument, and so a flute sounds different from a violin, but they can play the same notes accurately. So for example, Paul sounds like Paul, and Luke sounds like Luke, and Moses sounds like Moses, but it doesn't mean what they write isn't equally true and accurate and inspired.</p>
<p>Of course, some might say that the Holy Spirit didn't get it wrong—the authors of Scripture did! </p>
<p>But if the Holy Spirit's inspiration was somehow faulty and the authors of scripture made mistakes in their reporting of non-spiritual things which we actually <em>can</em> investigate or verify through the (supposedly objective) methods of history, archaeology, or science, then what guarantee do we have they didn't also get it wrong on spiritual things, which we <em>cannot</em> verify or investigate?</p>
<p>Let's remember that Jesus specifically said that if we don't believe him on earthly things, then there's no basis to trust him on heavenly things either (John 3:12). If the ancient authors' mistaken ideas about world history or science could override the Holy Spirit's guidance when they wrote about earthly matters, then how do we know this didn't happen for the 'spiritual' things too?</p>
<p>Thus, this is why I think the Bible must either stand or fall altogether. One real mistake or lie would make the entire thing questionable.</p>
<h2>Practical Problems That Occur When Inerrancy is Rejected</h2>
<p>We can also see that doubting the inerrancy of Scripture not only leads to questions of epistemology (how do we know which parts of Scripture are true or not), but it also leads to other negative problems in both the Christian's life and also in the Church's biblical interpretation.</p>
<h3>Arbitrary Biblical Interpretation</h3>
<p>The unfortunate result if someone wants to claim they accept the Bible as spiritually accurate but not inerrant is that their Biblical interpretation becomes extremely inconsistent and arbitrary.</p>
<p>For example, it is arbitrary to say that you accept the descriptions of Jesus's life in the four Gospels as accurate, except for the miracles. There is no basis for this claim except for "I don't think those really happened, because I've never seen something like that happen, and I can't imagine it ever could." <em>BUT THIS IS PRECISELY WHY THEY ARE CALLED MIRACLES!</em></p>
<p>I knew a Christian professor who doubted Matthew's description about some people coming out of their graves at the crucifixion (Matthew 27:52-53).</p>
<p>Yet presumably, he had <em>no problem</em> accepting that Jesus came out of <em>His</em> grave! After all, Paul specifically said that if Christ is not resurrected literally, physically, then we're all still in our sins (1 Corinthians 15:17-19). I can't understand why the professor accepted one miracle of resurrection but rejected another.</p>
<p>So if some modern-day Christians are skeptical about miracles, they seem to forget that Christianity is founded on a miracle! If they accept the miracle of the resurrection, there is no logical reason to not accept all the rest of the miracles described in the Bible too.</p>
<p>And, no, you can't say Christ was 'spiritually' resurrected in the disciples' hearts, for there is no textual basis for this at all, and the Bible goes into very specific detail that proves Jesus had to be physically resurrected as described (Luke 24:39-43, John 20:26-28).</p>
<p>The only alternative is that the disciples are a bunch of liars and lunatics, who for no reason at all, after having seen their leader be beaten, whipped, and crucified, and all their hopes utterly crushed, invented a story that their leader had come back to life. Then, on top of all that, they were willing to give up their comfort, risk their health and safety, and face torture and martyrdom in order to take this story out to the Roman Empire!</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, like <em>that's</em> believable...</p>
<h3>Giving Up On Scripture</h3>
<p>Instead of wrestling with things that raise difficult questions in Scripture, and doing the study and prayer necessary to come to an understanding, giving up on inerrancy makes it far too easy for people to just dismiss what they don't like in Scripture.</p>
<p>This is the easy way out, and they miss out on the greater understanding of God and Scripture which they could have gained if they had spent some effort studying or investigating the issue.</p>
<p>They might even stop reading Scripture altogether if they see it as a minefield of true versus not-quite-totally-true statements.</p>
<h3>Relying on Human Experts</h3>
<p>Alternatively, the confused Christian may look to some other authority figure to tell them which parts of the Bible are true and how to interpret it. Instead of following <em>God's</em> word, they end up following a <em>human's</em> word. Thus, the Christian who doubts the inerrancy of Scripture can be more easily led to rely on other sources of authority besides Scripture.</p>
<p>After all, if Scripture is questionable, then <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/trusting-experts/">why not turn to some expert</a> who 'knows better' to get the real truth? Why not replace Scripture with Dr. So-and-So's Bible Commentary? Or why not try some other new-age occult books, or maybe some other religious texts?</p>
<p>I've seen some people become so attached to their favourite theologian, pastor, or other Bible commentator that they seem to treat that authority figure's ideas as inerrant! And so really, why not just transfer that absolute trust to the Bible itself?</p>
<p>I worry that giving up on inerrancy means Christians will trust fallen, sinful people (which we all are) over God's perfect, inerrant, holy word. This increases the risk of being led astray into cults, or into immorality, or other harmful situations.</p>
<p>After all, God's word is meant to be a 'light' to our path (Psalm 119:105, 119:130). Do you want to give someone else control over your flashlight when you're walking in a dark forest and your safety depends on seeing where you're walking?</p>
<p>God's word is also called the "sword of the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:17). If you're in a battle, would you really want to pass your sword to someone else and trust them to defend you? Why not do the necessary practice to become capable of using the sword yourself?</p>
<h3>Turning To Other Sources of Moral Authority</h3>
<p>I also worry that the Christian who doubts the inerrancy of the Bible will care less about supporting their ideas with Scripture, and will come to their moral and theological positions by other means.</p>
<p>Maybe they'll look to their own feelings, or to what society says is good, or to their favourite celebrity, instead of seeing what God says in Scripture. Again, there is no basis to say that these alternate sources of authority are accurate or trustworthy.</p>
<h3>Short-cutting Theological Debate</h3>
<p>By giving up on inerrancy, the Church as a whole will also miss out. There are still many theological questions that can be debated even when the doctrine of scripture's inerrancy is affirmed. But these debates will be about what the Bible verses in question mean, and what the original authors meant, how it fits with the rest of Scripture, and what insights can be gained from the original languages and culture and history, etc.</p>
<p>This sort of debate won't happen when we just decide to ignore or reject some verses because we've decided they are only mythological, allegorical, or at worst, downright false.</p>
<p>Through this process of debate and study, ideas are refined, and the Church as a whole comes to a more consistent and correct understanding of Scripture. Let's not cut this process short by dismissing some parts of scripture as erroneous.</p>
<h2>Problems of Allegorical Interpretation</h2>
<p>Another approach to arbitrarily interpreting the Bible is to take the so-called <em>allegorical</em> approach to interpretation. In this approach, the plain factual meaning of the text is minimized or ignored, while the interpreter supposedly finds deeper 'spiritual' truths in it.</p>
<p>While there are interesting things like typology, prefiguration, and prophecy in Scripture, the allegorical approach I am concerned about often manages to find a meaning that is thoroughly disconnected from the actual historical events described in Scripture, and thus, has no textual basis to support it.</p>
<p>It's not allegory to say that Jesus is the typological fulfillment of the Old Testament passover lambs, because there is Scriptural warrant for this identification (e.g. John 1:29), and it is based on the real historical facts of the Old Testament sacrificial system and Jesus' crucifixion. And it's not allegory to say that Jesus is a priest like Melchizedek (Hebrews 7), because Melchizedek was a real person who was a priest for God (Genesis 14:18-20).</p>
<p>Thus, the rule for Biblical interpretation is that if the plain meaning of a verse makes sense, then there's no need to go looking for a deeper meaning. If it doesn't make sense on the surface, or if we can tell based on context that it is metaphorical (e.g. parables), then it's ok to look for additional meanings provided there is some textual basis or context to support that deeper meaning.</p>
<p>But,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The problem with the allegorical method of interpretation is that it seeks to find an allegorical interpretation for every passage of Scripture, regardless of whether or not it is intended to be understood in that way. Interpreters who allegorize can be very creative, with no control based in the text itself. It becomes easy to read one’s own beliefs into the allegory and then think that they have scriptural support.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>For example, here's a summary of the early church theologian Origen's allegorical interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In the allegorical view, the man who is robbed is Adam, Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The priest is the Law, and the Levites are the Prophets. The Samaritan is Christ. The donkey is Christ’s physical body, which bears the burden of the wounded man (the wounds are his sins), and the inn is the Church. The Samaritan’s promise to return is a promise of the second coming of Christ.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>See what I mean? What possible clues are there in the text itself to support such an interpretation? This interpretation does nothing to answer the question "Who is my neighbor" which prompted this parable (Luke 10:29), and so this allegorical meaning is not credible. It also doesn't give us any new information that isn't found elsewhere in Scripture, and so why bother with such an interpretation?</p>
<p>So the 'allegorical' method which detaches the meaning of scripture from the real literal words and substitutes other meanings, and the labelling of scripture as 'infallible' but not 'inerrant' which means some parts can be rejected as literal but reinterpreted 'spiritually', both end up with the problem that an interpreter can make the Bible say pretty much whatever the interpreter wants it to say.</p>
<h2>The Only Solution: Take It Or Leave It</h2>
<p>The only way that we can avoid this subjectivity and come to any stable and reliable meaning of any passage of Scripture is to take all of it as true in the plain grammatical sense of the words.</p>
<p>Of course, as the Chicago Statement mentions, this means treating each genre of literature in Scripture appropriately, and recognizes the differences between poetry, historical narrative, hyperbole, symbolic visions, and so forth. Yet even within genres, whatever the text is saying must be taken seriously—we can't dismiss the truths written within apocalyptic literature, or poetry, or the parables just because they are different genres than historical narrative.</p>
<p>The only other option besides accepting Scripture as inerrant leads to abandoning all Biblical authority, and the Bible becomes a subjective buffet from which people can pick and choose which parts they believe and which parts they don't.</p>
<p>Now, I'm not saying that anyone has to believe in Biblical inerrancy in order to be saved—again, all that matters is for a person to believe that Jesus died for their sins, so they can have eternal life. But as shown in this article, I think there are many possible negative consequences for individuals and for the Church if we don't retain belief in Scripture's inerrancy.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>I think Paul's words in Galatians 1:10 are relevant:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.</span></p>
<p>Are we going to trust God and please Him, or are we going to capitulate to the human skeptical critics to try to please them?</p>
<p>I am not going to arrogantly presume I am smart enough to determine what is true and what is not in Scripture. The only choice then is to take it all as true in the plain grammatical sense, and treat it as God's authoritative word, or leave it all.</p>
<p>So I take it all.</p>
<p>That means I hold to positions like young-earth creationism, a real worldwide flood, a historical Exodus and conquest of Canaan, and belief in all the miracles in Scripture including the 'weird' ones; like floating axe heads (2 Kings 6:1-7), sun-stopping (Joshua 10:12-14), and dead people coming back to life (1 Kings 7:17-24, Luke 7:11-17, Matthew 27:51-53, Matthew 28:1-10). I also take a pre-millennial view of the end-times, which includes <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">the Rapture</a>, Tribulation, and literal return of Jesus to the world, after which he will set up his <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/advent-and-politics/">Millennial Kingdom</a> on earth.</p>
<p>Yes, the 'higher critics' might call me a deluded fundamentalist kook. But I'd rather have God's praise than the praise of the 'higher critics'. One day, I hope to be vindicated and rewarded for trusting all of God's word, and hope that the 'higher critics' who thought they were so smart will be criticized by God himself.</p>
<p>After all, even if the 'higher critics' were right, there is simply no objective standard they agree on as to which portions of Scripture are true and which parts are not. It leads to a total free-for-all where people can reject or reinterpret any and every verse of scripture according to their personal whims or desires, which entirely undermines Scripture's authority.</p>
<p>So what do we gain from this approach except for confusion which leads to despair? Instead of turning to God's word for all our spiritual or theological needs, we turn to other sinful and finite people or even myths and at worst, 'doctrines of demons' (1 Timothy 4:1). That's a recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>Let's not give in to the subtle question "Did God really say...?". Let's answer "Yes! God did say!".</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> <a href="https://defendinginerrancy.com/chicago-statements/">"Chicago Statement on Inerrancy"</a>, DefendingInerrancy.com</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> <a href="https://creation.com/dawkins-on-compromising-churchians">"Dawkins on Compromising Churchians"</a>, Creation.com. This article cites a TV interview done by Richard Dawkins which was titled <em>The root of all evil?</em> and was broadcast on Channel 4 (presumably, in the United Kingdom?) on January 16, 2006.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Mark D. Roberts, <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/unmasking-the-jesus-seminar/">Unmasking the Jesus Seminar: A Critique of Its Methods and Conclusions</a> (2005), hosted at Patheos.com.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> <a href="https://www.gotquestions.org/allegorical-interpretation.html">"What is wrong with the allegorical interpretation method?"</a> GotQuestions.org</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> <a href="https://www.gotquestions.org/allegorical-interpretation.html">"What is wrong with the allegorical interpretation method?"</a> GotQuestions.org</li>
</ul>Which Race Are You Running?2019-06-12T00:00:00+00:002019-06-12T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-06-12:/article/which-race-are-you-running/<p>I've heard it said that sometimes pastors preach to themselves by writing a sermon that is more about what they need to hear, than what their congregation needs to hear.</p>
<p>This blog post might be similar to that, in that it may be more of a reminder for me than …</p><p>I've heard it said that sometimes pastors preach to themselves by writing a sermon that is more about what they need to hear, than what their congregation needs to hear.</p>
<p>This blog post might be similar to that, in that it may be more of a reminder for me than for others. But I hope others will still find it useful.</p>
<p>The topic that has been on my mind lately is about the difference between worldly achievement and heavenly achievement.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I think it's very easy for pastors and others whose careers are related to ministry or Christianity to confuse the two, and I have recently found myself slipping into that error as well.</p>
<p>Instead, I have to remind myself that worldly success and what God considers to be success can look like very different things.</p>
<h2>Two Types of Races</h2>
<p>I've always had a strong focus on achieving my goals, ever since I was a child. I often focused on academic achievement, in order to get into good schools and programs, so that I could get good degrees, so that I could get a good job, which would then provide financial security and all the things I want. But there has also been a desire to make sure I was going to heaven, and to please God, and do what God called me to do.</p>
<p>Paul also seemed to be a very achievement-oriented individual. He talked about how he viewed the Christian life as running a race:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable [one]. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 Corinthians 9:24-25)</span></span></p>
<p>When Paul knew he was near death, he wrote to his protege Timothy that "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).</p>
<p>The author of the book of Hebrews also encourages us to "lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).</p>
<p>I think though in this life, there are actually two different sorts of races that Christians can run:</p>
<ol>
<li>The worldly 'rat-race' of careers, success, fame, money, fulfilling our dreams, having a good life, and so forth.</li>
<li>The heavenly race to please God.</li>
</ol>
<p>So we might ask ourselves: what race am I running right now? What is higher on my list of priorities, and what do I put the most focus and effort on? Is my focus on pursuing success in this world, or is it on doing what God wants us to do, even if that does not line up with the world's view of success?</p>
<h2>Conflating The Races</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, people who go into lines of work that are ministry-related can often conflate these two races, which means that success in ministry or in fulfilling our God-given calling is measured by worldly success.</p>
<p>Pastors may focus on how many hours they work at things like preparing sermons, doing pastoral counselling, paying visits to people in hospitals, leading Bible studies, and more. They may focus on how many people are in their congregations, how many people are baptized or go on mission trips, what percentage of their congregation is involved in church activities and service opportunities, how much money is being brought in each week or spent on charitable causes, or how many people congratulate them on their latest sermon.</p>
<p>For professors of theology, it may include things like how prestigious their institution is, how many students take their courses, how many courses they're asked to teach (and which ones), how many books and articles they have published (and by which publishers or journals), how many books they sell, whether they have tenure or not, how many committees they serve on, how many conferences they speak at (and whether they're the main speaker or not), how many students they supervise, and their progression up the career ladder.</p>
<p>This has been something I've noticed appearing in my personal life, and has led to a lot of anxiety. I find myself thinking that in order to be useful and pleasing to God, I have to be as successful of a professor as possible, as defined by all these things listed above.</p>
<p>Then, I put pressure on myself to do everything I can to try to set myself up for the best possible future career as a professor of theology. I feel pressure to work many hours each day on my dissertation with few breaks, to publish journal articles, to present at and attend conferences, to go to professional development seminars about writing books, to network with others and keep up with my contacts for future job possibilities, to put my name out there to start building a reputation for myself, and on and on.</p>
<p>Then I start to think that it's all up to <em>me</em> to do all the things above in order to make myself as useful to God as possible. Even worse, I start to arrogantly think that my work is somehow <em>so</em> important to God that if I don't do it, then no one else will. I mistakenly feel that the weight of the gospel and the preservation and promotion of Christianity is all up to <em>me</em>. (Which is ridiculous—it's up to God, not me. God can do it even without me!).</p>
<p>This wrong attitude then makes it hard for me to get the necessary rest and relaxation without feeling guilty, which then ruins my relaxation. I feel like taking time for myself and my needs is letting God down, <em>because I've conflated advancing my career with serving God</em>. But this only leads to burnout, anxiety, and trusting in myself and my own abilities instead of trusting God.</p>
<p>I suspect this is a challenge that pastors face also.</p>
<p>But finally, God helped me see that success in His eyes does not necessarily involve being maximally successful in my theological career, as I might define that. In fact, God's version of success is often different than getting ahead and having success in this world.</p>
<h2>How Do We Win the Heavenly Race?</h2>
<p>When I talk about winning our particular Christian race, I'm not talking about jumping onto some <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/treadmill-theology/">performance-based treadmill</a>, which is used to threaten Christians to keep doing more and more and better and better in order to prove they're saved, or else, to ensure they remain saved.</p>
<p>Again, I believe Ephesians 1:13-14 shows that every Christian who has believed in Christ as their savior is permanently indwelled by the Holy Spirit, who guarantees we will be saved. So this isn't a race to keep our salvation, or else, salvation would not be a free gift (which is received simply by believing that Jesus died so we can have eternal life), and we could boast about keeping ourselves saved (Ephesians 2:8-9).</p>
<p>Instead, the heavenly race is a race to do the best we can for God, given our unique talents and spiritual gifts and ways God has called us to serve him. But even then, we need to be careful to remember what God really cares about.</p>
<p>It's easy to think that God wants us to be out there, every spare minute we have, doing things like: evangelizing, caring for the poor, advocating for those who have no voice of their own, preparing meals for church lunches, fundraising for mission trips, or whatever other activities we can imagine that God approves of.</p>
<p>These may even include things that God has called us to and which we enjoy doing. And certainly, these are good things, and God does approve of them.</p>
<p>But then, the story of Mary and Martha comes to mind (Luke 10:38-42).</p>
<p>The two women were working hard, preparing a meal for Jesus and his disciples, who relied on generous donors such as these women to provide shelter and food during Jesus' itinerant ministry. Certainly, these women's cooking and cleaning and preparing for their visitors was a good thing.</p>
<p>But when Jesus arrives, Mary leaves to go sit at his feet, to be in his presence, to spend time with him, and learn from him.</p>
<p>Martha then complains to Jesus, and asks him to tell Mary to get back into the kitchen and help her out (Luke 10:40).</p>
<p>What does Jesus say?</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Luke 10:41-42, NRSV)</span></span></p>
<p>So while serving God does please God, what may please him <em>even more</em> is taking time to spend with Jesus through prayer and reading scripture, by taking time to stop working so hard, and instead do whatever we need to in order to be close to God.</p>
<p>(A great book that can help you figure out how you connect best with God is titled <em>Sacred Pathways: Discover Your Soul's Path to God</em> by Gary Thomas (Zondervan, 1996)).</p>
<p>It's encouraging to remember that King David, possibly the greatest king Israel ever had, is noted for being "a man after God's own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). Not "the guy who killed Goliath" or "the man who won all those victories for Israel", even though he also did those things.</p>
<p>In the story of Mary and Martha, we could also say that Mary was a "woman after God's own heart" because she prioritized Jesus over her other duties.</p>
<p>Jesus summed up all of God's desires for people into two commandments: Love God, and love others as you love yourself (Matthew 22:37-40, Luke 10:27, Mark 12:29-32). So that's what <em>really</em> matters to God.</p>
<p>Of course, service is great, and may indeed be done out of love for God and for others, and will be eternally rewarded. Paul says that we were "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). So Christians should certainly do good works.</p>
<p>But Paul also says that even if we do great and amazing things, like speak in tongues or prophesy, have great understanding and strong faith, are extremely generous with our resources, and even if a person is killed for their faith, if we don't have love, then it's all worthless (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).</p>
<p>Therefore, we (and I) should remember that loving God, loving others, as well as loving ourselves (implied in the line 'love others as you love yourself'), is possibly even more valuable than serving God.</p>
<p>So if I spend time in devotions and prayer, or reading some Christian books or blogs that aren't just necessary for my immediate studies, or spending time at church or Bible study, these aren't a waste of time, and may actually be more important to God than the activities I do to serve Him.</p>
<p>If I spend time with friends and family, then that counts as loving others. Of course, our love shouldn't be limited to our family, but if we don't love our friends and family then it's going to be tough to start loving complete strangers.</p>
<p>And I need to learn to love myself, by taking time for rest, relaxation, exercise, hobbies, and so forth, or I will <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/self-care-is-spiritual-warfare/">burn out</a> and won't be able to do the things that God does call me to do for Him.</p>
<p>So I need to remember that even if these above activities do not seem to be 'productive' in the ways that the world measures success, achievement, and productivity, they may be more valuable in God's eyes than rushing around to achieve all the things I feel I need to do.</p>
<h2>Is the Heavenly Race a Competition?</h2>
<p>If taken at face value, Paul's metaphor of the spiritual life being like a race may risk giving a wrong impression that to run the Christian race well we need to be doing better than other Christians, or even, that they have to lose so that we can win.</p>
<p>I think the problem is that the word "race" instantly brings up the image an Olympic-style race, in a stadium, with a whole line of competitors ready to run an equal distance over equal terrain, and where only one runner can win first place.</p>
<p>In my area of expertise, I sometimes feel I have to compete against my fellow Christian peers to vie for those scarce jobs in theology that are out there. I worry that if a friend has better grades or speaks at more conferences than I do, then they're going to get hired instead of me, and I'm going to be left without a job. If someone wins, someone else has to lose. This is how it often works in this world.</p>
<p>But the heavenly race is not like this. Instead, I should rejoice at the success of my fellow Christians and desire to help them in any way I can! I should not be secretly envious of them, or compare myself to them and think I have to outdo them. And I should remember that, according to what we just looked at above, much of what God judges to be our Christian 'success' is internal and cannot be seen or measured by anyone but God.</p>
<p>And just because one person is pleasing God well, does not mean that others are now left out. There's no risk that God will run out of heavenly rewards to give if, say, we're not in the top 10,000 Christians of all-time, if such a list could even be created.</p>
<p>So instead of thinking of an Olympic race, what if we switched to thinking of our Christian race as a long-distance individual run, over varied terrain, through the woods, across creeks, up mountains, and down narrow winding paths? The goal then would not be to outdo others, but to just run the trail we're given the best that we can.</p>
<p>After all, no one else has the exact same life as we do, and no one faces the exact same challenges or struggles. So each of our races will be different, and there will be as many different types of races as there are different Christians. </p>
<p>Some people's races may appear to be smoother than others, over smoother terrain, with gorgeous scenery, and they can seem to jog along at a good speed without hardly breaking a sweat, and even with a huge smile on their face. While others may be more like running up a steep muddy hill in the pouring rain and blowing wind, where just gritting their teeth and managing to hold on and not fall down the hill is an achievement, at least, until the rain lets up. At different points in our lives the path may be easier or harder as we go from one type of terrain to the next.</p>
<p>Of course, this metaphor may present the Christian life as being too individualistic, when in reality, Christians are all running together, and are meant to support and encourage and help each other. But I think the idea that everyone's races are not identical is an important thing to remember to avoid comparison and envy. We should <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/avoid-comparing-ministries-or-gifts/">not compare ourselves to other Christians</a>.</p>
<p>Let's consider the incident when Peter and John were talking to Jesus after His resurrection. Jesus had just told Peter that Peter was to feed Jesus' sheep (i.e. be a leader of the early church), and that Peter would also eventually be killed for his faith (John 21:15-19).</p>
<p>Peter then asks "Lord, what about this man?", referring to John (John 21:21). Presumably, Peter wanted to know what John was called to, and if John would also be martyred. Jesus simply says "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!" (John 21:22). So basically, John's future is none of Peter's concern, and Peter's only job is to follow Jesus in the way that he has been called.</p>
<p>This is a good reminder for all of us that we should not worry about how our Christian race compare with others, and just focus on our own running and following after Christ.</p>
<h2>The Races Can Conflict</h2>
<p>It's also important to get our priorities straight and know which race we're running, because sometimes, the two races are not just competing alternatives, but they may actively be opposed to one another.</p>
<p>There may be times when our commitment to God and Jesus will mean that we actually have to give up on worldly success.</p>
<p>It might involve giving up careers or jobs if we're asked to do something that goes against our beliefs. We might be outright fired for not toeing the company line. Or we might be simply not hired in the first place, if we don't agree with those who have the power to hire.</p>
<p>It might involve making enemies because we stand up for our beliefs when others disagree and call us 'hateful', 'ignorant', 'backwards', 'superstitious' or whatever other epithet they prefer.</p>
<p>It might involve having our reputation trashed, or our name slandered, and losing friends or supporters. We might be kicked off social media platforms, or even cut out off from certain financial service platforms because of our views. We might risk being fined or going to jail for preaching the gospel in public.</p>
<p>It might involve having to fight in court for the values and rights which we believe are important, or fighting against unjust accusations, despite the exorbitant cost of legal fees, and the risk of losing anyway.</p>
<p>Churches and ministers will likely, sooner or later, have their tax-exempt and charitable statuses revoked, and/or experience other financial penalties if they refuse to endorse the values that the government chooses to promote.</p>
<p>This should not seem unexpected. Jesus warns that Christians should expect to be persecuted. He said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: "A servant is not greater than his master." If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. <span class="blockquote-verse">(John 15:18-20)</span></span></p>
<p>Thus, the world and Christ are inherently opposed, even if they are not always in open visible conflict.</p>
<p>This was something the early church faced too. Often early church persecution brings to mind Christians being thrown into gladiator arenas to be killed. But there were many other more subtle ways that early Christians faced conflicts between their new faith and the world.</p>
<p>Some willingly gave up careers as pagan occultists and burned their expensive books and paraphernalia (Acts 19:18-19).</p>
<p>Soon, Christians began to be expelled from the Jewish synagogues, and thus set up their own churches, but lost their social respectability and status. Others who were in trade guilds had to leave these careers because the guilds required them to worship the trade's patron deity. Some left or were kicked out of their jobs as soldiers, or in government.</p>
<p>Many would be ostracized for not participating in local festivals that worshipped pagan gods. They were subject to rumours of participating in incest, or cannibalism. When it was mandated that Christians worship the emperor or face death, some were informed on by their neighbors and had to leave everything behind to flee and hide.</p>
<p>And this choice between this present world and heaven will eventually be a very real choice that those Christians during the Tribulation will have to make. The Book of Revelation warns that someday no one will be able to buy or sell <em>anything</em> without taking the "<a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/regarding-buying-and-selling/">Mark of the Beast</a>" on their hand or forehead (Revelation 13:16-17).</p>
<p>But the cost of taking this mark is declaring that you are in rebellion against God, and thus, anyone who takes it will rightly be eternally punished for it (Revelation 14:9-11). (So no, it's not going to be possible to 'accidentally' accept the Mark of the Beast, it will involve an intentional and clear choice to side with the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a> against God).</p>
<p>Those who do accept the Mark of the Beast will give up on eternal life and instead will face God's punishment and eventual eternal death, only so they can continue to buy the necessities for physical life. Yet, based on what goes on the Tribulation in Revelation chapters 6 to 19, their lives are unlikely to last very long anyway. So it's an even worse decision than when Esau traded off his inheritance for a bowl of soup (Genesis 25:29-34).</p>
<p>By the way, I want to say that I believe that the event described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 which is called ('<a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">the Rapture</a>') will happen before the Tribulation begins. So current Christians who are alive now before the Rapture don't have to fear having to make this specific choice, although we may have to make some similar tough decisions as listed above, depending how things go before Jesus comes back to get us.</p>
<p>So if or when we are faced with having to make choices like these where our faith and the world's expectations clash, that's when our commitment to Christ at the expense of worldly success will be tested. By getting our attitudes towards the heavenly race and the worldly race straightened out now, it will be easier to sacrifice the worldly race when it becomes necessary.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>In summary, Christians have to choose which race we're running: the worldly one of success, achievement, and financial security, or the heavenly one of pleasing God and serving him in the ways he calls each of us to. </p>
<p>Yet remember that the heavenly race is not like any other 'race', for doing well at the Christian life is not just about outward achievement, but primarily is about loving God and loving others as we love ourselves, in all the unique ways that might look like in our lives now. And we're not in competition with other Christians, who we should support in running their own races.</p>
<p>While running the race well will include serving God with our gifts and following God's calling for our lives, we should remember that, like in the story of Martha and Mary, relationships and spending time with God may be more important than other activities, even though they don't produce outward signs of achievement or productivity.</p>
<p>Let's not confuse the worldly and heavenly races. Remembering which race it is that we're running can help us put less pressure on ourselves to look successful or productive according to the world's standards. After all, the world and God are in opposition, and there will likely be times in each of our lives when we have to choose which race has priority. But, heaven will be so amazing that it will make choosing the heavenly race totally worthwhile.</p>
<p>Let's try to run so that each of us can say "I have run my race as best I could", when we see Jesus face to face.</p>Why Christians Need to Talk More About Heaven2019-05-30T00:00:00+00:002019-05-30T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-05-30:/article/why-christians-need-to-talk-more-about-heaven/<p>Have you ever heard that saying "Don't be so heavenly-minded that you're of no earthly good"?</p>
<p>I hate this phrase, for two main reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>It insults Christians who do have a strong focus on heaven.</li>
<li>It implies that thinking about heaven and doing good works are mutually exclusive.</li>
</ol>
<p>So in …</p><p>Have you ever heard that saying "Don't be so heavenly-minded that you're of no earthly good"?</p>
<p>I hate this phrase, for two main reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>It insults Christians who do have a strong focus on heaven.</li>
<li>It implies that thinking about heaven and doing good works are mutually exclusive.</li>
</ol>
<p>So in this post I want to address both of these issues, and show that instead, a strong focus on heaven is <em>exactly</em> what God wants us to have, because, contrary to the above phrase, being heavenly-minded is <em>precisely</em> the way to motivate Christians into doing good works in this life.</p>
<h2>Why Don't We Hear Much About Heaven?</h2>
<p>So why is it that we seem to so rarely hear much about heaven in sermons these days? This problem may occur for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>One reason may be because frequently, pastors in seminary do not have a dedicated course on eschatology (doctrines of the 'last things' like heaven, hell, end-times, etc.) Randy Alcorn notes that general systematic theology courses often fall behind schedule and skip over these topics, and/or because the textbooks used in these courses do not talk much about heaven either.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Or maybe, pastors rightly want to be careful to not endorse un-Biblical ideas about heaven, such as the excessive speculation about heaven that is seen in books about near-death experiences, or in some funeral eulogies. To avoid making mistakes, some pastors might err on the side of saying nothing, or saying very little.</p>
<p>But sometimes I wonder if there might not be another subtle reason why pastors might not want to talk about heaven. Maybe pastors fear that the basic gospel message of believing in Jesus so that we can have eternal life is getting <em>old</em> or even <em>boring</em>.</p>
<p>This is probably more likely in cultures where Christianity has had a long history of influence. In these cultures, we assume that most people have heard the gospel message, and so if they're not currently Christians, then it's because they don't want to be, or they don't find it convincing enough. So why bother repeating the same message over and over if everyone's heard it?</p>
<p>This leads pastors to try to find new and exciting ways to present the gospel to attract those who've rejected believing in Jesus for eternal life.</p>
<p>For example, pastors may tap into the trend of 'social justice' by saying what Jesus <em>really</em> wants are the exact same things that many secular people want: abolishment of things like poverty, oppression, inequality, hatred, disease, and also wants for us to care for the planet.</p>
<p>Or alternatively, some pastors may try to draw people in through the so-called 'prosperity gospel' which promises people their <em>best life now</em>, involving success, health, fame, friendships, fun, and at least financial security, if not outright wealth. (But I always wonder: if this life is someone's <em>best</em> life, then what does that say about where they're going after this life is over?)</p>
<p>A more subtle version of the prosperity gospel is to emphasize all the benefits of Christianity that we can experience <em>right now</em>, like peace, joy, love, overcoming sins and harmful habits, having better relationships, healing our inner psychological wounds, etc. It could be called the 'self-help' gospel.</p>
<p>While the social justice, prosperity, and self-help gospels can be easily identified and are frequently criticized by Christians, I'm still worried that the focus on <em>this life</em> frequently overshadows believing in Jesus for <em>eternal life</em> in contemporary Christian thought.</p>
<p>I want to encourage Christians (and especially pastors) to place proper emphasis on believing in Jesus for eternal life, including all the things that eternal life involves: bodily resurrection, life on the New Earth and in the New Jerusalem, and heavenly rewards.</p>
<p>There are several reasons why we should emphasize heaven, beginning with...</p>
<h2>Reason 1: Scripture Encourages Us To Think About Heaven</h2>
<p>If God inspired the authors of Scripture to encourage us to think about heaven, then we should follow those instructions.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Colossians 3:1-2)</span></span></p>
<p>Randy Alcorn notes that in the above verse,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The command, and its restatement, implies there is nothing automatic about setting our minds on Heaven. In fact, most commands assume a resistance to obeying them, which sets up the necessity for the command.... The command to think about Heaven is under attack in a hundred different ways every day.... Our minds are so much set on Earth that we are unaccustomed to heavenly thinking. So we must work at it.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>Paul recommends that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Philippians 4:8:)</span></span></p>
<p>What could be more described by these things than heaven, and those who inhabit heaven?</p>
<p>Abraham is praised specifically for looking forward to the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 11:10), and so were many of the other heroes of the faith (Heb. 11:16). Can we really label these people as 'being so heavenly-minded that they were of no earthly good'? I don't think so.</p>
<p>In fact, Paul specifically notes that "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19). </p>
<p>Indeed, we might as well say "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (1 Corinthians 15:32), and go on to live like those for who "their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things" (Philippians 3:19), and who are compared to "irrational animals" that seek one physical pleasure after another (2 Peter 2:12-13).</p>
<p>So it is the hope of eternal life and heavenly rewards that keeps Christians from living as worldly hedonists in this life.</p>
<h2>Reason 2: Scripture Teaches Us To Earn Heavenly Rewards</h2>
<p>I discuss the theme of heavenly rewards frequently because I believe that heavenly rewards should be a key driving factor in all Christians' lives. And heavenly rewards are not talked about nearly enough in most churches today.</p>
<p>Some people seem to look down on heavenly rewards, as if rewards are a lesser or un-spiritual motivation that is unworthy of <em>real</em> Christians.</p>
<p>An example of this can be found in a worship song that contains the line "And when I'm doing well, help me to never seek a crown, for my reward is giving glory to You".</p>
<p>While this sounds pious, humble, and 'spiritual', I think it's also partly mistaken. While it's great to be motivated by things like concern for God's glory and other people's salvation, there's nothing wrong with looking forward to a reward also.</p>
<p>For if God did not want us to strive for heavenly rewards and wanted us to be only motivated to server him for 'spiritual' reasons, then he would not have told us about heavenly rewards in Scripture.</p>
<p>Yet Jesus specifically commands us:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Matthew 6:19-21)</span></span></p>
<p>Thus, we should put all our hope in heaven, and treasure it far more than anything we have in this life.</p>
<p>Let's say Jesus came back tomorrow, and Christians are caught up into the clouds, forever to be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Is there anything you would be disappointed to leave behind? Perhaps that's an indication that not all your treasure is in heaven.</p>
<p>I often challenge myself to consider this scenario, as a way of checking that my heart is unattached to temporary things. If there's something I start thinking about wishing I could take with me when we go, I remember that whatever God has for me in heaven will be far better than anything I have right now, and better than anything that I could ever have in this life.</p>
<p>If the problem is that I'm worried that some<em>one</em> I love will not be there in heaven, then that motivates me to try to reach out to them more with the gospel while I can. Really, a little awkwardness is worth it, since their eternal future is at stake.</p>
<p>Paul also encourages living life in light of heavenly rewards:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable [one]. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 Corinthians 9:24-25)</span></span></p>
<p>While it might seem that this life is a long time, it really is like a short sprint when compared to eternity. So why not train hard and strive hard to run the best we can, to earn the best prize possible?</p>
<p>Jonathan Edwards once wrote that one of his goals was:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>So if you're going to look down on seeking heavenly rewards as 'unspiritual', then yeah, you're calling one of America's greatest preachers and theologians 'unspiritual'. I don't agree with Edwards on many things, but I agree that he had his priorities straight here.</p>
<p>And finally, C.S. Lewis wrote:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, Christians should actually <em>aim</em> to be heavenly-minded <em>because</em> the hope of eternal life and heavenly rewards should drive us to do the best we can for God in this life now, knowing that heaven and God's rewards will outweigh anything we might lose in this life.</p>
<p>So <em>please</em> stop repeating that stupid phrase "Don't be so heavenly minded you're of no earthly good"!</p>
<h2>Reason 3: Eternity is Infinitely Longer than This Life</h2>
<p>It might seem obvious that eternity is infinitely longer than our short lives now, and thus, it should be infinitely more important also, but stating it seems to be necessary.</p>
<p>This life is so short that it is rightly compared to a brief puff of vapor that quickly fades away (James 4:14). Even the entire span of human history is <em>nothing</em> in comparison to eternity.</p>
<p>I sometimes try to think of the concept of living forever. It's a difficult thing to imagine. The last verse of the old hymn "Amazing Grace" doesn't do it justice.</p>
<p>The song goes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">When we've been there ten-thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we've first begun.</span></p>
<p>But really, 10,000 years is still <em>nothing</em> in comparison to eternity!</p>
<p>What if we changed that line to say "when we've been there <em>ten-billion</em> years"? How about <em>ten-trillion</em> years? <em>BUT EVEN THEN, TEN-TRILLION YEARS IS NOTHING IN COMPARISON TO ETERNITY!!</em></p>
<p>It's absolutely mind-blowing. Can you imagine celebrating your ten-trillionth birthday in heaven? Your trillion-trillionth birthday? It might be best to skip the candles.</p>
<p>So yes, eternity does matter <em>infinitely more</em> than this tiny short earthly life does, because it is <em>infinitely longer</em>. And so when we present the reasons why someone should believe in Jesus as their savior, eternal life absolutely MUST be the main reason for it.</p>
<p>I sometimes hear people say "But the gospel is not just about eternal life", and they are telling the truth, for there are indeed benefits of being a Christian in this life.</p>
<p>But even if there were <em>absolutely no</em> benefits of Christianity in this life, it would <em>still</em> be the most important thing for us to focus our lives on, simply because <em>eternity lasts forever</em>.</p>
<p>Therefore, eternal life in heaven infinitely outweighs this temporal life, and so it should be given appropriate weight in preaching, and in our thoughts and priorities.</p>
<h2>Reason 4: Personal Experience</h2>
<p>The main reason I'm such a passionate advocate for getting our beliefs about heaven straightened out, and for having it be an important focus in our lives, is because a strong focus on heaven has been one of the major influences and motivations in my life ever since I was a child.</p>
<p>Yes, you could say I'm a long-range planner. But I think everyone should consider their eternal future just as seriously.</p>
<p>Here are just a few examples of how having a focus on heaven has helped me:</p>
<p>I remember when I was little that the idea of heaven and hell being forever was the main reason why I believed in Jesus, and why I paid close attention to not give up on Christianity even when it was unpopular in highschool or university, and tried my best to evangelize to some friends, and got involved with different church groups.</p>
<p>Later, this heavenly focus was partly behind my shift from engineering into theology. Engineering, while it had seemed like it should provide a good future for me, was unsatisfying. I decided I would rather spend my career doing things that can make an eternal difference, and not just a temporary one.</p>
<p>This desire has also helped me slowly get rid of some hobbies and activities that while not harmful in themselves, were not as good of a use of my time as they could be.</p>
<p>For example, I used to be really into certain computer games. But when I looked at the stats on Steam of how much time I spent on these games, I felt bad that I couldn't have done something more useful with my time. Then, I got really into Pinterest, and while it is more edifying than running around killing virtual characters in fantasy computer games, I again realized how much of a waste of time it was.</p>
<p>If in heaven there is some sort of record of my life's statistics, I don't want to see all the hours I wasted on things that didn't ultimately matter (even though I can acknowledge the value of having hobbies that let us relax and avoid burnout).</p>
<p>Having a focus on heaven also helps me put things in perspective, such that I don't need to gratify all my desires in this life.</p>
<p>Yes, I've got a taste for nice houses, cars, interior design, and fashion, but I realize that those things are in the category of things that don't eternally matter. I can get by just fine with less, and delay my gratification until heaven, while using my money in more responsible ways which support the Church and evangelism, which might make an eternal difference to someone else.</p>
<p>Additionally, God's promise that in heaven I will have a new resurrected body helps me resist the messages that advertisements or social media tries to sell, such as the idea that women have to be beautiful and fit and thin, and that I should buy all sorts of products to help achieve this.</p>
<p>I know that this body is temporary, and is slowly getting worn out. Although I try to stay healthy, the promise of a new body means I'm not sucked into the trends of organic food, weird diets, extreme workouts, plastic surgery, botox, fillers, and anti-aging products, and so forth that our society pushes.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>I hope I've shown here how setting our minds on our future eternity in heaven is an important and helpful part of the Christian life. It's impossible to be 'so heavenly minded you're of no earthly good', because if we're really considering our future in heaven we will be motivated to make the most of our lives now.</p>
<p>I hope pastors and other Christian leaders would place more emphasis on believing in Jesus for the benefit of eternal life in heaven, and talk more about the beneficial effects that looking forward to heaven can bring in the lives of Christians.</p>
<p>Usually, Pastors want to encourage their congregations to get out there and evangelize, serve, and have peace and joy in their lives. I think the doctrine of an eternity in heaven, and heavenly rewards, is a very effective way to encourage all these things.</p>
<p>Finally, I want to end with one last quote by A. A. Hodge, just to encourage us that heaven is going to be so amazing, that we can confidently place all our hope and treasure there and not worry that we're missing out on anything in this life:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Heaven, as the eternal home of the divine Man and all of the redeemed members of the human race, must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions, and activities. Its joys and activities must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary, and active. There must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all talent capacities, the realization of all ideals. The reason, the intellectual curiosity, the imagination, the aesthetic instincts, the holy affections, the social affinities, the inexhaustible resources of strength and power native to the human soul must all find in heaven exercise and satisfaction. Then there must always be a goal of endeavor before us, ever future.... Heaven will prove the consummate flower and fruit of the whole creation and of all the history of the universe.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, like Paul and Jonathan Edwards, we should strive to do the best we can now in order to have the most happiness possible when we get there.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Pubs., 2004), 8-9.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Pubs., 2004), 21</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xNTo3NDoxLndqZW8="><em>Letters and Personal Writings</em></a>, Works of Jonathan Edwards Online Vol. 16, ed. George S. Claghorn (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 754, resolution #22.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Pubs., 2004), 21, citing C.S. Lewis, <em>Mere Christianity</em> (New York: Collier Books, 1960), 118.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Pubs., 2004), 98-99, citing A. A. Hodge, <em>Evangelical Theology: A Course of Popular Lectures</em> (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 399-402.</li>
</ul>Christians Are Superheros2019-05-22T00:00:00+00:002019-05-22T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-05-22:/article/christians-are-superheros/<p>It seems like there is a never-ending stream of superhero movies being released lately. Clearly, there is some demand for this genre of story.</p>
<p>In many of these stories, an average person is suddenly given some sort of super-powers, and they then go on to use these powers to fight …</p><p>It seems like there is a never-ending stream of superhero movies being released lately. Clearly, there is some demand for this genre of story.</p>
<p>In many of these stories, an average person is suddenly given some sort of super-powers, and they then go on to use these powers to fight evil, defend the innocent, and improve the world.</p>
<p>These stories might be so appealing because they satisfy some inner psychological desire many people have, perhaps to have some sort of personal power to avoid being victimized by others, or to go out and take on those people that hurt them, or to oppose people who they judge are destroying the world or acting unjustly.</p>
<p>But what I see is interesting is how similar the typical superhero movie storyline is to the truth of what happens to people who become Christians. In this post I will show how when you become a Christian, you become the closest thing to a superhero that there is in this world.</p>
<h2>Gaining the New Power of the Holy Spirit</h2>
<p>The Holy Spirit is shown in the Bible as giving people new power to do what God had called them to do in this world.</p>
<p>Before Pentecost, this empowering was only for certain people who were the leaders of the Israelites, prophets, or who had special missions to do for God.</p>
<p>This exclusive list includes:</p>
<ul>
<li>Joseph (Genesis 41:37-39).</li>
<li>Bezalel (Exodus 31:2-4, 35:30-32).</li>
<li>Moses (Numbers 11:17).</li>
<li>70 elders (Numbers 11:25).</li>
<li>Balaam (Numbers 24:1-3).</li>
<li>Joshua (Numbers 27:18, Deuteronomy 34:9).</li>
<li>Othniel (Judges 3:9-11).</li>
<li>Gideon (Judges 6:34).</li>
<li>Jephthah (Judges 11:29).</li>
<li>Samson (Judges 13:25, 14:6, 14:19, 15:14).</li>
<li>Saul (1 Samuel 10:10, 11:6, 19:23).</li>
<li>some of Saul's messengers (1 Samuel 19:20-21).</li>
<li>David (1 Samuel 16:13).</li>
<li>Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:9, 2:15).</li>
<li>Amasai (1 Chronicles 12:18).</li>
<li>Azariah (2 Chronicles 15:1).</li>
<li>Jahaziel (2 Chronicles 20:14).</li>
<li>Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:20).</li>
<li>Ezekiel (Ezekiel 2:2, 3:24, 11:5).</li>
<li>Daniel (Daniel 4:9, 4:18, 5:11-14)..</li>
<li>Micah (Micah 3:8).</li>
<li>John the Baptist (Luke 1:15).</li>
<li>Jesus (Matthew 3:16, Isaiah 11:2, 42:1).</li>
</ul>
<p>Even then, it seems that the Holy Spirit could 'leave' people (Psalm 51:11, Judges 16:17 and 16:20, 1 Samuel 16:14), or could even be taken from one person and given to others (Numbers 11:17, 2 Kings 2:15).</p>
<p>I don't think this means that when the Holy Spirit left these people lost their salvation, for then there would be a discrepancy between these Old Testament saints and the Church with regards to the guarantee of eternal salvation based on faith alone in the Messiah/Jesus—Ephesians 1:13-14. But it seems that the Holy Spirit could choose to no longer give them help in the same ways or to the same extent as previously (e.g. Samson lost his strength).</p>
<p>But this changed at Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus' resurrection, and ten days after Jesus ascended to heaven, when many early Christians were gathered together praying in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit appeared as a rushing wind and flames of fire which rested on each person there (Acts 2:1-4), enabling them to proclaim the gospel to people in other languages (Acts 2:6-8).</p>
<p>Peter links this to the fulfillment of the prophecy in Joel 2:28-29 (Acts 2:17-18) which proclaims God will pour out his Spirit on all believers.</p>
<p>This is what Jesus had promised earlier, when he told the disciples:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Acts 1:8)</span></span></p>
<p>So as seen at Pentecost, the power given by the Holy Spirit was able to change a random bunch of everyday, average people into evangelists, who took the good news of the Gospel out into the Roman Empire, despite death threats, persecution, torture, imprisonment, and many other obstacles.</p>
<p>Of course, we usually think of people like Peter, Paul, and the other apostles as being the main evangelists who did this.</p>
<p>But Justo L. Gonzalez argues that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The missionary task itself was undertaken, not only by Paul and others whose names are known—Barnabas, Mark, et al.—but also by countless and nameless Christians who went from place to place taking with them their faith and their witness. Some of these, like Paul, traveled as missionaries, impelled by their faith. But mostly these nameless Christians were merchants, slaves, and others who traveled for various reasons, but whose travel provided the opportunity for the expansion of the Christian message.<cite>1</cite></span> </p>
<p>We see evidence of this in the Bible, where there were already Christians in Rome before Paul traveled there, and who were the recipients of his letter to them (Romans 1:9-10).</p>
<h3>How To Receive The Holy Spirit</h3>
<p>This special power of the Holy Spirit was so desireable that a former magician named Simon wanted to pay money in order to receive it (Acts 8:18-20). But this is not how God gives the Holy Spirit.</p>
<p>Instead, the Holy Spirit is instantly and permanently given the very first moment anyone believes in Jesus as their savior:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Ephesians 1:13-14, cf. Acts 2:38)</span></span></p>
<p>Thus, after that first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit now indwells <em>all</em> Christians (e.g. Romans 8:9, 8:14, 8:23, 1 Corinthians 6:19), and is a permanent presence in us that will never leave us (John 14:16-17). The Holy Spirit should help us gain the character traits referred to as the 'fruit of the Spirit': love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22).</p>
<p>Receiving the Holy Spirit is called the "baptism" of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5), which, by the way, is not necessarily tied to physical water baptism (Acts 10:47), and for most of church history has not necessarily included speaking in other languages.</p>
<p>Thus, it's much easier to gain the power of the Holy Spirit than for superheros to gain their superpowers. No radioactive spiders, scientific accidents, or genetic mutations are necessary!</p>
<h2>Gaining A New Family</h2>
<p>In many superhero movies, the person who gains superpowers is admitted into an elite group of others with superpowers, who then team up and support one another to take on bad guys that individual superheros are not strong enough to fight on their own.</p>
<p>Or alternatively, superheros find a new home among people with similar powers who understand them and help them train their powers, even though they are rejected as freaks by their biological families.</p>
<p>This is sort of what the Church is like.</p>
<p>All Christians become part of God's family, and thus, can effectively call each other brothers and sisters (Matthew 12:49-50). I've heard reports that even when Christians travel to foreign countries and meet with local Christians, there is an instant bond of community between them.</p>
<p>Thus, becoming a Christian means gaining instant family, all around the world, which if necessary can replace our biological family and outweigh it by far (Mark 10:29-30).</p>
<p>Even though individual Christians are eternally saved the moment we believe in Christ, there are still difficulties we will face while in this world which are easier to bear when we are part of a community who shares our beliefs.</p>
<p>Therefore, Christians meet together regularly on Sundays and/or during the week to encourage each other, to remind ourselves of what we believe, to pray for one another, and to build relationships to prevent loneliness and feelings of being isolated or misunderstood. We can help one another not only in spiritual things, but practical things also.</p>
<p>And like superheros, Christians can team up so that they can make a greater impact through larger ministries than if we work alone.</p>
<p>So yes, even though you can be a Christian without attending a local church, you're really missing out. Watching Youtube sermons or listening to worship music on your own is not going to give you the same benefits as regularly attending a church and getting involved with the service opportunities there, and building personal relationships of mutual support and encouragement.</p>
<p>Of course, Christians are still imperfect in this life, and thus, there will be imperfect people in the Church. So it is not unheard of for there to still be conflict, disagreements, and even hostility or rejection among Christians, which may lead to disillusionment with the Church. This is a sad reality.</p>
<p>We should try to avoid these problems or find loving ways to resolve problems in the local church. Not even all superheros get along all the time—such as Batman and Superman, or Captain America and Iron Man. But for the sake of the gospel, Christians should try to cooperate, or at least, not hurt one another intentionally, similar to how superheros can put aside their differences to fight the bad guy.</p>
<h2>Gaining New Spiritual Gifts</h2>
<p>So as seen, by being indwelled by the Holy Spirit, Christians now each have the ability to share the gospel with others who need to hear it, regardless of if you are called to be an international missionary, or are a stay-at-home mom.</p>
<p>However, there are even more special 'powers' and abilities Christians have access to, called the gifts of the Spirit.</p>
<p>These are listed in a few different places in Scripture, so I've created a list of some of them here:</p>
<ul>
<li>speaking wisdom (1 Corinthians 12:8).</li>
<li>speaking knowledge (1 Corinthians 12:8).</li>
<li>faith (1 Corinthians 12:9), presumably, exceptional faith above and beyond the basic faith necessary for salvation.</li>
<li>healing (1 Corinthians 12:9).</li>
<li>miracles (1 Corinthians 12:10).</li>
<li>prophecy (1 Corinthians 12:10, 14:4-5, Romans 12:6).</li>
<li>discerning spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10).</li>
<li>speaking tongues (1 Corinthians 12:10, 14:2).</li>
<li>interpreting tongues (1 Corinthians 12:10, 14:5).</li>
<li>helping/serving (1 Corinthians 12:28, Romans 12:7, 1 Peter 4:11).</li>
<li>administration (1 Corinthians 12:28).</li>
<li>teaching (Romans 12:7, 1 Corinthians 12:29).</li>
<li>exhorting/speaking (Romans 12:8, 1 Peter 4:11).</li>
<li>generous giving (Romans 12:8).</li>
<li>leadership (Romans 12:8).</li>
<li>acts of mercy (Romans 12:8).</li>
<li>being an apostle (1 Corinthians 12:28-29). Since the term 'apostle' literally means "one who is sent" (to preach the gospel), the closest thing today would be a missionary or full-time evangelist.</li>
</ul>
<p>The neat thing about the Church (i.e. all Christians everywhere in the world) is that not everyone is given the same gift. Therefore, there is diversity and uniqueness in our gifting that makes each of us special.</p>
<p>This reminds me of superhero movies where there are teams of heroes who all have different gifts, but use these gifts together in order to take down the bad guy.</p>
<p>Paul uses the metaphor of a body to describe how this works. He says that all together, all Christians compose the "body of Christ" (Romans 12:4-6, Ephesians 3:6, 1 Corinthians 12:12, 12:27).</p>
<p>But each of us is only like a part of the body, perhaps an ear, an eye, a toe, etc. (1 Corinthians 12:14-31). The body cannot do all the things God wants it do if everyone was the exact same body part; we'd just have a lot of 'toes' or 'eyes' lying around unable to do anything, which would be pretty weird.</p>
<p>So not everyone has the same gifts, or has the same gifts at the same level of ability (Romans 12:6, 1 Corinthians 12:4). </p>
<p>For example, in the X-Men series, there may be many mutants who have the ability to manipulate fire, but not all with the same level of ability. And so Christians too, may share a gift of, say, discernment, but some may be more discerning than others.</p>
<p>You'll probably notice that one or a few specific gifts from the above list come to you more naturally and you use them more consistently and more effectively than the other gifts. These gifts might fit well with your personality and talents.</p>
<p>But remember that the Holy Spirit is unpredictable. So try to be open to whatever you feel the Holy Spirit might be leading you to do, even if it's not one of your 'specialties'.</p>
<p>Some gifts need special care and discretion when they are used (1 Corinthians 12:23-24), just like how in the X-men movies some mutants need to be careful they don't hurt others with their gift.</p>
<p>For example, this may mean some gifts are better used discreetly, rather than making a big scene of them. Or some might be better used in some situations than in others (e.g. the gift of tongues, or prophecy).</p>
<p>You don't usually see superheros being jealous of each other's gifts. And so Christians shouldn't be jealous of the gifts the Holy Spirit gives to other Christians.</p>
<p>Instead, we need to recognize that each of our gifts is important and special, and we should focus on maximizing our use of our gifts in whatever way God calls us to, so that we make our best contribution to the body of Christ.</p>
<h2>Gaining Spiritual Armour and Fighting Evil</h2>
<p>A superhero wouldn't really be a superhero without some snazzy new outfit, right? Usually this includes muscle-defining armor, cool gadgets, and sometimes capes (unless their outfit designer is Edna Mode, from the movie <em>The Incredibles</em>).</p>
<p>Christians also have access to new armour—the "Armor of God", which helps us in our spiritual life and protects us from evil.</p>
<p>This is listed in Ephesians 6:10-18, and includes:</p>
<ul>
<li>the 'belt of truth'.</li>
<li>the 'breastplate of righteousness'.</li>
<li>shoes of the 'gospel of peace'.</li>
<li>the 'shield of faith'.</li>
<li>the 'helmet of salvation'.</li>
<li>the 'sword of the Spirit'.</li>
</ul>
<p>These things are what keep us safe from doubts, temptations, and attacks of the enemy, and let us do the things God has called us to do.</p>
<p>But these don't just work automatically—Paul says we have to actually "take them up" or "put them on". I can't go through all of these right now, but here's a few examples of how I understand these:</p>
<p>The "shield of faith" is what is described as "extinguishing the flaming darts of the evil one" (i.e. doubts) (Ephesians 6:16). So, build up your 'shield' by engaging in activities that strengthen your faith—prayer, worship, attending church regularly, going to Bible studies, maybe reading some good Christian theology or apologetics, etc.</p>
<p>I think the "helmet of salvation" means that you need to be absolutely certain that you are saved, and hang on to this assurance, so that you don't get taken out by doubts or fears. Personally, when I was insecure about whether I was really saved or not, I was spending a lot of time just dealing with my own doubts and issues, and I was not really as effective for God as I could have been.</p>
<p>It's really easy to put on your helmet of salvation. Just look at John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life". If you believe that Christ died for your sins so you can have eternal life, then <em>voila</em>, you're saved.</p>
<p>Then, based on Ephesians 1:13-14, you are now <em>guaranteed</em> that you have eternal life which is permanent and can never be lost or taken away. If you have doubts about this claim, I'd really recommend that you read the very short, very easy to read book by Charles C. Bing titled <em>Simply By Grace</em> (Kregel Pubs, 2009).</p>
<h3>How Do Christians Fight Evil?</h3>
<p>Of course, Christians don't literally fight with real people. Instead, our battle is in the spiritual realm, against evil spiritual powers and influences (Ephesians 6:12).</p>
<p>We don't use real weapons, but instead, use things like prayer for enemies (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:28), prayer for those in our governments (1 Timothy 2:1-2), prayer for fellow Christians (Philippians 1:19, Ephesians 6:18), and prayer for the success of the gospel (Colossians 4:3-4, Ephesians 6:19-20). The prayer of a righteous Christian is powerful and effective (James 5:16, NRSV).</p>
<p>We also 'fight' by resisting sin and the devil (James 4:7), and doing good to our enemies (Luke 6:27). </p>
<p>We also make a difference for God and combat Satan through activities such as volunteering, going on missions trips, supporting good Christian ministries who preach the gospel, and even just supporting and encouraging each other as we see the end-times approaching (Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Thessalonians 4:18, 5:11, 5:15).</p>
<p>By maintaining our faith, Christians can be conquerors who defeat the devil (e.g. Revelation 12:11, 2:11, 2:26, 3:21) and the world (1 John 5:4-5).</p>
<p>We know that ultimately it will be Jesus who at his second coming will finally defeat Satan, the false prophet, the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/mistaking-the-antichrist-for-jesus/">Antichrist</a>, and all the evil world powers (Revelation 19:11-21), and will put everything right.</p>
<p>So that's not really our job—our job right now is to 'engage in business' by serving Christ until he comes again (Luke 19:13), continuing the great commission of preaching (Romans 10:14), and making disciples through baptism and instruction in holiness (Matthew 28:19-20).</p>
<h2>Gaining Immortality and New Bodies</h2>
<p>Now, there's not really any superheros I'm aware of who are truly immortal. Some live a very long time, and some are able to regenerate and so are hard to kill, or they age more slowly. Even the bad guys are never truly invincible, or else, every superhero story would end as a failure, or at best, a tie.</p>
<p>And therefore, Christians gain an even <em>more</em> amazing ability than superheros have, since God has promised those who believe in Jesus as their savior will have <em>eternal life</em>! (John 3:16).</p>
<p>It's not quite the same as never dying, although some Christians will be lucky enough to not die (1 Thessalonians 4:17) if we are alive when <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/reasons-for-the-rapture/">the Rapture</a> happens.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-christian-hope-of-resurrection/">the Christian hope of resurrection</a> gives us confidence that even if we die, God will bring us back to life and give us perfect bodies which will never suffer from disease or age ever again (1 Corinthians 15:42-49).</p>
<p>Even with Photoshop, makeup, Spanx, corsets, plastic surgery, personal trainers, dieticians, and armor shaped like abs, the actors in superhero films are still just mortal people. They will age, lose their good looks, and die like we all do. But after the resurrection, I think we can be confident that God will give us bodies that will look even <em>better</em> than the fictional superheros on film do.</p>
<p>Randy Alcorn notes that due to the sin of Adam and Eve,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The most beautiful person you've ever seen is under the Curse, a shadow of the beauty that once characterized humanity. If we saw Adam and Eve as they were in Eden, they would likely take our breath away. If they would have seen us as we are now, they likely would have been filled with shock and pity.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>And we'll eventually have bodies even better than what Adam and Eve had in Eden, for they were not yet glorified (being given a body as glorious as Jesus' body is now). All Christians will eventually have a body with properties like what Jesus' body had after his resurrection (1 John 3:2, Romans 6:5, 1 Corinthians 15:48-49).</p>
<p>This will happen after we are resurrected or instantly transformed at Christ's next coming (1 Corinthians 15:51-53, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).</p>
<p>After his resurrection Jesus seemed to have a new ability to teleport himself around (Luke 24:31, 24:36, John 20:26), and so, I hope we'll have that ability too. This would be very useful, given the size of the New Jerusalem which is described as about 1380 miles or 2221 km in length, width, and height (Revelation 21:16)!</p>
<p>I know the resurrection and new bodies is a theme I frequently discuss, but I think it is important to get it into our heads, to help us have patience and hope in this life now as we deal with aging, disease, disabilities, disfigurement, and just plain old dissatisfaction with our currently imperfect bodies (especially when we see the media full of people who seem fitter and more beautiful/handsome than we are, such as the actors who portray superheros.)</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Even though it is a somewhat silly comparison, I think the similarities between Christians and superheros are close enough that Christians can indeed think of ourselves as a sort of 'superhero'; average people who are enabled by the Holy Spirit to serve God by spreading the gospel, serving in the Church with our unique spiritual gifts, and combatting spiritual evil while being protected by our spiritual armor of God.</p>
<p>So don't look down on yourself as just some average nobody: if you're a Christian, you're God's superhero, and are here to make a difference now in this life that will have consequences for all eternity.</p>
<p>Therefore, no fictional superhero mission is more important than the mission you're on, which is to be part of Christ's body (the Church) as it continues to do His work in the world, by serving God through your own special calling by using the spiritual gifts you've been given.</p>
<p>Plus, we get certain advantages that superheros never have, such as eternal life, assurance of eternal success, and future new great-looking and strong bodies that will never wear out.</p>
<p>Perhaps one way we can make Christianity more appealing to those in our secular culture is by comparing ourselves to the superheros that are so popular today. Like really, who <em>wouldn't</em> want to be a 'superhero' for Jesus, when it includes all of the above?</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Justo L. Gonzalez, <em>The Story of Christianity</em>, Volume 1, Revised and Updated (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010), 35.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Pubs, 2004), 289.</li>
</ul>How To Succeed In Seminary2019-05-08T00:00:00+00:002019-05-08T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-05-08:/article/how-to-succeed-in-seminary/<p>Are you thinking of going to seminary, divinity school, or bible college? Are you wondering what you need to do in order to do the best you can in your studies?</p>
<p>Having gone through seminary myself, and having been a TA for several terms for Master's level seminary courses, I …</p><p>Are you thinking of going to seminary, divinity school, or bible college? Are you wondering what you need to do in order to do the best you can in your studies?</p>
<p>Having gone through seminary myself, and having been a TA for several terms for Master's level seminary courses, I want to share with you some important advice for helping you succeed in seminary.</p>
<p>(These tips are also probably applicable to many other areas of higher-level humanities studies where you will be taking courses that require essay writing for the assignments).</p>
<p>What occasioned this post was my interaction with students as a TA, where I have been shocked and saddened that even at the Master's level, so many students are struggling with things that should be simple, such as handing in assignments on time, following assignment instructions, and knowing the basics of essay-style writing!</p>
<p>An article written by Barbara Kay for the National Post notes that less than half of university students were adequately prepared in high school for higher-level studies.<cite>1</cite> This definitely seems to be true based on my experience as a TA so far.</p>
<p>So here are ten basic things I wish I could tell all my students, to help them to do well in seminary:</p>
<h2>1. Read The Syllabus</h2>
<p>Most professors spend a portion of the first class going over the course syllabus. The syllabus often contains important information such as grading schemes, assignment instructions, reading lists, and other administrative information.</p>
<p>The most important information to pay attention to here is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Assignment or reading due dates.</li>
<li>Assignment instructions.</li>
<li>Late penalties.</li>
<li>Requirements for assignment extensions.</li>
</ul>
<p>It is amazing to me how many students have asked me questions that could be clearly answered by a quick check of the syllabus.</p>
<p>And if it's not in the syllabus, then please ask the professor, or TA. Even the TA might tell you to check with the professor, since the professor is the ultimate authority in the course.</p>
<p>Also, sometimes seminaries will post their syllabi online to help you when you're choosing what courses you want to take.</p>
<p>It's always a good idea to read through the syllabus, if you can, to see what sort of assignments or other grading criteria the course will use, so that you can choose courses that match with your strengths. So if you're not good at exams, but are good at essays, then don't choose a course with a final exam, and opt for one with a final research project instead.</p>
<h2>2. Talk To the Professor</h2>
<p>Don't be scared of the professor (or TA). As a TA and (maybe) future professor, my goal is to help all my students get an A in my courses. I don't want to set up anyone for failure, and so if you have any questions about the course, please just ask!</p>
<p>Professors don't intentionally want to make it hard for students to find the information you need to meet the professor's expectations. Although depending on the experience or age of the professor, they may forget to include some information in the syllabus that students might care about.</p>
<p>So if you've got a question about an assignment, requirements, extensions, or something else that is not clearly answered in the syllabus, then <em>please</em> talk to your professor.</p>
<p>Even if it's about something as minor as what line-spacing or font-size to do the assignment in. It never hurts to ask!</p>
<p>In one course I was TA for, a group of students were confused about whether an assignment was supposed to be in essay format or not. Instead of just asking the professor or myself, some students just guessed what we wanted. It turns out they were wrong, and they were missing a critical part of the assignment, which meant I could not give full marks.</p>
<p>If they had just quickly asked me in class or sent me an email, they could have made sure they met the assignment requirements, and thus received much higher grades. There's really no reason to be confused about any element of any assignment. If the professor's expectations are not clear, then ask him or her!</p>
<p>You should also feel free to bounce ideas off of the professor or TA regarding your assignments. This is a good way to check that you are on the right track, and that your assignment will meet their expectations. If you're not on track, usually they can give tips on how to tweak what you have in mind to meet their requirements.</p>
<h2>3. Keep Track of Due Dates</h2>
<p>Have you ever had that nightmare that it's the end of the term and you've forgotten to do a very important assignment? I have. Don't let that nightmare become your reality!</p>
<p>If you use a calendar or day-planner, enter your assignment or reading due dates into it. And check it frequently!</p>
<p>Professors should not have to remind students of when things are due. If they are an especially nice professor, they may give reminders in class. But at the Master's level there really is no excuse for not keeping track of your own due dates.</p>
<p>This is a basic life skill that you're going to need in <em>any</em> career! Especially pastors.</p>
<p>After all, your congregation is not going to be pleased when you get up to speak on Sunday and tell them that you just got so busy this week you couldn't manage to finish your sermon, and so you're winging it, or are using someone else's sermon that you found online late Saturday night.</p>
<p>And if you've gotten an extension for an assignment, then <em>please</em> meet that extended deadline! The professor or school has already accommodated you, so don't make them irritated by missing that deadline, or having them have to remind you to send your work to them.</p>
<p>Professors have deadlines too for when they need to submit students' grades to the school administration, and if you don't get your assignment to the professor or TA with enough time for them to grade it, then it might not go well for you.</p>
<h2>4. Manage Your Schedule</h2>
<p>It does take a little time to learn how to fit your new academic studies into your life. You will likely fall into a rhythm of when you get your reading done for each class you're taking, in order to get it all done each week.</p>
<p>But then eventually you will also need time to do the research and writing for your assignments, on top of your regular reading.</p>
<p>If you're unsure how much work you can handle, err on the side of taking fewer courses at a time.</p>
<p>Just because someone else you know is taking four courses per term and working part-time while still managing to get straight A's doesn't mean this is realistic for everyone. Consider your own pace, how you handle stress, and your other commitments, to decide what is realistic for you.</p>
<p>Taking fewer courses per term can be a very helpful way to balance all your commitments, help you stay on top of deadlines, avoid anxiety or burnout, and do your best at your courses.</p>
<p>It may be good to sit down and make sure all the other commitments in your life are realistically going to allow you to do well in your courses. Maybe this is not the right season of life to go back to seminary in. Or maybe you need to cut back on some other things, or ask others to step up to help relieve you of some responsibilities.</p>
<p>If you've got some challenges, then you can see what sort of policies the seminary may have for extensions and see if that would be enough to accommodate you. If not, then maybe another format such as online courses or modular courses would work better for you.</p>
<h2>5. Learn to Write an Essay</h2>
<p>I thought this was a basic academic skill that most people were taught in high school. But it is totally shocking how many Master's level students cannot write a basic essay with an introduction, body, and conclusion!</p>
<p>Now, I understand that not everyone going to seminary has been in school recently, and may not be coming from a humanities background. I myself have an engineering background, and I only had to write two essay-style papers during my engineering studies. So it was a skill I was worried about when I went back to seminary.</p>
<p>Turns out, it's really simple. Here's my short guide to how to write an A-grade essay:</p>
<h3>Introduction:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Start off with a few sentences about why the topic of your paper is interesting, important, or relevant, in order to catch your reader's interest.</li>
<li>Add a thesis statement about what you will argue about that topic.</li>
<li>Give a brief outline of the evidence you will present in support of your thesis statement.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Body:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Use section headers to organize your thoughts and ideas, to make it easy for a reader to follow your argument.</li>
<li>In each section, split your text up into paragraphs by keeping similar content or ideas together.</li>
<li>Provide transition statements or words to connect your sections and paragraphs together.</li>
<li>Try to avoid redundancy or repetition; aim to be clear and concise.</li>
<li>Refer to evidence from your sources to convince your reader that your thesis statement is true.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Generally avoid adding any new evidence or arguments in your conclusion.</li>
<li>Re-state what it is that you are attempting to prove in your essay.</li>
<li>Summarize the main evidence you presented earlier to support your thesis statement.</li>
<li>End with a few sentences on application, or relevance, or implications of your essay.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, it's not that difficult. I would say that following the above advice is at least 50% of writing a good essay. The other 50% is having good, clear ideas and finding good sources to cite to support your ideas.</p>
<h2>6. Learn to Write Thesis Statements</h2>
<p>A thesis statement is what you will attempt to prove or demonstrate in your essay. Usually, you will want to write papers that have thesis statements.</p>
<p>You can tell that you have a thesis statement if there is the possibility that someone could argue against it. If you can imagine reading your thesis statement to someone, there should be the possibility that they may say "No, I disagree".</p>
<p>It helps to make it very clear to your reader exactly what you are arguing, by specifically introducing your thesis statement with words like "In this paper, I will argue that..." or "Here I will demonstrate that...".</p>
<p>For example, some thesis statements could be:</p>
<ul>
<li>"In this paper, I will argue that Jonathan Edwards believed only those who agreed with him on predestination were real Christians."</li>
<li>"This essay will demonstrate that for most of church history the topic of the pre-millennial return of Christ was neglected."</li>
<li>"As will be shown below, Christians who do not have assurance of eternal security frequently become joyless and anxious, and even judgmental of others."</li>
</ul>
<p>Try to avoid statements like:</p>
<ul>
<li>"Let us read together the words of Jonathan Edwards as he wrestles with the question of who is a true believer."</li>
<li>"I will discuss some interesting trends in historical sermons on the return of Christ."</li>
<li>"Early monks retreated to the desert for a variety of reasons."</li>
<li>"Comparison of Augustine and Irenaeus reveals that their theology about God's sovereignty was both similar and different."</li>
</ul>
<p>You can see how these second categories of sentences are not really things that someone could say "No, I disagree" to. Therefore, they are not really thesis statements.</p>
<p>Additionally, as seen in the last two bad examples above, avoid phrases like "a variety of reasons" or "similar but different". These are so vague that they don't really mean anything, and shows that you have not formulated a clear idea of what you really want to say. Be specific about your claims!</p>
<p>Then, make sure you argue for your thesis with specific and compelling evidence, by using reliable sources and effective use of both paraphrasing and direct quotations, as discussed in the next section.</p>
<h2>7. Learn How to Interact With Scholarly Sources</h2>
<p>First, learn to identify reliable 'scholarly' sources. Usually these include books that can be found in your school's library, or peer-reviewed journal articles in relevant scholarly databases, and are written by someone who appears to have a relevant degree by a reputable university.</p>
<p>Popular-level sources (e.g. books you may find on a shelf at an average public bookstore or library) can be helpful if you're researching popular views of a topic, or are looking at a popular author's own views on a subject. Blogs and other websites with clear mentions of the author and/or organization are also often acceptable. If in doubt, ask the professor if a source is ok to use.</p>
<p>But please, avoid using sketchy websites which have no information about the author or organization that is providing the information. Also avoid crowd-sourced information such as Wikipedia, which may not be accurate.</p>
<p>Then once you've found some good sources, learn when to paraphrase and when to use quotations in your writing. Direct quotations from sources are a way of adding interest to your paper. They are also an important way to <em>show</em> the reader your evidence, instead of just <em>telling</em> the reader that the evidence exists.</p>
<p>For example, you could simply say: "Jonathan Edwards believed that God controls absolutely everything".</p>
<p>Ok. But your reader might be skeptical, and think to themselves "Oh, really? Where exactly does he say that?"</p>
<p>So to strengthen your point, add a direct quotation from him, something like:</p>
<p>Edwards clearly says "God orders all events; and the volitions of moral agents among others, by such a decisive disposal, that the events are infallibly connected with his disposal".<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>But don't overdo it. Generally, save the quotations for the most important points you want to make, or if you need to show the reader specifically what a source says, in their own words. You can paraphrase the rest (but don't forget that even paraphrased information still needs references).</p>
<p>It should be obvious, but remember to put quotation marks on either side of the direct quotation, and a footnote or reference to where the quotation is from (e.g. see the little number 1 after my above reference to Edwards).</p>
<p>If you're using the exact words from another source, put them in quotation marks to avoid being charged with plagiarism (a serious academic offense, which can lead to you being kicked out of your program).</p>
<p>Also learn when to use block quotations versus in-line quotations. Generally, if your quotation is more than 4 or 5 lines long, turn it into a block quotation, like this:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">This is a block quotation style, because you can see that it's indented from the rest of the text. I also don't need to put quotation marks around this quote, because it's obvious that it's a quotation thanks to the formatting. Right now, I have my formatting set to italicize block quotations, to make them stand out on my blog even more. But you shouldn't do this in a regular academic paper, just use regular font instead. And finish it off with a footnote, too.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>Finally, please make sure that the references you are citing <em>actually say what you claim they are saying</em>! Assume that your professor or reader is going to look up every single piece of information you cite.</p>
<p>Don't try to claim that a source says something that it does not, thinking that your professor or reader won't actually verify this. You never know what books your professor has access to. If you are caught making bogus claims about the information in a source, it's going to make your reader suspicious of every other citation in your paper.</p>
<p>This applies to your use of Scripture also. When grading, I make a habit of looking up every Bible citation that a student uses in their paper. (This is also good to do when reading any theological material).</p>
<p>It's very tempting to cite a particular verse as supposed 'evidence' for a point, even if it is only tangentially related at best, to try to make it look like your case has more scriptural support than it really does, while hoping that your reader won't actually care enough to look up the verse for themselves. But don't bet on this. Ideally, only choose the strongest verses that prove your point, and leave the weaker or unclear ones out—you don't want to look like you're desperately grasping for straws.</p>
<p>Related to this last point; sometimes I've found students citing a verse that they think proves their point, only for me to check it, and become utterly baffled about how the student could possibly interpret that verse as supporting their point. Again, choosing the strongest and clearest verses should help avoid this problem. If in doubt, specifically say what words or details in the text or verse you see as proving your point.</p>
<h2>8. Learn How to Properly Reference Your Information</h2>
<p>Please make sure you know how to properly reference the information you use in your assignments when it comes from other sources.</p>
<p>Usually, this is done by using footnotes, endnotes, or in-line references.</p>
<p>Make sure you reference not only direct quotations, but even ideas that you got from other sources. If something is 'common knowledge' usually you don't need to reference it, but if in doubt, it's better to provide more references than less.</p>
<p>Most times you cannot go wrong with using footnotes. Endnotes may be desired for certain sorts of projects, but usually for papers that are being graded, footnotes are most convenient so that the professor does not have to flip or scroll to the end to check your references.</p>
<p>Microsoft Word has a really convenient footnote feature that will even manage your footnotes for you, so that you can copy and paste the footnotes around in your essay and it will automatically adjust the numbering, and so it's really helpful to learn how to use this feature.</p>
<p>In-line references are ok if you are only referring to one book over and over again, and don't want to waste space at the bottom of your page with footnotes that are only going to say "ibid." over and over. (Also, learn when to use "ibid." or "ibid., #." correctly! If in doubt, it's better to avoid these altogether, and just put the full reference information every time).</p>
<p>Usually, it's best to always include a Bibliography of all the sources you used in your paper.</p>
<p>While it's usually acceptable practice to include sources in your Bibliography that you read but did not specifically interact with in the text of your paper, I find it's best to avoid this. It is better to actually interact with all the sources in your Bibliography through direct quotations or footnote references.</p>
<p>This proves to the professor that you actually read the source. Otherwise, the professor might think you just wanted to pad your Bibliography with titles that sound good but which you didn't actually read.</p>
<p>And finally, choose a format for your footnote and Bibliography references, and <em>use it consistently</em>!</p>
<p>Don't just take the information off the library catalog or web-page and paste it into your footnote or Bibliography. Learn how to format your references according to the style required by your professor or school. Usually, this will be either Chicago/Turabian style, or APA style. In both of these, the format is slightly different for footnotes versus Bibliography entries.</p>
<p>A great resource that I use regularly is Kate L. Turabian's <em>A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations</em>.<cite>4</cite>. It not only has great tips for how to come up with ideas for papers and how to write papers well, but also has a thorough guide on how to cite nearly any possible type of resource you might come across, in the convenient Chicago/Turabian style.</p>
<h2>9. Be Courageous Enough To Disagree</h2>
<p>While this might not apply to all professors, I would rather have a student who is confident enough to disagree with me, and give their reasons why, than to have someone who just repeats back to me my own views, for fear of getting a low grade.</p>
<p>Similarly, feel free to disagree with and to question the sources used in your courses, or that you come across in your research. Just because someone is a well-known Christian scholar or managed to get a book or journal article published doesn't mean they were/are right on everything, even if they are <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/trusting-the-experts/">considered an 'expert'</a>. Thinking for yourself and gaining the confidence to disagree is an important part of scholarly work.</p>
<p>I have no problem giving a high grade to a student who writes a really excellent essay, with great formatting, a clear thesis, an argument that flows and shows strong evidence, even if I disagree with their conclusions. I hope this would be the case for most other professors as well. </p>
<p>But this may depend on the sort of school you're attending. Certain denominations are more open to disagreement or are more flexible with their theology and biblical interpretation than others. Which school you attend may depend on what your future goals are.</p>
<p>If you want to be ordained in a specific denomination, often you will have to attend a seminary that is approved by that denomination, and likely, you will learn there the specific denomination's viewpoints, which you would have to generally agree with in order to be ordained in that denomination anyway.</p>
<p>Whereas if you want more academic freedom, then something like a non-denominational, multi-denominational, United Methodist, or Anglican seminary might serve you better (Anglicans and United Methodists are usually fairly tolerant of a variety of viewpoints, although perhaps sometimes <em>too</em> tolerant).</p>
<h2>10. Ask for Accommodation If You Need It</h2>
<p>Nowadays most universities and seminaries have policies to help students who have a variety of needs, whether those are physical disabilities or learning disabilities. So if you have a challenge in an area that makes schoolwork more difficult for you, there may be ways the school can help you work around this, by making some accommodations for you.</p>
<p>However, please verify ahead of time what these are, and if they will be sufficient for your needs, and tell your professor at the beginning of the first class (or even before classes start) what you need and how they can help.</p>
<p>Don't wait until you're halfway through a course to speak up and say something is not working for you—the sooner the professor knows you're struggling with something, the sooner a solution can be found.</p>
<p>So please, if you need any special accommodation, <em>please</em> talk to the school administration and your professors right away, and find out what policies there are about accommodation, and what else they can do to help you. Don't wait for them to come to you if you're struggling.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>All these things: time management, planning to meet deadlines, keeping on top of assignments, and learning how to write convincing papers with thesis statements that make good use of scholarly sources, are going to be important in order for you to do well in seminary.</p>
<p>Critical thinking skills are a bonus. If you don't have these skills yet, hopefully your experience at seminary will help you develop them. Even coming into contact with differing theological views will help you learn to think critically about your own beliefs and why you believe them. Learning to question and ask what the evidence is for certain claims is a very helpful skill to have for life in general.</p>
<p>Other factors that may impact your success in seminary could also include:</p>
<ul>
<li>how much family support or church support you have to help offload some of your responsibilities.</li>
<li>what resources the seminary has to provide academic support or personal support.</li>
<li>your ability to learn new languages (if you're in a program which requires Biblical languages).</li>
<li>your current fluency and writing ability in the language of instruction at your seminary.</li>
<li>your financial situation, and whether you can study full-time or have to work part-time while studying.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are things that you may not have as much control over, and you might need to find ways to compensate for them or work around them.</p>
<p>If it sounds like all this will be too difficult, then remember: not every Christian has to go to seminary or may be suited for seminary. I'm confident that God has ways of using you with the unique skills and gifts that He has given you, even if you cannot go to seminary or make it through seminary.</p>
<p>But I do still think it's helpful for all Christians to think critically about what we hear in church or what we read in our devotionals or other books, because all Christians are theologians since we all have ideas about God, and so <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-read-theology/">reading some theology is helpful</a>, even if you don't attend seminary. Personally, I would recommend starting with the books on my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/recommended-resources/">Recommended Resource list</a>.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Barbara Kay, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-universities-shine-a-light-on-ontarios-failing-schools">"Barbara Kay: Universities shine a light on Ontario's failing schools"</a>, The National Post, April 30, 2019.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em> (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012), 255.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Janelle Zeeb, "How To Succeed In Seminary," <em>Continually Sharpening: A Theological Blog by Dr. Janelle Zeeb</em>, accessed May 8, 2019, from https://jzeeb.com/article/how-to-succeed-in-seminary/.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Kate L. Turabian, <em>A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations</em>, Eighth Ed., revised by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Wiliams, ane the University of Chicago Press editorial staff (Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013).</li>
</ul>The Christian Hope of Resurrection2019-04-24T00:00:00+00:002019-04-24T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-04-24:/article/the-christian-hope-of-resurrection/<p>This past Sunday was Easter Sunday, where Christians celebrate Jesus' resurrection, when He came back to life after being killed by crucifixion.</p>
<p>But unfortunately, it seems that our understanding of Jesus' resurrection is frequently disconnected from other Christian doctrines, and especially, from what Christians believe about heaven.</p>
<p>A common description …</p><p>This past Sunday was Easter Sunday, where Christians celebrate Jesus' resurrection, when He came back to life after being killed by crucifixion.</p>
<p>But unfortunately, it seems that our understanding of Jesus' resurrection is frequently disconnected from other Christian doctrines, and especially, from what Christians believe about heaven.</p>
<p>A common description of what Christians will experience in the afterlife often goes something like this:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Well, when a Christian's body dies, their spirit or soul instantly goes to be with God in heaven, where Jesus is, and where angels are, and where all the souls of all other Christians and Old Testament saints are. It's a beautiful place, up in the clouds, with light everywhere, and they will never have any physical needs ever again—no hunger, no thirst, no need for sleep, and no physical weaknesses or vulnerabilities. They are pure spirits now and have become like the angels, and are going to eternally experience the utterly perfect view of God's glory and beauty, praising Him forever and ever and ever and never desiring anything else besides God.</span></p>
<p>Sounds great, right?</p>
<p>However, this view of heaven is actually linked to the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, and is un-Biblical, because it ignores what the Bible teaches us about the true Christian hope, which is <em>resurrection</em>.</p>
<p>Additionally, neglecting the Biblical promise of resurrection as the eternal future for Christians can make heaven seem <em>undesirable</em>, <em>unfulfilling</em>, <em>scary</em>, and even <em>boring</em>.</p>
<p>And if that's what Christians think about heaven, then it's going to affect Christians' attitudes and actions in this life right now.</p>
<p>So I will argue that by getting our beliefs about heaven straightened out, we can actually resolve many issues which Christians may face in their current lives, which can lead to increased joy, hope, patience in suffering, excitement for the gospel, and motivation to evangelize and do good works.</p>
<p>Isn't it interesting that all these benefits are what pastors want for their congregations, and are what pastors try to encourage in their sermons, and yet, we so rarely hear sermons that are actually about death, heaven, or resurrection?</p>
<p>Instead of trying to focus on encouraging each of these good things independently, maybe addressing the topic of heaven in a correct and Biblical way would be much more efficient and effective?</p>
<h2>Scriptural Evidence for Resurrection</h2>
<p>First, let's examine some key scriptural evidence which proves that the proper Biblical teaching about heaven <em>is</em> indeed resurrection.</p>
<p>What do we mean by resurrection? It is defined by Merriam-Webster as "to raise from the dead".<cite>1</cite> But what this means exactly can be seen from the examples of resurrection in the Bible.</p>
<p>One of the oldest books of the Bible is thought to be Job. Job believed he would one day be resurrected. He said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another" (Job 19:25-27).</span></p>
<p>Job expects that after he dies, he will be resurrected and have a physical body, with physical eyes, which he will use to see God.</p>
<p>Abraham believed in resurrection. When he was tested by God by being told to sacrifice his son Isaac, Abraham told his servants "Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you" (Genesis 22:5).</p>
<p>Now, how can Abraham <em>and</em> Isaac <em>both come back</em>, if Abraham planned to <em>kill</em> Isaac as a sacrifice to God? The writer of Hebrews sees this as evidence that Abraham believed that God would raise Isaac back to life after sacrificing him (Hebrews 11:17-19).</p>
<p>Lazarus was resurrected. He had died, and had been buried for four days (John 11:17) and bodily decomposition had begun, because Martha noted that there was a bad smell coming from his tomb (John 11:39, NRSV). But Jesus brought Lazarus physically back to life. Lazarus was then unwrapped from his burial cloths (John 11:44).</p>
<p>We know that this was definitely a physical restoration to life, because the Pharisees wanted to kill Lazarus and put him back in his tomb because he was causing so many people to believe in Jesus (John 12:10-11).</p>
<p>There are many other examples of God bringing people back to physical life throughout the Old and New Testaments. There's the widow's son (1 Kings 17:22), a young girl (Matthew 9:24-25), the widow of Nain's son (Luke 7:15).</p>
<p>However, all these people died again eventually. Their resurrections were not to the perfected or immortal state which Jesus and all others who are eternally saved will experience.</p>
<p>Unlike Lazarus, Jesus escaped from His own burial cloths without human assistance (John 20:5-7) and was able to appear suddenly inside a locked room (John 20:26) and disappear suddenly without a trace (Luke 24:31). This might make us think that He had transformed into a spirit.</p>
<p>But Jesus specifically proved that He was physically resurrected when he appeared to the disciples and Thomas, who were able to touch the wounds in Jesus' hands and side (John 20:27, Luke 24:39). Jesus also ate fish in front of the disciples specifically to prove he was not a spirit (Luke 24:41-43).</p>
<p>So even though Jesus appears to have gained the ability of self-teleportation after his resurrection, he definitely still had a physical body.</p>
<h2>Scriptural Promises of Resurrection</h2>
<p>Paul claims that resurrection is an extremely critical component of the Christian faith.</p>
<p>For if Jesus was not physically raised back to life, then that means there is no resurrection of the dead, anyone who has believed in Christ for eternal life has 'perished', preaching is useless, Paul and the apostles are all liars, and our faith in Jesus as our savior and Messiah is mistaken, and thus, Christians would deserve the world's pity (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).</p>
<p>Specifically "If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied" (1 Corinthians 15:19). Therefore, faith in Christ <em>MUST</em> be about eternal life, including a resurrection of the dead.</p>
<p>If anyone claims that life after death shouldn't matter to Christians, that all we should care about is making this world better now, and should focus on enjoying the peace and joy and love that the gospel brings right now, that person is simply wrong. Life after death is the most important promise God makes to those who believe in Jesus.</p>
<p>We know this because God has made extremely clear promises in Scripture that Christians will be resurrected just like Jesus was, with bodies similar in nature to Jesus' resurrected body:</p>
<ul>
<li>1 Corinthians 15:48-49: <em>"As was the man of dust [Adam], so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven [Jesus], so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven."</em></li>
<li>Romans 6:4-5: <em>"We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his."</em></li>
<li>Philippians 3:20-21: <em>"But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself."</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, Paul writes that Christians do not want to simply shed their current weak and flimsy bodies (which he compares to a 'tent') so that we become 'naked' or 'unclothed' (spirits only), but want to be 'further clothed' with new permanent and strong immortal bodies (which he compares to a 'house' or 'building'):</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5)</span></p>
<p>So where did the idea that when we die our spirits go to be with God forever in some purely spiritual realm come from?</p>
<h2>The Difference Between the Intermediate State and Resurrection</h2>
<p>It is true that there are verses which show that when Christians die their spirits <em>do</em> instantly go to be with Christ, even before they are resurrected.</p>
<p>For example, 2 Corinthians 5:6-9 says that when Christians are "away from the body" we are "at home with the Lord".</p>
<p>Jesus promised the thief on the cross that "<em>today</em> you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).</p>
<p>The souls of martyred Christians are depicted in heaven in Revelation 6:9-11 as being aware that they were unjustly killed and want God to take vengeance, and of being given 'white robes' and told to rest until other martyrs join them (Revelation 6:11, 7:14). But these martyrs will not be physically resurrected until the end of the Tribulation (Revelation 20:4).</p>
<p>There are also rare appearances of seemingly not-yet-resurrected people in the Bible.</p>
<p>For example, Samuel's spirit appeared to Saul and the witch to deliver a message from God (1 Samuel 28:14), and Elijah and Moses somehow appeared with Jesus during his transfiguration and disappeared afterwards (Matthew 17:3).</p>
<p>Exactly how these appearances worked is not specified (Were they spirits? Did they have some sort of bodies? How were they able to be recognized as themselves?), and so although obscure, these examples are interesting to show that something seems to be going on where people who have died are not entirely non-existent.</p>
<p>So it seems that the Bible reveals two different stages of after-death experience for Christians. </p>
<p>First, there is the 'paradise' earlier mentioned by Jesus, where the spirits of Christians who die are now instantly with God and Christ before they are resurrected. </p>
<p>This is presumably the same place as where Christ's resurrected physical body is right now, and also where the physical bodies of the two people in Scripture who did not die but were instantly taken up to heaven (Enoch in Genesis 5:24 and Elijah in 2 Kings 2:11) are.</p>
<p>So this current heavenly alternate-dimension of reality must have some physical aspect to it. In systematic theology this is often referred to as the 'intermediate state' between death and resurrection.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>But this first intermediate state is not necessary or permanent. Some Christians will never experience this state if they are alive when Christ appears and instantly transforms their bodies from mortal to immortal (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). The final destiny of all Christians, regardless of if they spend time in the intermediate state or not, is physical resurrection which enables eternal life on the New Earth (Revelation 21:1-4).</p>
<p>So some of the problem with the typical Christian views on heaven may be because this distinction between the intermediate state and the final resurrection and New Earth are not frequently spoken about by pastors. I don't think I've ever heard a sermon on this topic.</p>
<p>Even at funerals, where you think this would be mentioned, pastors or other speakers often use euphemisms and vague mentions of "heaven" or "a better place" or "with Jesus".</p>
<p>I admit, it's very easy to fall into the shortcut of using the term "heaven" to refer to anything that Christians will experience after death, but doing this likely leads to confusion. So maybe that's something that all Christians should work on changing, by being more specific about which stage of the Christian afterlife we are referring to.</p>
<h2>The Old Heresy of Gnosticism</h2>
<p>One significant influence in the early church which may have led to much more focus on the view of heaven as a purely spiritual realm was the early heresy of Gnosticism.</p>
<p>Church historian Justo L. Gonzalez writes that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Drawing from several sources, the Gnostics came to the conclusion that all matter is evil, or at best unreal. A human being is in reality an eternal spirit (or part of the eternal spirit) that somehow has been imprisoned in a body. Since the body is a prison to the spirit, and since it misleads us as to our true nature, it is evil. Therefore, the Gnostic's final goal is to escape from the body and this material world in which we are exiled.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>As Christianity spread out into the Roman empire, its beliefs became influenced by Greco-Roman philosophy which included these Gnostic tendencies above. Plato was a philosopher who endorsed the idea that ideal existence was as pure spirit. Randy Alcorn shows that Plato's ideas came into Christian theology through Philo, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, all who preferred taking Scripture 'allegorically' rather than in the normal grammatical-historical sense.<cite>4</cite> </p>
<p>Alcorn suggests that due to the influence of Platonism on these early Christian theologians, all references to resurrection and the New Earth and physical things on the New Earth like streets, cities, trees, etc. were seen only metaphors or allegories:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The prophetic statements about life on a perfect Earth are considered mere symbols of the promise of a disembodied spiritual world.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>And unfortunately, Alcorn shows how this attitude prevails today even in some modern theological commentaries.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>However, there is an important theological argument for why the gnostic view of heaven cannot be true, as explained by Anthony Hoekema:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If the resurrection body were non-material or non-physical, the devil would have won a great victory, since God would then have been compelled to change human beings with physical bodies such as he had created into creatures of a different sort, without physical bodies (like the angels). Then it would indeed seem that matter had become intrinsically evil so that it had to be banished. And then, in a sense, the Greek philosophers would have been proved right. But matter is not evil; it is part of God's good creation. Therefore the goal of God's redemption is the resurrection of the physical body, and the creation of a new earth on which his redeemed people can live and serve God forever with glorified bodies. Thus the universe will not be destroyed but renewed, and God will win the victory.<cite>7</cite></span></p>
<p>Unfortunately, Alcorn notes that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Of Americans who believe in a resurrection of the dead, two-thirds believe they will not have bodies after the resurrection. But this is self-contradictory. A non-physical resurrection is like a sunless sunrise. There's no such thing. Resurrection means that we will have bodies. If we didn't have bodies, we wouldn't be resurrected!<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>Humans are not primarily souls who happen to inhabit bodies temporarily, but our body is actually a core part of who we are:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Adam was not a living human being until he had both material (physical) and immaterial (spiritual) components. Thus, the essence of humanity is not just spirit, but spirit joined with body. Your body does not merely house the real you—it is as much a part of who you are as your spirit is.<cite>9</cite></span></p>
<p>Therefore,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">When God sent Jesus to die, it was for our bodies as well as our spirits. He came to redeem not just "the breath of life" (spirit) but also "the dust of the ground" (body). When we die, it isn't that our real self goes to the present Heaven and our fake self goes to the grave; it's that part of us goes to the present Heaven and part goes to the grave to await our bodily resurrection. We will never be all that God intended for us to be until body and spirit are gain joined in resurrection (If we do have physical forms in the intermediate state, clearly they will not be our original or ultimate bodies).<cite>10</cite></span></p>
<p>So God will completely thwart Satan, by restoring and redeeming what has become corrupted due to Satan's temptation and Adam and Eve's sin. This will include the physical world and our physical bodies. To say otherwise is to say that Satan won, and God has to fall back to His second-best plan.</p>
<p>Since the entire creation is now in bondage to corruption because of human sin (Romans 8:20-22), then God's eschatological restoration must also include the entire universe, or Satan will have won.</p>
<h2>Problems With A Purely 'Spiritual' Heaven</h2>
<p>So as shown so far, the purely 'spiritual' view of heaven is both un-Biblical and not theologically sound.</p>
<p>But Randy Alcorn in his book titled <em>Heaven</em> (2004) also does a great job at pointing out the real-life problems that belief in a purely 'spiritual' existence in a purely 'spiritual' heaven causes for Christians.</p>
<p>Although I don't want to give too much of his book away (you really should read his book for yourself), Alcorn has many excellent quotations which I want to show here.</p>
<h3>First Problem: A Purely Spiritual Heaven is Undesireable</h3>
<p>Alcorn writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">We do not desire to eat gravel. Why? Because God did not design us to eat gravel. Trying to develop an appetite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical Heaven is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel. No matter how sincere we are, and no matter how hard we try, it's not going to work. Nor should it. What God has made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth.<cite>11</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, Alcorn says that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Some of the best portrayals I've seen of the eternal Heaven are in children's books. Why? Because they depict earthly scenes, with animals and people playing, and joyful activities. The books for adults, on the other hand, often try to be philosophical, profound, ethereal, and otherworldly. But that kind of Heaven is precisely what the Bible doesn't portray as the place where we'll live forever.<cite>12</cite></span></p>
<p>It is reassuring to know that resurrection and life on the New Earth are indeed what the Bible promises to Christians, and so, we don't have to try to psych ourselves up to desire some disembodied 'spiritual' heaven that is unlike anything we really desire.</p>
<h3>Second Problem: A Purely Spiritual Heaven is Unfulfilling</h3>
<p>Alcorn quotes John Eldredge, who says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Nearly every Christian I have spoken with has some idea that eternity is an unending church service.... We have settled on an image of the never-ending sing-along in the sky, one great hymn after another, forever and ever, amen. And our heart sinks. <em>Forever and ever? That's it? That's the good news?</em> And then we sigh and feel guilty that we are not more 'spiritual'. We lose heart, and we turn once more to the present to find what life we can.<cite>13</cite></span></p>
<p>And so, Christians feel guilty that they don't long for what they are told heaven will be like. Then, as a side-effect of this fear that heaven will be one huge unending church service, it makes us often turn to this life to try to fulfill all our desires while we still can. </p>
<p>The solution is to remember that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Heaven, as the eternal home of the divine Man and all of the redeemed members of the human race, must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions, and activities. Its joys and activities must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary, and active. There must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all talent capacities, the realization of all ideals. The reason, the intellectual curiosity, the imagination, the aesthetic instincts, the holy affections, the social affinities, the inexhaustible resources of strength and power native to the human soul must all find in heaven exercise and satisfaction. Then there must always be a goal of endeavor before us, ever future.... Heaven will prove the consummate flower and fruit of the whole creation and of all the history of the universe.<cite>14</cite></span></p>
<p>Therefore, when we realize that heaven will be the perfect fulfillment of all our desires, that frees us from trying to achieve those things in our lives now.</p>
<p>Instead, we can focus in this life on what really matters, which is spreading the gospel and serving others in whatever way God calls us to do. We don't have to worry that if we don't or can't achieve all our dreams now that we will have missed out on anything.</p>
<h3>Third Problem: A Purely Spiritual Heaven is Frightening</h3>
<p>Alcorn says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Everything pleasurable we know about life on Earth we have experienced through our senses. So, when Heaven is portrayed as beyond the reach of our senses, it doesn't invite us; instead, it alienates and even frightens us. Our misguided attempts to make Heaven 'sound spiritual' (i.e. non-physical) merely succeed in making Heaven sound unappealing.<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>This is similar to the first problem, but this time, Alcorn shows that trying to imagine some disembodied existence is actually <em>frightening</em>. When we have no idea what to expect, and are only told that heaven is beyond our imagination and totally unlike anything we know in this life, why would anyone want to experience it?</p>
<p>If a Christian is on his or her deathbed, it is much more comforting to be able to give them a real idea of what awaits them on the other side of death. The process of dying is scary enough—let's not make heaven intimidating and unknowable also!</p>
<p>Instead, there are good reasons to think we should be able to picture some aspects of what heaven is like:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The biblical doctrine of the New Earth implies something startling: that if we want to know what the ultimate Heaven, our eternal home, will be like, the best place to start is by looking around us. We shouldn't close our eyes and try to imagine the unimaginable. We should open our eyes, because the present Earth is as much a valid reference point for envisioning the New Earth as our present bodies are a valid reference point for envisioning our new bodies. After all, we're living on the remnants of a perfect world, as the remnants of a perfect humanity. We shouldn't read into the New Earth anything that's wrong with this one, but can we not imagine what it would be like to be unhindered by disease and death? Can we not envision natural beauty untainted by destruction?.<cite>16</cite></span></p>
<p>This picture of heaven as a major improvement on this world is much less intimidating, and will give us something we can look forward to when we're having difficulties and suffering in this life. It also makes it easier for Christians to face death without fear.</p>
<h3>Fourth Problem: A Purely Spiritual Heaven Decreases Desire to Evangelize</h3>
<p>Alcorn writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn't exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence. If we believe that lie, we'll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we'll set our minds on this life and not the next, and we won't be motivated to share our faith. Why would we share the 'good news' that people can spend eternity in a boring, ghostly place that even <em>we're</em> not looking forward to?<cite>17</cite></span></p>
<p>Therefore, Christians who have a clear picture of what we can look forward to in heaven have much more motivation to evangelize to others.</p>
<p>For example, when we go to a really good restaurant, naturally, we tend to tell people how great it was and that they should go try it also. Or if we go on vacation, we describe it to others and say things like "You'd really like it there—you should go visit sometime!".</p>
<p>We should do the same for heaven; we should talk about how amazing it is going to be, and invite people to consider it themselves.</p>
<p>But the great thing about heaven is that unlike an expensive restaurant or an all-inclusive tropical resort, heaven is <em>TOTALLY FREE</em> for anyone to get into! Jesus paid the entry fee for us on the cross. Now all we need to do is to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believe in Jesus as our savior</a> who promises us eternal life!</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Easter shows us that the true Christians hope of eternal life involves physical resurrection, and life in a restored physical universe and Earth. Therefore, Christians can be extremely joyful, hopeful, and have the strength to endure this life, because we are looking forward to what God has promised for us, bought for us by Christ's death on the cross for our sins.</p>
<p>I would very much encourage all Christians to read Randy Alcorn's book <em>Heaven</em> (2004), because it is full of so much more detail and answers many questions, all from a very Biblical basis.</p>
<p>At times he is a little speculative, but the overall picture of heaven that he gives in his book is very inspiring and encouraging. It helped me personally get over the issues I had with believing heaven was going to be some boring, unearthly existence, and has helped inspire me to do all I can now in this life for God.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resurrection">"Resurrection"</a>, Merriam Webster.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> For a more detailed look at these ideas, see Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 57-60.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Justo L. Gonzalez, <em>The Story of Christianity</em>, Volume 1, Revised and Updated (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2010), 70-71.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 476-477, also 52.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 477.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 478.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 480-481, citing Anthony A. Hoekema, <em>The Bible and the Future</em> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 249.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 112.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 112.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 113.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 7. See also p.79-80, 114.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 79.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 6, citing John Eldredge, <em>The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life We've Only Dreamed Of</em> (Nashville: Nelson, 2000), 111.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 98-99, citing A. A. Hodge, <em>Evangelical Theology: A Course of Popular Lectures</em> (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 399-402.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 17.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 81.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 11.</li>
</ul>How Could Jesus Be Tempted?2019-04-17T00:00:00+00:002019-04-17T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-04-17:/article/how-could-jesus-be-tempted/<p>In the Easter story, Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane before he is about to be betrayed by Judas and arrested, brought to trial, and shortly thereafter, crucified.</p>
<p>All three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) record that when Jesus was in Gethsemane, he prayed,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Father, if you are willing …</span></p><p>In the Easter story, Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane before he is about to be betrayed by Judas and arrested, brought to trial, and shortly thereafter, crucified.</p>
<p>All three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) record that when Jesus was in Gethsemane, he prayed,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Luke 22:42)</span></span></p>
<p>But isn't this rather strange? Why does Jesus seem tempted to avoid God's plan for him to be crucified? Shouldn't Jesus automatically and instantly agree with God?</p>
<p>Since Christians have always accepted that Jesus was divine, why does it seem here that Jesus briefly has a different will than the will of the Father?</p>
<h2>Maximus the Confessor</h2>
<p>One of the early church theologians who addressed this issue was Maximus the Confessor, who lived in Constantinople from 580-662 A.D.<cite>1</cite> He is called "the Confessor", because this was a title given to early Christians who suffered for their faith but did not die for their faith, and thus were not considered to be martyrs.</p>
<p>At the time, although most theologians had agreed at previous Ecumenical Councils that Jesus had both a human nature and a divine nature, the question was how these two natures could be united into one person. One solution was to say Jesus only had one 'will'.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Because if Jesus had two wills, the reasoning went, then there was a chance that Jesus could sin, or at least, he would be torn in his decision making between his two wills.</p>
<p>We can imagine this sort of conflict if we picture a person with both a shopaholic 'will' and a frugal 'will' trying to choose whether to buy a new pair of shoes: </p>
<p>The shopaholic 'will' says "Yes, these are great, I love them, I <em>neeeed</em> them!"</p>
<p>The frugal 'will' says "No, we can't afford them, we already have tons of shoes at home!".</p>
<p>Since the two are equally matched, the debate goes on and on; "Yes!", "No!", "Yes!", "No", and the person who has these two wills struggling within themselves never actually makes any decision at all.</p>
<p>They may still be standing there when the shop turns off its lights and locks its doors.</p>
<p>Maximus insisted that Jesus did indeed have two wills: one human, and one divine. He saw Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane as the proof of his theory.</p>
<p>After all, Maximus argued, Jesus must have had a human will, if the human will can be saved.<cite>3</cite> This was based on Gregory of Nazianzus' earlier argument in 382-383 A.D. that "that which he [Jesus] has not assumed he has not healed; but that which is united to his Godhead is also saved."<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>Gregory was arguing against an earlier heresy which claimed that Jesus could not have had a truly human mind. Gregory said if Jesus did not have a human mind, then the human mind cannot be redeemed. This statement can be expanded to say that whatever humans have (a human soul, mind, body, spirit, will, etc.), Jesus also had, in order to redeem all parts of the human person.</p>
<p>So Maximus argued that Gethsemane shows Jesus had two wills.</p>
<p>But Gethsemane did <em>not</em> show that Jesus was using his 'divine' will (which was to accept his forthcoming suffering and death), to override or ignore his 'human' will (which was to not experience physical suffering and death). Instead, it just shows that Jesus was going through the process of <em>harmonizing</em> his two wills.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>Since Jesus was not sinful, there was never any question that he would ultimately choose to obey the Father's will (which is, in some way, his own will, for the Father and the Son (Jesus) are 'one' (John 10:30), even though they are distinct divine Persons—see John 6:38).</p>
<p>So what Gethsemane shows then is <em>not</em> that Jesus was considering disobeying God's will for his life (and thus, sinning), but that Jesus was experiencing the typical human decision process which requires time and deliberation to consider all options, our desires, our beliefs and values, and come to a final choice on how to act based on what we deem is 'best'.</p>
<p>Through this temporal human process of decision making, Jesus aligned his human will with his divine will. There was never a chance that his human will might not agree with his divine will. But to bring his human will into agreement with his divine will took time, because humans are temporal creatures.</p>
<p>So Jesus <em>did</em> have a real human fear of suffering and death, but he knew it was <em>best</em> to obey the Father, for the sake of humanity's eternal salvation.</p>
<p>I think the main difference between humans and God which makes humans prone to sin, is that unlike God who has infinite wisdom, humans do not inherently know what is 'best' for us, since we don't have a perfect understanding of the world and the likely consequences of all our actions. Thus, if we ignore God's guidance we can be misled into thinking something which is not good for us is actually the best thing to choose.</p>
<p>For example, Adam and Eve became convinced by the Serpent's lies that eating the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was actually going to lead to a better future for them than following God's will for their lives (Genesis 3:6). And they were horribly wrong.</p>
<p>Maximus' views were affirmed as correct at the Third Council of Constantinople in 680-681 A.D. But by then he had died a while after he had both his tongue and right hand cut off for being accused of wrongly teaching that Jesus had two wills.<cite>6</cite></p>
<h2>The Difference Between Temptation and Sin</h2>
<p>Based on the above, the idea that Jesus had two wills can then also make sense of how Jesus was 'tempted' in the desert by Satan (Mark 1:13, Matthew 4:1, Luke 4:1-2).</p>
<p>These temptations did not mean that Jesus might sin, for He is God, and God is perfectly holy and sinless.</p>
<p>Instead, again, Jesus had to go through the temporal human decision making process, which involved actually considering the ideas that Satan was proposing as a possible course of action, weighing the pros and cons of such action through rational and moral thought processes, and choosing which option was best. </p>
<p>Therefore, since Jesus never sinned (because if he did, then since death is the penalty for sin as in Romans 6:23 and Genesis 2:17, it would have meant Jesus would have been worthy of death himself, and could not have been the perfect atoning sacrifice for humanity's sin), we can say that temptation (i.e. considering the possibility of acting in a sinful way) is not the same as actual sin, and being tempted is not sinful in itself. For Jesus was tempted, but never sinned (Hebrews 4:15).</p>
<p>Therefore, since even Jesus was tempted by sin, we can be confident that even if we're tempted to do something sinful, it is not because we're such awful, sinful, corrupt humans, but it's because that's how the human decision making process works: an idea must first be considered before we choose whether to act that way or not. It is the <em>acting</em> on the idea that is sinful, not the considering of it.</p>
<p>In fact, it could be that one way to avoid sinning is to take the time to really carefully consider the temptation we're facing, and imagining the possible negative future consequences of giving in to that temptation, which should help discourage us from pursuing that course of action.</p>
<p>And ideally, as we gain more life experience, we should realize that sinning tends to lead to negative consequences, and learn to avoid it. Thus, in heaven, I think we'll finally see clearly how harmful sin is and we will have no desire to ever act in a sinful way ever again.</p>
<h2>Jonathan Edwards on God's Foreknowledge and Jesus' Sinless Choices</h2>
<p>Since I'm studying Edwards for my PhD dissertation, I just wanted to add a little about his views on this issue.</p>
<p>One rather weird argument in Jonathan Edwards' book <em>Freedom of the Will</em> for why God must have perfect foreknowledge of the future, is the claim that God had to <em>foreknow</em> that Jesus would not sin, in order to accurately foretell all the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah's future success at redeeming the world from sin.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Edwards uses this idea to support his overall argument that 'determined' actions which could not have turned out otherwise can still be done 'freely' and are worthy to be praised or blamed and punished or rewarded.</p>
<p>Edwards said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Hence that great promise and oath of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so much celebrated in Scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New, namely, "that in their seed all the nations and families of the earth should be blessed," must be made on uncertainties, if God does not certainly foreknow the Volitions of moral Agents. For the fulfillment of this promise consists in that success of Christ in the work of redemption, and that setting up of his spiritual kingdom over the nations of the world, which has been spoken of.<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>So it seems that Edwards has some underlying fear that if God did not <em>foreknow</em> that Jesus would succeed in his mission as the Messiah, and if Jesus had the same sort of non-deterministic free will that all humans have, then there would be a chance that Jesus could fail:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If it was possible for Christ to have failed of doing the Will of his Father, and so to have failed of effectually working out redemption for sinners, then the salvation of all the saints, who were saved from the beginning of the world, to the death of Christ, was not built on a firm foundation.<cite>9</cite></span></p>
<p>Therefore, if God was not entirely confident that Jesus would resist temptations to sin and freely choose to die on the cross for our sins, then all God's promises of salvation were uncertain.</p>
<p>However, it seems that Edwards puts more emphasis on God's <em>foreknowledge</em> than on Jesus's <em>divine nature</em> as his method to explain how God can prophesy/promise that the Messiah would actually succeed.</p>
<p>Edwards did correctly say that</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The same thing is evident from all the promises which God made to the Messiah, of his future glory, kingdom, and success, in his office and character of a Mediator: which glory could not have been obtained, if his holiness had failed, and he had been guilty of sin. God's absolute promise makes the things promised necessary, and their failing to take place absolutely impossible<cite>10</cite></span></p>
<p>Open theists (who believe it is impossible for anyone, even God, to foreknow the outcome of a free human choice) would certainly agree with Edwards that if God promises he will achieve something in the future then it <em>does</em> make it impossible that these things should not happen.</p>
<p>But, open theists say this is because God is omnipotent and flexible, like a master-chess player who can coordinate for these things to happen, even without having perfect foreknowledge of future free choices of all humans. You can read more about this in my post on <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/open-theism-and-bible-prophecy/">open theism and Bible prophecy</a>.</p>
<p>Based on Maximus's arguments above, open theists can say that because of Jesus's perfect divine nature which included a perfectly holy divine will, God could still confidently guarantee that Jesus would not sin and would fulfill all the requirements to be the Messiah <em>even without</em> perfectly foreknowing the future!</p>
<p>And thus, open theists can completely agree with all the scriptural citations Edwards lists about the necessity of the Messiah's success, but without having to endorse the philosophically difficult idea that God foreknows all future 'free' actions.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So Jesus's prayer in Gethsemane is actually quite useful theologically. From it, we can see that Jesus was in fact fully human, even down to the human decision making process he had to go through, just like any of us do.</p>
<p>Also, we see that Jesus was actually tempted, because he had genuine human desires which made sin appealing. Yet because he was perfectly holy, he never failed to align his human will with his divine will. Thus, when we're tempted, we can know that we do not <em>have</em> to yield to temptation, even if we do have to spend time in a decision making process which considers the tempting idea and the possible outcomes from such an idea.</p>
<p>And finally, Maximus provides one more argument which can support the open theist idea that God <em>does not</em> need perfect foreknowledge in order to bring his promises about the Messiah's success to fulfillment. Instead, we can trust that Jesus' divine nature was enough to ensure he would not sin and would fulfill God's will by dying for our sins to show us God's love:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 John 4:10, NRSV)</span></span></p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Stephen Need, <em>Truly Divine & Truly Human</em> (Boston, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 123.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Stephen Need, <em>Truly Divine & Truly Human</em> (Boston, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 121.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Stephen Need, <em>Truly Divine & Truly Human</em> (Boston, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 125.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Gregory Nazianzen, "Epistle 101 To Cledonius against Apollinaris", in <em>Church and Society in Documents, 100-600 A.D.</em>, ed. Alan L. Hayes (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press, 1995), 153. Hayes notes this letter was written around 382-383 A.D. (p.149).</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Stephen Need, <em>Truly Divine & Truly Human</em> (Boston, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 125.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Stephen Need, <em>Truly Divine & Truly Human</em> (Boston, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 123.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em> (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012), 120-132 (Part III, Section 2).</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em> (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012), 93.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em> (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012), 127.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <em>Freedom of the Will</em> (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2012), 122.</li>
</ul>How Suffering Is Useful For Christians2019-03-27T00:00:00+00:002019-03-27T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-03-27:/article/how-suffering-is-useful-for-Christians/<p>There are some mysterious verses about suffering in the Bible, and how that suffering is possibly useful or even beneficial to Christians.</p>
<p>For example, in Romans 8:16-18 Paul writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs …</span></p><p>There are some mysterious verses about suffering in the Bible, and how that suffering is possibly useful or even beneficial to Christians.</p>
<p>For example, in Romans 8:16-18 Paul writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.</span></p>
<p>So somehow, it seems, suffering is linked to being glorified with Christ.</p>
<p>I could always agree with the latter portion of this verse—that heaven will outweigh any suffering we have in this life. But the first part was perplexing.</p>
<p>During a theology discussion group, one of my friends commented that Christians often interpret the sufferings mentioned in this verse as being related <em>only</em> to the suffering we experience <em>specifically</em> because of being Christians. So basically, "suffering with Christ" only included suffering persecution for believing in Jesus.</p>
<p>But my friend said that he thinks the sufferings mentioned in this verse can include <em>any</em> sort of suffering that Christians experience in this life.</p>
<p>At first, I thought this was strange. It seemed like he was trying to be too generous, or to make Christians feel like there was some sort of <em>purpose</em> behind even the minor sufferings we all experience in day-to-day life, instead of these simply being the results of living in a sinful fallen world.</p>
<p>But after further reflection, I think I agree with him. So in this post I want to discuss two ways that suffering—any suffering at all—in this life, can be useful and beneficial for Christians.</p>
<h2>Suffering and Heavenly Rewards</h2>
<p>First, we should remember that Christians will be rewarded for the good works we do in this life. Heavenly rewards are a large part of the <em>Free Grace</em> movement's theology regarding sanctification.<cite>1</cite> If you're interested, I've written more about heavenly rewards <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/avoid-comparing-ministries-or-gifts/">here</a>.</p>
<p>1 Corinthians 3:10-15 teaches that our works will be judged by Christ, not to determine if we receive eternal life (because eternal life is based only on having faith in Christ as our Savior), but for eternal heavenly rewards. Whatever was worthy of heavenly reward will endure God's judgment and is represented as gold and jewels, but whatever we did in our lives that was unworthy or was just an utter waste of time, will be "burned up" and does not earn any heavenly rewards. See also 2 Corinthians 5:9-10.</p>
<p>So then, once this evaluation of our works is complete, we will be left with a metaphorical pile of heavenly rewards, larger or smaller, depending on our lives. This is our "heavenly treasure" (Matthew 6:19-21).</p>
<p>Scripture hints that these rewards may be expressed as different levels of ruling privileges with Christ on the New Earth (Luke 19:16-19; Matthew 25:21-23), or maybe other rewards we can't even imagine now. Even if it doesn't seem like we want this responsibility now, Randy Alcorn points out that ruling will not be stressful but will be a joy, for we will have improved minds and bodies, and will live in a perfect society of love.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>So the Bible's teaching about heavenly rewards encourages us to make the best use of our lives now, by not resisting the Holy Spirit's prompting and enabling to overcome sin and become more like Christ, which will then enable us to do the things God has called us and enabled us to do (Ephesians 2:10), for which we will be eternally rewarded.</p>
<p>I had already discussed that heavenly rewards are one reason why Christians should not cut their lives short by suicide <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/protestant-purgatory/">in this post</a>.</p>
<p>But then I realized that heavenly rewards can also make sense of Romans 8:16-18. Let's look at it again:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.</span></p>
<p>By Christians continuing to go about their Father's business and doing all the good things God calls them to do in this life, this will inherently involve experiencing and tolerating some various sorts of suffering. Because the only way in this life to avoid all suffering is to die and go be with Jesus, but death also ends the time we have to do good works that earn heavenly rewards.</p>
<p>Paul, for example, says that he would rather die and go to be with Christ which is "far better" than staying in this sinful world, but he will stay because he knows he can be a benefit to the early church and do "fruitful labour" for God (Philippians 1:21-24).</p>
<p>So by continuing to be a Christian in the world, if we're doing the things that God wants us to do, then the suffering that we endure as a by-product of being in this sinful world and in these weak bodies is contributing to the amazing heavenly rewards we will have for eternity.</p>
<p>Therefore, all Christians can be confident that if we're serving God, none of our suffering is pointless or useless. Instead, enduring it will contribute to the glory we will experience in heaven.</p>
<p>By experiencing suffering in this life while attempting to do God's work, we are in some small way like Christ, who also suffered while accomplishing God's work in this world. Since all Christians make up the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 12:27, Romans 12:4-5), which continues Christ's work in the world, then in some way, our suffering is indeed part of Christ's suffering, which God uses to reconcile the world to Himself.</p>
<p>This seems strange, but I think this is why Scripture often counts it as an honor or privilege to suffer for Christ, and says we should rejoice in it. For example, Colossians 1:24 and 1 Peter 4:13.</p>
<h2>Sources of Christian Suffering</h2>
<p>So what sort of sufferings are included in our Christian experience, which become part of suffering with Christ, and which contribute somehow to our future glory?</p>
<h3>Persecution</h3>
<p>It includes overt persecution we may face for standing firm in our beliefs despite the world's judgment.</p>
<p>Persecution can come in minor forms such as being thought of as eccentric, strange, old-fashioned, or an oddball for not participating in some of the things the world thinks are normal, or standing up for what you believe is right (Matthew 5:10), or being insulted for Christ (1 Peter 4:14, Matthew 5:11-12, Luke 6:22).</p>
<p>But it might involve being tortured or even being killed for being a Christian (Luke 12:4, John 16:2), such as what those in the early church experienced and which Christians elsewhere in the world today experience.</p>
<h3>Missions or Evangelism</h3>
<p>It includes the suffering that comes as part of spreading the gospel.</p>
<p>For example, Paul talks about all the suffering he endured in his missionary trips, such as: beatings, imprisonment, whipping, stoning, shipwreck, potential dangers, sleeplessness, hunger, thirst, cold, and anxiety (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). </p>
<p>But this can also include the 'suffering' of spending time volunteering at church or with other Christian groups who spread the gospel, rather than having more leisure time. Or maybe the 'suffering' of giving up your summer vacation to go on a mission trip.</p>
<p>Yet this does not exclude those who cannot physically go evangelize others. Even people who may be so ill or disabled that they can't do anything in the external world can still make a difference by praying for others. Being bedridden or living in a nursing home doesn't mean your ability to serve God is gone. Instead, prayer is a critical part of fighting against the powers of evil, supporting other Christians, and praying for more people to come to faith in Christ.</p>
<h3>Groaning for our Bodily Redemption</h3>
<p>It includes the "groaning" that all Christians experience as we live in this world while waiting for our bodies to be redeemed (Romans 8:23), when we will receive the new strong, perfect, and eternal bodies God promises we will have (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 5:1-5).</p>
<p>This bodily suffering would include illnesses, injuries, disabilities, hunger, thirst, and any other sort of physical or mental suffering we experience in daily life.</p>
<h3>Enduring A Sinful World</h3>
<p>And it includes the spiritual suffering we experience from having to endure the sinfulness of those around us.</p>
<p>For example, when Lot lived in Sodom he was "greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)" (2 Peter 2:7-8).</p>
<p>That sounds like suffering to me. This is a great encouragement when I am so disappointed and frustrated with the stupidity, hypocrisy, and outright evil that is present in our society.</p>
<h3>Suffering from our Sins</h3>
<p>However, I think it is correct to say that the suffering which contributes to our glorification does not automatically include any suffering that we bring on ourselves due to our sins (1 Peter 4:15-16).</p>
<p>It could be true that by experiencing the suffering we bring on ourselves, if we repent and get back to pursuing God's will for us, then any suffering we endure (even if originally caused by our own sin) will become purposeful again.</p>
<p>In itself, the suffering from our sins may only be useful to convince us to not repeat that sin. Yet even this can be helpful to our spiritual progress, for it shows us that sin only leads to suffering, and thus, helps us give it up, which in turn makes us more like Christ and able to serve Him better.</p>
<h2>Soul-Making Suffering</h2>
<p>There is a second way that suffering may benefit Christians.</p>
<p>There is an approach to theodicy (i.e. explaining why God allows evil in this world) which Richard Rice calls the <em>soul-making theodicy</em>.</p>
<p>This is the view that suffering and facing challenges are necessary to help us grow into the people we are meant to become by developing godly character. This approach is especially promoted by John Hick.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>Hick argues that, for example, if we lived in a world where no one suffered, we would never learn how to have compassion for others. Or if there was no danger to ourselves or others, then there would be no need for courage. Other important character traits we develop in response to challenges and suffering may be virtues like patience, determination, or persistence.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>We find this idea hinted at in Romans 5:3-5:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.</span></p>
<p>Again, this is a somewhat mysterious verse. But it does say that suffering has some beneficial effect on our character.</p>
<p>I am not convinced that the soul-making theodicy can explain <em>all</em> suffering and evil in the world. I think there are many other aspects to why there is evil in the world and why we suffer, such as spiritual warfare, the post-Fall condition of both humanity and nature, and misuse of the God-given gift of free will.</p>
<p>And unfortunately, the soul-making theodicy implies that God <em>needed</em> Adam and Eve to sin, in order to lead to a world of suffering, so that God could produce people of godly character through it. This makes sin and evil a necessary part of God's plan for the world, but the Bible does not support this.</p>
<p>But it is true that God can make use of evil and suffering to produce good, so that all things can be said to work together for the good of those who love God (Romans 8:28), including evil and suffering, even if we don't understand how.</p>
<p>This doesn't mean evil or suffering is ever God's original intention for anyone, but God can redeem even these things and find some sort of good that can be brought out of them.</p>
<p>For example, learning to endure some minor suffering can make us ready if we need to endure worse suffering in the future. Patient endurance of suffering is encouraged in James 5:10. </p>
<p>How we endure suffering can be a witness to non-Christians about our faith, for they will be curious about how we can have a positive attitude despite our suffering, instead of becoming bitter, complaining constantly, or wallowing in self-pity.</p>
<p>Learning to endure suffering can also help us not fall away from faith if persecution comes. A person is instantly and permanently given eternal life the moment they first believe in Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14), but this doesn't mean they cannot fall away from faith and thereby miss out on some heavenly rewards.</p>
<p>Some Free Grace proponents argue that only those who persevere in faith to the end of their lives will be rewarded with special ruling privileges with Christ (e.g. 2 Timothy 2:11-13),<cite>5</cite> and if so, then developing the character that allows us to endure potential suffering and persecution is important to avoid falling away if times get tough.</p>
<p>Suffering is also useful to become better disciples of Christ. If we never learned to endure anything that was even mildly unpleasant, it would be very difficult to be a Christian. For example, even developing the character that is committed to waking up early to make it to church every Sunday, whether we feel like it or not, is useful for Christians, so that we can hear the pastor's sermon and worship with fellow Christians, and so be built up in our faith.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>These are just a few of my thoughts on how suffering is indeed useful for Christians. For by living in this world despite suffering, we can be useful to God in continuing the work of Christ in the world, and the rewards God gives for this service will last forever.</p>
<p>This patient endurance also builds our character which makes us ready to face whatever is ahead of us in life, and to develop important virtues which makes us better suited to God's purposes for our lives.</p>
<p>Therefore, <em>all</em> suffering can have some purpose in Christians' lives, and we can trust that if we're pursuing God's will, then our suffering is contributing to the future glory we will experience in heaven.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_grace_theology">"Free Grace Theology"</a>, Wikipedia.org</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Randy Alcorn, <em>Heaven</em> (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 220-221.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Richard Rice, "No Pain, No Gain: Soul Making Theodicy" in <em>Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 57-73.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong>Richard Rice, <em>Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 67. Unfortunately, Hick's views are not really orthodox, because he says that we live a succession of lives until we develop enough spiritual maturity to be united with God, and says mistakes are a necessary part of this world and God's purposes for people to grow, instead of evil and suffering being a result of Adam and Eve's first sin (Rice, 67-71).</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/is-perseverance-required-for-holy-presentation-colossians-121-23/">"Is Perseverance Required for Holy Presentation? Colossians 1:21-23"</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog, July 15, 2016. Accessed March 18, 2019.</li>
</ul>Theodicy as a Criteria for Theology2019-03-07T00:00:00+00:002019-03-07T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-03-07:/article/theodicy-as-criteria-for-theology/<p>In an earlier post, I talked about why I'm interested in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-theodicy/">theodicy</a>. Theodicy is the attempt to defend God's goodness despite all the evil and suffering in the world.</p>
<p>In this post, I want to talk more about how theodicy is one criteria I use to determine some of my …</p><p>In an earlier post, I talked about why I'm interested in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-theodicy/">theodicy</a>. Theodicy is the attempt to defend God's goodness despite all the evil and suffering in the world.</p>
<p>In this post, I want to talk more about how theodicy is one criteria I use to determine some of my theological positions.</p>
<p>I agree with David and Randall Basinger when they argue that theodicy is one of the most important factors to consider when discerning the superiority of rival theological systems.<cite>1</cite> But I use theodicy not just to judge between whole theological systems, but even when choosing between alternative points of view on specific theological topics.</p>
<p>I will discuss some examples of how my desire to uphold God's perfect goodness has affected my theological points of view, as examples of how theodicy is a helpful criteria to use when doing Christian theology.</p>
<h2>My Trust and Love for God</h2>
<p>The reason I am so adamant that theodicy should be a major factor in Christian theology is because it has been a major issue in my personal spiritual life. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have had to work hard at straightening out my beliefs about God by rejecting any ideas about God which imply that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-theodicy/">God is not perfectly good or loving</a>, and I'm still working on this.</p>
<p>I need to know that God is absolutely, 100%, fully loving, good, and perfect, with no hint or trace or shadow of evil in him at all. This is the only way that I can personally love and trust God, and worship him.</p>
<p>I need to know that God never lies (Titus 1:2), that God is pure goodness, holiness, and light (1 John 1:5, James 1:17), that God <em>is</em> love (1 John 4:8, 4:16), that God's eyes are too pure to look on evil (Habakkuk 1:13) and that evil has never even entered his mind (Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5). I need to know that God only wants what is best for me, and for everyone else, always.</p>
<p>Because if there was even the tiniest chance that God might actually <em>want</em> evil to happen, for people to suffer, or for some people to not be saved, then it opens up the chance that He might want those things to happen <em>to me</em>. And how can I completely love and trust someone who might just want to inflict evil on me, make me suffer, or send me to hell? I could attempt to force myself to 'submit' to such a God, but I could not fully trust myself to Him or love Him.</p>
<p>Therefore, in order to uphold the conviction that God is worthy of my love and trust, I need to take theological positions which keep God as far away from being the 'positive' or 'active' cause of evil and suffering as theologically and Biblically possible.</p>
<h2>Rejecting Predestination</h2>
<p>I can't accept the idea that God ever predestines anyone to not believe in him. This just doesn't match with what a truly good and loving God, who claims he <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">wants everyone to be saved</a> would do (e.g., 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9).</p>
<p>I agree with Jerry Walls who says that a God who predestines anyone to hell "does begin to look like the perfect conception of wickedness rather than the exemplification of perfect goodness."<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, the only reason why people are not saved must be because of their own free will. And, they must legitimately have had an opportunity to believe as well as the ability to believe, if they had chosen to do so. Because otherwise, they could not be properly held responsible for their choice not to believe.</p>
<p>As Walls says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Without libertarian freedom, it is difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of the claim that some are damned even though God wishes to save all people. For if human beings are not free in the libertarian sense, it would seem to follow that if God wishes to save all, then all in fact will be saved. For if freedom is compatible with determinism, then God could save everyone and do it in such a way that everyone would freely choose salvation.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>And if freedom is compatible with determinism but God chooses <em>not</em> to save everyone (even though he very easily could apply that 'irresistible grace' to their hearts which <em>causes</em> them to believe and be saved), then we're back to the earlier problem of God actually desiring some people to go to hell. As I've discussed previously, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">Jonathan Edwards' excuse for why God <em>must</em> predestine most people to hell</a> (to increase the happiness of those in heaven) is bizarre and nonsensical.</p>
<p>So therefore, I believe that God is <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">constantly drawing people to himself through the work of the Holy Spirit</a> who enables people to make a genuinely free choice to believe in Jesus and be saved (even if we do not naturally have this ability, due to our inherited sinfulness).</p>
<p>I also believe that God truly does want everyone to be eternally saved, and therefore, everyone will get one last chance to hear the gospel and believe in Jesus at the final judgment, if they did not do so during their lives. For more on my argument for why I believe this is true, see my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">theory of Christian inclusivism</a>.</p>
<h2>But Not Universalism</h2>
<p>So you might wonder: why not opt for universalism, in order to uphold God's goodness even more? Why not say that no one will be ultimately destroyed, but <em>everyone</em> will sooner or later choose to love God and be saved?</p>
<p>While it would be ideal for everyone to freely choose to be saved, if God has given us genuine free will, I'm convinced that God cannot force people to be saved. I would not want to worship a God or love a God who says "You <em>will</em> love me, sooner or later, whether you want to or not." That's not love; that's bullying.</p>
<p>If God somehow <em>forced</em> anyone to love God apart from their own free choice, then they would be brainwashed, or coerced, or pressured into 'loving' God. In which case, it's not truly love at all, anymore than programming a computer to output "I love you" is real love. Thus, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">free will is necessary for love to be possible</a>.</p>
<p>This reasoning is also why I'm opposed to any deterministic views which say that God simply <em>gives</em> people faith, apart from any free choice they make, by using <em>irresistible grace</em> which causes a person to believe in Jesus or love God.</p>
<h2>Creationism</h2>
<p>Theodicy is one factor which influenced my change of mind from theistic evolution to young-earth creationism.</p>
<p>Theistic evolution says that God created all life through the processes of evolution (some process which adds new information to DNA to create new lifeforms) and natural selection (the survival of only those lifeforms which are compatible with their environment and can defend themselves against other lifeforms).</p>
<p>But, this means God actually <em>intended</em> nature to be 'red in tooth and claw'. The suffering of animals as they starve to death, are eaten by others, are infected by parasites, or die from diseases, is supposedly not actually 'evil' at all, theistic evolutionists say, but is just an unavoidable byproduct of how God chose to create the world.</p>
<p>Theistic evolution means that the perfection of the Garden of Eden would have been a result of billions of years of death and suffering of creatures struggling to exist and reproduce, and then dying off. The fossil record as interpreted by evolutionists shows that cancer in animals and animals killing and eating one another occurred far before any humans were around.<cite>4</cite> (In contrast, young-earth Creationists say these fossils were made during Noah's worldwide flood, and show the effects of a sin-filled world.)</p>
<p>But I cannot accept that a perfectly good and omnipotent God <em>had</em> to create through this horribly destructive, and wasteful process, where most life-forms that have ever existed have been wiped out by natural selection, and those that did survive did so only through a process that involved enormous amounts of suffering, for millions and millions of years.</p>
<p>A perfectly good God would not willingly choose to use this method if a less destructive method were available. Plus, a truly omnipotent God would not be limited by anything which would make choosing such a destructive method necessary.</p>
<p>Natural selection involves the 'strong' creatures surviving at the expense of the 'weak'. Yet this is actually contrary to <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">how God commands people to behave</a> towards the weakest in our societies—the poor, ill, orphans, and widows (Exodus 22:22, Deuteronomy 10:18, 24:19, 24:21, 27:19, Leviticus 19:10, 25:35, Ezekiel 34:4).</p>
<p>If natural selection is such a useful tool that God uses to create and improve species, then why shouldn't it apply to humanity as well, to make us better and stronger by letting the weakest members die off and not burden the strong?</p>
<p>Theistic evolution would mean God has one rule for nature and the totally opposite rules for human behavior, which doesn't make sense.</p>
<p>It makes much more sense to me to say that all these things such as animal suffering, disease, parasites, and predation are not what a perfectly good and loving God intended, but are a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, which caused all nature to be subject to futility (Romans 8:20, Genesis 3:17-18).</p>
<p>Additionally, the Bible shows that God does care for the smallest creatures (Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6) and wants them to have food and to survive (Matthew 6:26), and so saying that God is indifferent to animal suffering is not Biblical.</p>
<h2>Annihilationism</h2>
<p>I have written another post about why I am convinced that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation is the correct understanding of hell</a>.</p>
<p>Even though I had previously been told that the eternal conscious torment of the damned in hell was Biblical, it always seemed strange to me how a perfectly good and loving God could do such a thing.</p>
<p>If God wants us to genuinely love him, it's very difficult to feel genuine love for someone who threatens to inflict unimaginable suffering on you if you don't love him!</p>
<p>Does it really make sense for God, who is perfect love (1 John 4:8), to say to humanity "Love me, or I'll torture you forever!"? In what human relationship would that be acceptable? And if it's not acceptable on that level, why would it be acceptable in a divine-human relationship? Is this really how the God who is perfectly revealed in Jesus would act?</p>
<p>Jerry Walls says many theologians have given up on the traditional view of hell because:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">the doctrine is widely regarded to be morally indefensible. As such, the doctrine is an integral part of the most serious difficulty posed for traditional theism, namely, the problem of evil.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>Instead, hell as annihilation is much more compatible with God's perfectly loving and holy nature. If God is perfect love and the source of all life, and who upholds all things in existence, then those who reject God are effectively rejecting their own existence. So God gives them what they have chosen: non-existence.</p>
<p>I was extremely relieved to find out that annihilation is not only a better understanding of hell which can uphold God's perfectly loving nature better than eternal conscious torment does, but it is actually more Biblical than eternal conscious torment is.</p>
<p>This means I no longer have to worry about trying to love a God who plans to torture my unbelieving friends and family forever. Instead, God does what is good and just and will utterly destroy and wipe out anyone who is finally opposed to Him, and then goodness and love will be all that remains, eternally.</p>
<h2>Open Theism</h2>
<p>I wrote my Master of Theological Studies thesis on theodicy in Open Theism, and whether Open Theism is a better solution to theodicy than the alternatives (Arminanism or Calvinism). You can download a free .pdf of my thesis by clicking <a href="/file/Janelle_Zeeb_MTS_Thesis.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<p>I concluded that Open Theism is indeed better than both of these alternatives, because in Open Theism not only does God never determine or cause evil to happen, but he also <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/open-theism-and-bible-prophecy/">doesn't even perfectly foreknow what evil will happen in the future</a>. The problem is that if God did perfectly foreknow that evil will definitely happen in the future, then that evil becomes unavoidable, because nothing can change God's foreknowledge.</p>
<p>For example, the question "Why would God create Hitler and allow him to live, if God foreknew what Hitler would do?" is unexplainable by those who claim God has perfect foreknowledge of the future. They must appeal to the typical deterministic answer that God knew this evil was necessary for a greater good purpose (e.g. the re-establishment of the state of Israel?).</p>
<p>But this question is more easily answerable by Open Theists, by saying that God did not certainly foreknow what Hitler would do. God might have had a very good idea of what Hitler <em>wanted</em> to do, or how Hitler's character was being formed in ways that might lead to hatred of the Jews and others, but it was not foreknown as a certainty by God. Therefore, it could have been avoided.</p>
<p>Open Theism says that God gives people genuine free will to either choose to love God or not, and to make a real difference in how events unfold in the world. God cannot give freedom and then take it back when we use it in ways He disapproves of, or it's not really freedom.</p>
<p>Of course, the extent of each person's freedom may vary, and no one has absolute freedom, but the point is that if God desires for us to make genuinely free choices to influence the world, then God cannot take away all our freedom.</p>
<p>I can accept that there may be times when God does override someone's freedom, but if He does so, then that person is not held morally responsible for that action. And God could only do so in order to cause a person to do good (never evil).</p>
<h2>But Not Process Theology</h2>
<p>However, given my concern to keep God as separate from evil as possible, some may ask: why not opt for Process Theology?</p>
<p>This is the approach of Thomas J. Oord in his book <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (2015). He dislikes the Arminian or Open Theist positions that God allows suffering to occur which otherwise God could prevent. </p>
<p>So for example, Oord tells the story of a woman who is horribly raped by gangs and suffers severe injuries that cause pain for the rest of her life. Oord thinks it is better for Christians to say that God did not want this to happen but <em>could not</em> prevent it, because a God of pure love would never allow any evil that He could prevent.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Oord argues that it's better to say God gives all creation real, irrevocable freedom and <em>never</em> takes it away, even when free creatures use it to do evil, or when the freedom inherent in creation leads to negative consequences like natural disasters.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>And because God is spirit and does not have a body, God literally <em>cannot</em> override all evil since God can't physically intervene in the world, but must influence others to intervene on His behalf, if they so choose.<cite>8</cite> So if people disobey God, there's nothing God can really do about it.</p>
<p>But to me, this is not a viable solution. If God is unwilling or unable to ever stop evil apart from creaturely cooperation, then there is no hope that God will ever fully triumph over evil or be able to achieve his promised New Heaven and New Earth where there will be no evil (Revelation 21:1-4).</p>
<p>I would rather believe that God is omnipotent and thus <em>can</em> hinder, prevent, or ultimately destroy any or all instances of evil, but because of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-god-does-not-prevent-more-evil/">various good reasons</a>, he chooses not to do so until the final judgment (Revelation 20:12-13).</p>
<h2>Why A Perfectly Good and Loving God Allows Evil</h2>
<p>One of the best arguments for why God allows evil to exist temporarily is because if he did not, he would have to wipe out all humanity. If God did not tolerate the existence of sin and evil at all, he would have had to wipe out Adam and Eve the moment they sinned, thus, ending humanity. It is because of God's love and mercy that he does not do so, even though he could have, and he would have been <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">entirely righteous in doing so</a>.</p>
<p>Some argue that God should prevent the worst evils from happening, if he could. Why does God have to allow <em>so much</em> and <em>such awful</em> things to happen in the world?</p>
<p>Let's imagine that God does intervene to prevent the worst moral evils. Things like the Holocaust, genocides, and the massacres under Stalin and Mao do not occur because God prevents them.</p>
<p>Then, since we would be unaware of these worst evils that God prevented, we would demand that he also prevent the next-worst moral evils that we see occurring. This would continue in a cycle until we would expect God to prevent <em>all</em> moral evil.</p>
<p>But to prevent every instance of evil, would mean God would have to override all free will, so that no moral choices would be possible. Therefore, it is understandable that God does not prevent all moral evil (even if God actually may have prevented worse evils that we are unaware of), because to prevent all evil would override all free will.</p>
<p>And if God overrides all free will, we become puppets or programmed robots who only do what God commands. But if what God wants most is for people to freely love him, then we need free will. Without free will which gives us <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">the option of saying "no" to God</a>, our love for God would be totally meaningless to him.</p>
<p>So I think there are good reasons why Christians can say that a perfectly good God does allow sin, evil, and suffering temporarily, even though God <em>could</em> prevent these things. Yet He could not do so without destroying the very <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">reason why God created the world</a> in the first place: to participate in more loving relationships.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So these are several ways that I have used the criteria of theodicy to help me discern which theological points of view I believe are most acceptable.</p>
<p>I hope I've demonstrated that this is a reasonable way of doing Christian theology, and should not be surprising to Christians, for Christians all agree that God is perfect goodness and love, and so any idea which contradicts this cannot be theologically correct.</p>
<p>But, as shown, if we try to go too far with our ideas of how a perfectly good and loving God would act, then there start to become other negative theological consequences, such as:</p>
<ol>
<li>Removing people's ability to reject God (i.e., universalism).</li>
<li>Removing the guarantee that one day God will utterly destroy all evil (i.e., process theology). </li>
</ol>
<p>These two positions listed above cause just as many problems for theodicy as they solve.</p>
<p>Therefore, even if it is still partly a mystery why a perfectly good and loving God allows evil in this world, I think there are ways to justify God's ways in relation to this fallen world which minimize the problem, and which are compatible with scripture.</p>
<p>Yet ultimately, we can look forward to the day when evil will be utterly destroyed, and then only goodness and love will exist forever and ever, making any evil experienced in this lifetime infinitely negligible for those who will live eternally with God.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> David Basinger and Randall Basinger, "Theodicy: A Comparative Analysis," in <em>Semper Reformandum: Studies in Honour of Clark H. Pinnock</em>, eds. Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (Carlisle, Paternoster Press, 2003), 144.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 36.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 39.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Calvin Smith, <a href="https://creation.com/is-cancer-very-good">"Is cancer 'very good'?"</a>, Creation Ministries International, December 30, 2014.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Hell: The Logic of Damnation</em> (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 3.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Thomas J. Oord, <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 140-143.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Thomas J. Oord, <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015)169-175.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Thomas J. Oord, <em>The Uncontrolling Love of God</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015) 176-180.</li>
</ul>Open Theism and Bible Prophecy2019-02-19T00:00:00+00:002019-02-19T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-02-19:/article/open-theism-and-bible-prophecy/<p>I came across a book chapter titled "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge" by C. Samuel Storms.<cite>1</cite> Storms tries to use Jonathan Edwards' arguments about God's foreknowledge to refute open theism.</p>
<p>Since I wrote my Master of Theological Studies thesis on …</p><p>I came across a book chapter titled "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge" by C. Samuel Storms.<cite>1</cite> Storms tries to use Jonathan Edwards' arguments about God's foreknowledge to refute open theism.</p>
<p>Since I wrote my Master of Theological Studies thesis on open theism, and I am now studying Edwards for my PhD, this is something that caught my attention.</p>
<p>Storms argues that God <em>needs</em> perfect foreknowledge of the future in order for God to fulfill Biblical prophecy, and therefore, open theism can't possibly be true.</p>
<p>However, in this post I will argue that Storms is mistaken, and also that the open theist approach to Bible prophecy actually glorifies God's omnipotence more than if God had perfect foreknowledge of the future.</p>
<h2>A Short Introduction to Open Theism</h2>
<p>Open theism is the view that God does not have absolutely perfect foreknowledge of the future.</p>
<p>Open theists say this is because it is impossible for anyone (including God) to foreknow the outcome of a genuinely free choice.</p>
<p>This is because open theists say that if God perfectly foreknows how I will behave, then even if to me it <em>appears</em> that I could act in a variety of ways, this is only an illusion, for I actually <em>must</em> act exactly in the way that God foreknows I will act. I cannot do anything else, or it would mean that God's foreknowledge was wrong. So for a choice to be genuinely free, it cannot be perfectly foreknown by God.</p>
<p>And our choices must be genuinely free, in order for people to be morally responsible for them, and praised or blamed accordingly.</p>
<p>(Arminians would disagree with this argument, but both open theists and divine determinists like Storms and Edwards agree with the above claims.)</p>
<p>Sometimes open theism is portrayed as saying God has absolutely <em>no idea</em> about the future, but this portrayal is false. God knows the purposes he intends to achieve, and his final goals for history.</p>
<p>Open theists can say that God has perfect knowledge of everything as it is in the present, including things that humans are unaware of, and so God can make much more accurate predictions than humans can. Plus, God can perfectly predict all the things that do not depend on free choice, such as things subject to the laws of physics.</p>
<p>Also, God is the most intelligent being there is, who knows the intimate details of our inner hearts and minds, and thus, God has a very good idea about what we may be most likely to do.<cite>2</cite> For example, he might know I'm 20% likely to have soup for dinner, but 80% likely to have spaghetti instead. Or 10% likely to cheat on a test, but 90% likely to not cheat.</p>
<p>So open theists can say that just because <em>humans</em> aren't all that good at accurately predicting the future doesn't mean <em>God</em> is not very good at doing so, even if there is still the potential for God to be 'surprised'.</p>
<p>This doesn't mean God is 'surprised' in the sense that something happens that God was entirely unprepared for. Instead it just means that something happens that God thought was less likely to happen, but he still knew it was a possibility.</p>
<p>So that's a brief introduction into the main points of open theism.</p>
<h2>Does God Need Foreknowledge?</h2>
<p>The main question in this post is whether God <em>needs</em> perfect foreknowledge in order to fulfill his goals and promises for how the future will turn out.</p>
<p>Although, this claim that God needs foreknowledge to know what people will do so that he can direct the future accordingly is actually kind of bizarre. Since, if God already knows how things <em>will</em> turn out, then it seems that even God is powerless to change the future that He foreknows <em>will</em> happen, and so foreknowledge does not give Him any extra control over things.</p>
<p>God would at least need <em>middle knowledge</em>—the knowledge of what someone <em>would</em> do in any particular situation—so that he can know how or when to intervene in human history in order to achieve his desired outcome.</p>
<p>But the philosophical basis of middle knowledge is doubtful. For if people actually <em>could</em> choose to act in many different ways, then how does God know what they certainly <em>would</em> choose in any situation, apart from foreknowledge? So middle knowledge doesn't actually answer any questions about how it's possible for God to foreknow a free choice.</p>
<p>Middle knowledge is also deterministic, because it implies that God can place a person in a specific situation and then that person <em>must</em> act in the way God's middle knowledge knows they will, and so that person genuinely <em>could not</em> do otherwise (or it would invalidate God's middle knowledge). This view turns people into pawns who God manipulates by controlling which situations people are placed into, and so middle knowledge is not really much different from divine determinism, as I talk about more at the end of <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">this post</a>.</p>
<p>But according to divine determinists, God doesn't <em>need</em> foreknowledge or middle knowledge at all, because God can just make people 'freely' do what God wants them to do, because free will and determinism are 'compatible', they say. So it's strange why Storms, a divine determinist, is arguing for God's foreknowledge, which is actually unnecessary in divine determinism. </p>
<p>It seems that Storms is only trying to prove God's foreknowledge (by appealing to biblical prophecy) in order to disprove open theism. But, if Open Theism could explain Biblical prophecies in a way that does not require God to have perfect foreknowledge, then there is no need to keep believing that God has perfect foreknowledge, and Storms' attempt to refute open theism is also refuted.</p>
<h2>Storms' Arguments Against Open Theism</h2>
<p>Storms says Edwards believes that for God to make prophecies about what will happen in the future, God needs perfect foreknowledge of that future. If so, then all 'free' choices that humans make which contribute to that future must also be perfectly foreknown by God.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>Storms writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If God cannot foreknow the future volitions of moral agents, "then neither can he certainly know those events which are consequent and dependent on these volitions".<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>For example, Storms compares free choices to a table of billiard balls, where one hits another, which then hits another, which then hits another, and on and on. He claims,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If God does not foreknow the first cue ball (or human choice/deed as the case may be) on which all its subsequent effects depend, he cannot know the latter or the subsequent effects they each cause.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>And thus,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If God does not have [perfect foreknowledge], not only is his ignorance incalculable, but there is no possibility that God could ever predict or prophesy any volition or event or deed in the vast web of interrelated causes and effects represented by the multitude of interactive billiard balls. Neither could he even foreknow what he himself intends to do, given the fact that what he does (not to mention when and how) is itself dependent on and only possible within the historical framework created by the incalculable web of human decision making, the latter of which open theists insist he cannot know.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Basically, if I make a free choice, which then affects someone else's free choice, which then affects even more people's free choices, Storms claims that for God to know the outcome of this series of choices, God would need to perfectly foreknow the future. God could not simply predict the outcome of each free choice because Storms seems to think that would be too hard, even for an omniscient God.</p>
<p>Storms lists several examples used by Edwards to demonstrate that God does have perfect foreknowledge of future free choices, such the moral behavior of Ahab (1 Kings 22:20-22), Hazael (2 Kings 8:12-13), and Cyrus (Isaiah 44:28; 45:13; Ezra 1:1-4). Also, Edwards notes that the Bible predicts, by name, how Josiah will act (1 Kings 13:2), 300 years in the future.</p>
<p>Storms claims God could not have foreknown this last fact unless God also foreknew the choices of all Josiah's ancestors and everyone else in Israel who lived before Josiah did. God would also need to foreknow that Josiah would live long enough to fulfill what God prophesied of him, and that Josiah would have the moral character to act how he was prophesied to act.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Another example is how God's prophecies of invasion of Israel by specific foreign kings depended on Israel's moral decisions (as well as the decisions of those foreign kings), but these decisions would not be properly punishable unless they were freely made.<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>Storms' argument amounts to repeating this same argument over and over, each time, bringing up a fairly detailed prophecy about specific people's actions in the future, and then claiming that the only way God could prophesy about this accurately is for God to perfectly foreknow the morally-significant (i.e., 'free') choices of human individuals.</p>
<p>He claims that God's foreknowledge of the future is the only thing that makes God distinguishable from false idols (Isaiah 44:7-8).<cite>9</cite> (Although it should be noted that open theists say this verse means God can bring about the things that he declared he would do ahead of time, unlike idols, and so this verse is not about foreknowledge at all.)</p>
<h2>Open Theists and Prophecy</h2>
<p>Now, open theists are not unaware of the issues that divine prophecy raises for open theism. Storms himself is aware of how open theists John Sanders and Gregory Boyd deal with Bible prophecy.</p>
<p>Sanders writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God can predict the future as something he intends to do regardless of human response, or God may utter a conditional statement that is dependent on human response, or God may give a forecast of what he thinks will occur based on his exhaustive knowledge of past and present factors.<cite>10</cite></span></p>
<p>And Boyd says God can limit the freedom of individuals in particular ways that are not morally relevant, such as limiting the freedom of parents in naming their children (as in the cases of Josiah and Cyrus).<cite>11</cite> </p>
<p>Boyd points out that many prophecies are conditional either implicitly or explicitly, and also that it is much easier to predict the actions of a large group of people than the actions of specific individuals (as even humans do this through statistics).<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>Another open theist, Clark Pinnock, explains that if we look carefully, most prophecy is explained by either</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God's predicting—on the basis of what he knows—what is going to happen, or by God's announcing ahead of time what he plans to do in such and such a circumstance or by some combination of these two factors. Prophecy is after all profoundly conditional and oriented to our response to God.<cite>13</cite></span></p>
<p>For example, God's prophesied destruction of Nineveh did not happen because the people repented (Jonah 3:4, 3:10).</p>
<p>Pinnock points out that some prophecies were not fulfilled exactly as predicted, and others were fulfilled in unexpected ways. He says long-range prophecies like those in the books of Daniel and Revelation are vague in detail,<cite>14</cite> and so God could fulfill them in a number of ways. Elsewhere, Pinnock suggests that some prophecies in Daniel are a result of later editing based on events during the Maccabean revolt.<cite>15</cite></p>
<h2>Flaws With Open Theism and Prophecy</h2>
<p>However, I agree with Storms that some of these statements above by open theists are unacceptable. </p>
<p>For example, anyone who believes in the divine inspiration of Scripture will not approve of Pinnock's claim that the later chapters of Daniel were written after these events happened, and were only written to <em>seem</em> like fulfilled prophecy. </p>
<p>Open theists also tend to ignore the book of Revelation, or as seen above, claim that it is 'vague'. As someone who is also interested in a pre-millennial, futurist interpretation of the Book of Revelation, I am not satisfied with any claims that say Revelation was fulfilled during the 70 A.D. Roman invasion of Jerusalem, nor that John was writing about past events such as the persecution of Christians by Nero. Furthermore, the prophecies in Revelation are certainly not "vague", even if they are sometimes described symbolically.</p>
<p>While I agree that a large number of prophecies could fall within the categories outlined by the open theists quoted above (e.g., things God plans to bring about in some way or another, conditional prophecies, or predictions of large groups of people's behavior), it is true that open theists have not convincingly explained the very detailed prophecies that Storms brings up, where people's seemingly free, moral choices are predicted by God many years ahead of time.</p>
<p>There are also potential issues with how open theists deal with some of the prophecies about negative moral behavior. For example, I have not yet read a convincing open theist approach to how God was able to prophesy Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, or Peter’s three denials of Jesus before dawn, or even the crucifixion of Jesus on the exact right date of Passover.</p>
<p>We cannot say that God <em>caused</em> Judas to betray Jesus, or <em>made</em> Peter deny Christ in order to fulfill prophecy,<cite>16</cite> or we would be taking away Judas’s and Peter’s personal responsibility for their behavior, and making God responsible for evil.</p>
<p>And while God could have known that Judas was <em>considering</em> betraying Jesus, open theists cannot say that God perfectly knew that Judas would actually go through with it. If Judas had freely chosen not to betray Jesus, then God would have needed some other way for Jesus to be delivered to the Sanhedrin.<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>Even if God knew that at that particular moment in time, Peter had the sort of character which made him <em>likely</em> to deny Jesus if he were pressured,<cite>18</cite> it would have required God to coordinate all the circumstances that Peter was in that night in order to make sure he was asked by the right people at the right times to make it all happen. And what if Peter freely decided to go home and sleep after the first denial?</p>
<p>A similar level of complicated divine coordination of people’s evil actions would have been needed to ensure that Jesus would be crucified on the exact right date, not a week earlier or a few days later, in order to fulfill the Passover foreshadowing from the Old Testament.</p>
<p>Therefore, I hope to study open theism and Bible prophecy in more detail at some point in the future, because I think it's something that needs to be improved.</p>
<h2>Flaws with Storms' Claims</h2>
<p>However, I disagree with Storms when he claims that the <em>only</em> way God could fulfill these specific prophecies is if God has perfect foreknowledge of the future.</p>
<p>As someone who understands open theism, I want to offer an open theist rebuttal to Storms' argument above.</p>
<p>I believe that Storms has made the mistake of allowing his metaphor (the billiard balls) to weigh too heavily on his assumptions about how God must operate in history. Although Stroms says his metaphor is not meant to suggest that the universe is an impersonal and mechanistic cause-and-effect world",<cite>19</cite> it seems this is exactly the model he pictures when discussing the chain of events that lead to the particular prophecies he mentions.</p>
<p>It seems that in each prophecy, Storms assumes that the <em>only</em> inputs into the future state of affairs prophesied by God are <em>human</em> actions. And even those, he seems to imply, are directly <em>caused</em> by the choices of others.</p>
<p>But, unlike billiard balls, people's choices are not directly caused by the choices of others. We may be influenced by others, but, having free will means that we have choice over how we act. So to update Storms' model, each billiard ball would have to have some sort of internal motor and wheels and AI programming that allow it to control itself, to some extent, even though it is hit by other balls.</p>
<p>Additionally, and most critically, Storms is ignoring <em>God's</em> influence on the billiard balls. </p>
<p>To say that God only sets the initial conditions of the universe and the rest plays out predictably in a chain of cause-and-effect would be to give into a Deistic worldview. But Deism is one worldview that Edwards was specifically attempting to refute! Therefore, any non-Deistic version of Christianity needs to leave room for God to influence people and events.</p>
<h2>Some Open Theist Possibilities for Biblical Prophecy</h2>
<p>Open Theists emphasize God's flexibility, wisdom, and ability to interact with his creatures in many ways, in order to achieve His desired outcomes without perfect foreknowledge. For example, Gregory Boyd writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">I am told that the average novice chess player can think ahead three or four possible moves. If I do A, for example, my opponent may do B, C, or D. I could then do E, F, or G, to which he may respond with H, I, or J…. Now consider that God’s perfect knowledge would allow him to anticipate every possible move and every possible combination of moves, together with every possible response he might make to each of them, for every possible agent throughout history. And he would be able to do this from eternity past.<cite>20</cite></span></p>
<p>So God's unlimited intelligence means God has many ways of making sure that all the right pieces come together to fulfill His prophecies.</p>
<p>As an example of this, let's look at the Nativity story about Jesus' birth. It is full of instances where God was able to influence people to achieve God's desired outcome and fulfill many prophecies, yet in ways that did not override people's free will.</p>
<p>God sent Joseph a dream that convinced him it was okay to go ahead and marry Mary (Matthew 1:20). God also sent another dream to tell Joseph to flee into Egypt to save Jesus' life (Matthew 2:13). God again sent a dream when it's okay for them to come back home (Matthew 2:19), and even gave instructions about where to live (Matthew 2:22). God sent another dream to the wise men that instructed them to return home without stopping back to visit Herod (Mattgew 2:12). So dreams are one way God can influence people without overriding their free will.</p>
<p>Also, an angel showed up to Zechariah in the temple and persuaded him to name his son John, as God desired (Luke 1:13). God sent an angel to Mary and instructed her to name her baby Jesus (Luke 1:31). These two examples prove that it's not hard for God to convince people to name their children something specific, if a prophecy requires it.</p>
<p>So the examples of God prophesying about Josiah's and Cyrus's names are really not too difficult to explain, and contra Boyd, these prophecies did not require God to 'constrain' their parents' freedom (although Boyd is correct that even if God <em>had</em> to do so to fulfill a prophecy, causing someone to name a child something specific is a morally-neutral action). Perhaps God also sent a dream to Cyrus' parents, saying that their son would be blessed and would become great if they named him Cyrus? In a religious culture that took dreams seriously, this would be quite convincing.</p>
<p>Then, God could have helped Cyrus and Josiah rise to power, and kept them both healthy and protected them from accidents or attacks, to ensure they would live long enough to do what God prophesied.</p>
<p>I think God could perhaps go even further, so that if God <em>absolutely requires</em> extremely particular actions by specific individuals which can only be done by them, then God <em>can</em> override free will. If God needs someone to do a morally-neutral or good action, God could theoretically force them to do it.</p>
<p>For example, Stanislav Petrov is called "the man who single-handedly saved the world from nuclear war" for his decision about whether a nuclear missile alert was true or false.<cite>21</cite> This choice was extremely important for the direction of the world's future, and thus, for the fulfillment of future Biblical prophecies. So if God <em>had to</em> override Petrov's free will temporarily in order to make him make the right choice to avoid a nuclear war, then we (and Petrov) should all be very grateful for that intervention.</p>
<p>But, God could not override anyone's free will to force them to believe the gospel to be saved, or force them to do evil. Doing these things would undermine God's own desires for the world.</p>
<p>If God truly <em>needs</em> an evil action to occur (say, Judas' betrayal of Jesus), God could choose to withdraw the influence of the Holy Spirit, thus increasing the likelihood of sin (given that other factors remain the same—human sinful tendencies and spiritual warfare). Although the individual would still be held responsible for their choice, for I don't believe any of these influences are ever so strong that a person <em>must</em> sin (or they couldn't be held morally responsible for it).</p>
<p>Anyways, those are just some of my ideas. But the point is that God has many ways of influencing people to do what God needs them to do to fulfill prophecy, even though Scripture doesn't record all the insider details of how God did this for every prophecy.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Therefore, what really matters for God's prophecies to be fulfilled is <em>not</em> perfect foreknowledge, but <em>omniscience</em> (perfect knowledge of the present) and <em>omnipotence</em> (the ability for God to achieve his plans and purposes, and to have the future turn out the way he promised it would).<cite>22</cite></p>
<p>How God fulfills prophecy in an open theist paradigm would involve a combination of factors, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>God's perfect knowledge of the present state of the world.</li>
<li>God's perfect knowledge of people's thoughts, desires, and motives.</li>
<li>God's ability to perfectly predict events that don't depend on free choices.</li>
<li>God's ability to miraculously intervene in events that don't depend on free choices.</li>
<li>God's knowledge of how people would likely respond to particular influences or events.</li>
<li>God's knowledge of the most persuasive ways to influence individuals.</li>
<li>God's power to allow or restrain evil.</li>
<li>God's power to limit creaturely freedom if necessary (but only in particular ways).</li>
</ul>
<p>Thus, I think Storms is actually the one who is underestimating God's omnipotence, for he seems to think that the fulfillment of Bible prophecy would be impossible, even for God, without perfect foreknowledge.</p>
<p>In contrast, open theists trust that God's wisdom and omnipotence allow God to achieve his prophesied outcomes, even without foreknowledge.</p>
<p>It doesn't take any wisdom or skill to simply foresee the future. But it does take a lot of wisdom and skill to achieve God's prophesied goals despite human free will and demonic opposition.</p>
<p>So God's fulfillment of prophecy is actually <em>more</em> praiseworthy in open theism than in Arminianism or divine determinism. Open theism, rather than diminishing God's omnipotence, elevates it, trusting that God has ways to do all that he has promised.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 114-130.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Richard Rice, <em>Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain</em> (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2014), 93.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 118.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 118.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 119.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 119.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 120-121.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 122.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 124.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 121, referring to John Sanders, <em>The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 136.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 122, referring to Gregory A. Boyd, <em>God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 34.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 45-46.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, "Clark Pinnock's Response," in <em>Predestination & Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty & Human Freedom,</em> eds. David Basinger and Randall Basinger (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 139.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, <em>Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 51.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock with Barry L. Callen, <em>The Scripture Principle: Reclaiming the Full Authority of the Bible</em>, Second Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 144.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 34</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>Is God to Blame?: Moving beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Evil</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 192.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 35; Bruce A. Ware, <em>God's Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism</em> (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2000), 69.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> C. Samuel Storms, "Open Theism in the Hands of an Angry Puritan: Jonathan Edwards on Divine Foreknowledge," in <em>The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</em>, eds. D.G. Hart, Sean Michael Lucas, Stephen J. Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,2003), 119.</li>
<li><strong>20.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 127.</li>
<li><strong>21.</strong> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov">Stanislav Petrov</a>, Wikipedia.org</li>
<li><strong>22.</strong> Pinnock says we should "rely on God's faithfulness and resourcefulness to work things out and not on a divine crystal ball. We have to trust God and not an abstract omniscience as our guarantee". Clark H. Pinnock, <em>Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 52.</li>
</ul>The Most Convincing Arguments for Hell as Annihilation2019-02-09T00:00:00+00:002019-02-09T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-02-09:/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/<p>I was recently on a discussion forum where there was a debate going on about the nature of hell. </p>
<p>Someone was arguing for the traditional view where people who are sent to hell will be tortured forever (a.k.a. <em>eternal conscious torment</em>), whereas I was trying to get them …</p><p>I was recently on a discussion forum where there was a debate going on about the nature of hell. </p>
<p>Someone was arguing for the traditional view where people who are sent to hell will be tortured forever (a.k.a. <em>eternal conscious torment</em>), whereas I was trying to get them to see the merits of the view that those in hell will be destroyed and no longer exist (a.k.a. <em>annihilation</em>).</p>
<p>Of course, discussion forums are not the easiest place to get into the details of Biblical exegesis. Blog articles such as this one are also limited, but slightly less so (my only limit is your attention span).</p>
<p>So here I will explain what are (to me) the most convincing arguments that annihilation is the most Biblical interpretation of hell. </p>
<p>Obviously, I will not be able to do proper exegesis of every single relevant verse in the Bible in this post.</p>
<p>If you want that level of analysis, then you should really read the book by Edward William Fudge titled <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em> (Third ed.). He examines all the relevant Biblical verses, as well as the historical, ethical, and philosophical/theological arguments for and against hell as annihilation. I will make use of some of his best quotations in this post.</p>
<p>I would challenge any proponent of eternal conscious torment to read Fudge's book with an open mind, and see if at the end they can say they still believe that eternal conscious torment is the proper Biblical understanding of hell. I could not.</p>
<h2>God Can Destroy Whatever He Has Created</h2>
<p>Since God created the entire universe out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3, Colossians 1:16), then it makes sense that he also has the power to take whatever he created and return it to non-existence.</p>
<p>Even though the first law of thermodynamics says energy is not created or destroyed in a closed system, this is only our observation of how the world that God has created typically operates, and so it is not a limit on God's power. God is sovereign over thermodynamics.</p>
<p>Jesus specifically says that, in contrast to people who can only kill the physical body (but cannot destroy a person's soul), God <em>can</em> destroy both bodies <em>and souls</em> in hell! (Matthew 10:28). The idea of the immortality of the soul is a Greek philosophical concept that crept into early Christian thought and has no clear Biblical support.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>So there's no reason why God <em>has</em> to keep anyone's soul or body alive forever. Whether he chooses to or not, though, is what the debate is about.</p>
<h2>The Contrast Between Eternal Life and Eternal Death</h2>
<p>Let's look at a list of some of the terms the Bible uses when referring to the final destiny of unsaved people:</p>
<ul>
<li>"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to <strong>destruction</strong>, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7:13-14).</li>
<li>"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not <strong>perish</strong> but have eternal life" (John 3:16).</li>
<li>"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from <strong>death</strong> to life" (John 5:24).</li>
<li>"I give them eternal life, and they will never <strong>perish</strong>, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28).</li>
<li>"For all who have sinned without the law will also <strong>perish</strong> without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law" (Romans 2:12).</li>
<li>"For the wages of sin is <strong>death</strong>, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).</li>
<li>"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath <strong>prepared for destruction</strong>, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory" (Romans 9:22).</li>
<li>"There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to <strong>destroy</strong>" (James 4:12).</li>
<li>"But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and <strong>destroyed</strong>, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be <strong>destroyed in their destruction</strong>, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing" (2 Peter 2:12-13).</li>
<li>"But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and <strong>destruction of the ungodly</strong>" (2 Peter 3:7).</li>
<li>"The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should <strong>perish</strong>, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).</li>
<li>"our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished <strong>death</strong> and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10).</li>
<li>"The one who conquers will not be hurt by the <strong>second death</strong>." (Revelation 2:11).</li>
<li>"Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the <strong>second death</strong> has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6).</li>
</ul>
<p>But proponents of eternal conscious torment claim that these frequently used Biblical expressions to describe the ultimate fate of the unsaved—"eternal death", "second death", "eternal destruction", and "perish"—don't have anything to do with the meanings of these words as we commonly understand them at all (cessation of bodily life/conscious existence)!</p>
<p>Instead, they say that all these terms <em>actually mean</em> eternal life, just in a different (and highly unpleasant) location.</p>
<p>To me, that doesn't seem to be "death", "destruction", or "perishing" at all.</p>
<p>Fudge says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Throughout this study, we have watched as traditionalist authors repeatedly read straightforward, non-symbolic texts, commenting that such texts, if taken alone, certainly teach extinction, but that Revelation 14:9-11 and Revelation 20:10 do not allow that result.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>Revelation was the very last book of the Bible to be written, sometime in the late first-century A.D.</p>
<p>So anyone who read Scripture before the book of Revelation was written would have interpreted these warnings in the straightforward way, as eternal death, a.k.a. being deprived of life/existence, as Fudge says the eternal conscious torment proponents themselves admit! It is only with the addition of the book of Revelation that this debate gets complicated.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is the proponents of eternal conscious torment who interpret all of these terms metaphorically, without any justification based on the immediate context or the meaning of words in the original languages of Scripture.</p>
<p>For example, let's imagine we went up to someone with no knowledge of the book of Revelation, and who had not been exposed to the eternal conscious torment view of hell, and read John 3:16 to them:</p>
<p>"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him <em>should not perish but have eternal life</em>."</p>
<p>Would they really understand this as:</p>
<p>"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not <em>be condemned to live forever in a place of conscious, unending torment</em> but have eternal life"?</p>
<p>No! The contrast in many of these verses above is clearly between <em>eternal life</em> and <em>perishing</em>, a.k.a. <em>death</em>, a.k.a. <em>eternal destruction</em>, a.k.a. <em>annihilation</em>, a.k.a. <em>non-existence</em>.</p>
<h2>Eternally Destroyed, or Eternally Alive In Agony?</h2>
<p>One of the verses the eternal conscious torment proponents most frequently appeal to is Isaiah 66:24, the latter half of which says "For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh".</p>
<p>But what about the first half of this verse, which says "And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me." </p>
<p>Notice the things being talked about here as being abhorrent and being destroyed by worms and fire, are <em>dead bodies</em>!</p>
<p>Not: "And they shall go out and look at <em>all the immortal resurrected people writhing in agony and screaming but never actually dying</em>", which seems to be how many proponents of eternal conscious torment interpret this verse.</p>
<p>So, even if saved people <em>really</em> need some sort of eternal reminder of God's justice (as Jonathan Edwards seems to think they do, although I disagree—see my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">article here</a>), a pile of eternally rotting, burning dead bodies would be enough.</p>
<p>Fudge notes that to Jews, this scene had special significance, for to be unburied was the ultimate shame and disrespect: "to burn a corpse signified at times a thing utterly accursed or devoted to God for destruction".<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>The idea of "unquenchable" fire or "undying" worms does not mean that the fire burns forever or that the worms live forever, but that the activity of these things cannot be stopped prematurely or thwarted before they have totally consumed or burned up the body. God's judgment cannot be stopped or resisted by anyone.</p>
<p>So even if we take this verse as literally as the proponents of eternal conscious torment do, at the very worst, it could mean that people were thrown into the fire alive, suffered for some period of time from the worms and fire, and then died, leaving a disgusting corpse which is exposed for all to see. Thus, leaving an eternal legacy of "shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2).</p>
<p>But it certainly doesn't prove eternal conscious torment.</p>
<h2>Other Biblical Examples Of Destruction</h2>
<p>Frequently, eternal conscious torment proponents will insist <em>destruction</em> doesn't really mean <em>to be taken out of existence</em>. So, let's look at how the Bible itself describes the final destiny of the unsaved:</p>
<ul>
<li>they will be "like chaff that the wind drives away" (Psalm 1:4).</li>
<li>"the way of the wicked will perish" (Psalm 1:6).</li>
<li>God will rain fire and sulfur on them and scorch them with wind (Psalm 11:6).</li>
<li>God will "cut off the memory of them from the earth" (Psalm 34:16).</li>
<li>they will wilt like grass (Psalm 37:2).</li>
<li>they will be no more (Psalm 37:10).</li>
<li>they will perish and vanish like smoke (Psalm 37:20).</li>
<li>they will be "cut off" (Psalm 37:9, 22, 28, 34).</li>
<li>they will pass away and be no more, be unable to be found (Psalm 37:35-36).</li>
<li>they will be "altogether destroyed," their future is "cut off" (Psalm 37:38).</li>
<li>God will "tear them apart," so that they can't be delivered/saved/rescued (Psalm 50:22).</li>
<li>they will "vanish like water that runs away" (Psalm 58:7).</li>
<li>they will "be like the snail that dissolves into slime" (Psalm 58:8).</li>
<li>they will "be like stillborn children" (Psalm 58:8).</li>
<li>they will be "blotted out of the book of the living" (Psalm 69:28).</li>
<li>"with the breath of his lips [God] shall kill the wicked" (Isaiah 11:4).</li>
<li>they will be unable to dwell in consuming fire or everlasting burnings (Isaiah 33:14).</li>
<li>they will be consumed, like how moths and worms eat fabric (Isaiah 51:8).</li>
</ul>
<p><span class="blockquote">Without being literal, therefore, we may learn from these passages of Scripture. They say nothing of conscious unending torment. None of them hints at a fire that tortures but does not kill. They do not envision the presence of the wicked forever—even in a distant place. Rather, they picture a time and a world where the wicked will not be.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>Fudge says we should also look at the Biblical examples of historical destructions, such as Noah's flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah.</p>
<p>For example, Peter warns that "by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them <em>an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly</em>" (2 Peter 2:6).</p>
<p>Jesus also referred to Noah's flood as an example of judgment on unbelievers which will be repeated when he returns (Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27).</p>
<p>In the story of Noah's flood, Fudge says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Throughout the story, the operative verbs are 'perish', 'destroy' or 'die', and they are used synonymously with 'cut off' and 'wipe out'. Sometimes Scripture writers use such words poetically, figuratively or metaphorically. But in this canonical version of the Flood story itself, these terms are clearly intended to be read literally. In this specific judgment event, evildoers meet the very end that the Psalms and Proverbs describe again and again.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>So Fudge says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The authors of Scripture could have written hundreds of pages of philosophical discussion about the exact meaning of 'destroy' and 'perish.' Instead, they point us back to what God did once before, and they warn us that it exemplifies what the wicked may expect again.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Although, Fudge notes that we do have to extrapolate a little:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The death by Flood killed only the body; the second death awaiting the wicked will kill the whole person, soul and body alike. The first punishment was temporary; the second will be permanent.<cite>7</cite></span></p>
<h2>But Doesn't Their Punishment Last Forever?</h2>
<p>Some proponents of eternal conscious torment seem to be hung up on the idea of "eternal punishment", implying that it must be consciously experienced in order to properly be <em>punishment</em>.</p>
<p>They bring up verses such as Matthew 25:36: "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."</p>
<p>But they are reading more into these verses than they actually say. </p>
<p>Missing out on eternal life, in a perfect resurrected body, in a perfect society that includes perfect relationships with God, other saints, and angels, is enough of a punishment. And that punishment lasts forever, for these people never come back into existence.</p>
<p>2 Thessalonians 1:9 specifically says "They will suffer <em>the punishment of eternal destruction</em>, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might". If God is omnipresent, the only way to be entirely away from his presence, glory, and might is to not exist.</p>
<p>Even in many human justice systems, capital punishment is the worst penalty possible. What makes it so bad is not that the criminal experiences severe conscious pain (indeed, lethal injection is meant to be as painless as possible), but that it deprives them of the rest of their physical life.</p>
<p>Although proponents of eternal conscious torment would say that capital punishment is only a shortcut to the <em>real</em> suffering in hell for eternity, we should note that even atheists who don't believe in hell are afraid of having their lives cut short prematurely. So you don't need a Christian worldview which includes eternal torment in hell to see death as the worst possible punishment, even if the conscious suffering endured in dying is minimal.</p>
<p>I would ask proponents of eternal conscious torment: what about those criminals who have become Christians during their time on death row?</p>
<p>For Christians, it is <em>better</em> to die and be with Christ (Philippians 1:23). So should we make a law saying that Christian criminals don't get the death penalty because for them death is not really a punishment? Of course not! Being deprived of physical life <em>is itself</em> a punishment, even though the person does not consciously experience every minute that they lose out on.</p>
<h2>God Can Inspire Correct Wording In Scripture</h2>
<p>Since our eternal destiny is ultimately the most important outcome of this life, you would think that God would tell us in extremely clear terms exactly what those possible destinies are.</p>
<p>As seen above, the preponderance of the terms <em>death</em>, <em>destruction</em>, and <em>perish</em>, are the primary way God describes one of those two destinies. If it was not so, why wouldn't God be more clear? Why wouldn't he say "eternal life in a state of endless torment and agony".</p>
<p>Yes, it's a little longer of a phrase, but, if that is truly a possibility, wouldn't a perfectly loving God warn us of the real, true danger we face, and not cover over it with imprecise euphemisms which, when taken at face value, imply cessation of existence?</p>
<p>Therefore, I think, the numerous times when the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of Scripture to write things like "death" and "destruction" as the fate of the damned is because it is correct.</p>
<h2>But What About the Rich Man and Lazarus?</h2>
<p>Fudge quotes numerous commentators who suggest this parable is not meant to give literal details about the afterlife. In fact, it was a common story that was told by other Rabbis at the time and came in several variations. Jesus used and modified it also to make his point.<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>This story's point is that what matters isn't our position in this life, but that those who reject what God has revealed to them in Scripture would not believe it even if they saw someone come back from the dead, as Jesus would soon do (Luke 16:31).</p>
<p>Even if, at worst, this story does correctly teach some sort of unpleasant intermediate state for the unsaved, it does not prove this suffering lasts forever. Time spent in an unpleasant intermediate state before the final judgment (as hinted at in 2 Peter 2:9) could be counted as "time served" and be deducted from any suffering they will experience in the process of being annihilated, if God's justice requires it.</p>
<h2>But What About Those Two Verses In Revelation?</h2>
<p>The two verses in Revelation which are frequently claimed to justify interpreting hell as eternal conscious torment are Revelation 14:9-11, and Revelation 20:10.</p>
<h3>Revelation 14:9-11</h3>
<p><span class="blockquote">If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.</span></p>
<p>The first two threats, the "wine of God's wrath", the "cup of his anger" are clearly metaphors. God doesn't have real wine or a cup that he's going to force people to drink from, any more than Jesus drank from a literal cup in his death (Matthew 26:39). So after detailed exegesis, Fudge says "The symbol of God's cup of wrath signifies a judgment that is finally fatal".<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>Fudge shows that fire and sulfur relate back to the annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah, and so "throughout all of Scripture, the imagery of fire and brimstone signifies a complete destruction that leaves total desolation in its wake".<cite>10</cite> Jude 1:7 even mentions that Sodom and Gomorrah "serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of <em>eternal fire</em>". But in reality, the cities were totally destroyed.</p>
<p>Fudge notes that "Even in the first century AD, it was thought, the erstwhile site of Sodom smoldered".<cite>11</cite> So this explains the next symbol of the "smoke that rises forever": it means that the results of their destruction last forever, not that they are eternally being tortured forever.</p>
<p>Fudge writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The smoke rising from Sodom did not indicate human suffering or people in pain. Like today's symbol of a mushroom-shaped cloud, the rising smoke gave silent testimony to a destruction <em>accomplished</em>. Where Sodom and Gomorrah once existed, all was now silent.<cite>12</cite></span></p>
<p>He compares this to the promised future destructions of Edom in Isaiah 34:9-11, as well as the city of Babylon in Revelation 18 which use similar imagery.<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>Regarding the "No rest day or night", Fudge quotes the Greek expert Beale, who says it means "there will be no rest as long as the duration of the suffering continues".<cite>14</cite></p>
<p>So this verse is not really a problem when we see that all the metaphorical components of it are referring to other Biblical concepts that imply destruction.</p>
<h3>Revelation 20:10</h3>
<p>Revelation 20:10 talks about Satan being thrown into the lake of fire where the Beast and False Prophet are, 1000 years after they were first thrown in (Revelation 19:20), where "they will be tormented day and night forever and ever".</p>
<p>But, notice earlier in Revelation where twice it says the Beast's fate is <em>destruction</em> (Revelation 17:8, 17:11). We can also compare these verses with Daniel 7:11: "the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire". So these verses need to be reconciled with one another.</p>
<p>At worst, if someone interprets the Beast and False Prophet as individual people (and not human institutions of worldwide government and false religion), and Satan also as an individual, this verse only proves that three individuals are tormented forever. It doesn't say anything about the duration of suffering for everyone else thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation 20:15.</p>
<p>Revelation also speaks about abstract things such as death and Hades being thrown into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14).</p>
<p>Clearly, you can't <em>torment</em> death or Hades. But, you can certainly annihilate them, so that they are no more. This destruction of death is promised elsewhere such as Isaiah 25:7-8; 1 Corinthians 15:26, 54; and Revelation 21:4.</p>
<p>So I think this proves that the lake of fire is a symbol of total annihilation, and is not meant to be taken literally.</p>
<p>John specifically explains the lake of fire <em>is</em> "the second death" (Revelation 20:14; 21:8). Fudge says everywhere else in Revelation the first term is explained or defined by the second term (e.g. the bowls of incense <em>are</em> the prayers of the saints—Revelation 5:8).</p>
<p>Fudge says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Traditionalist authors always read the equation the other direction, as if it said "the second death" (indefinite) is "the lake of fire" (clear). In fact, however, John says that "the lake of fire" (his symbol) is "the second death" (a clearer reality).<cite>15</cite></span></p>
<p>It seems the only word in this verse that is difficult for Fudge to explain is <em>torment</em>. Fudge says that given the overwhelming evidence everywhere else in Scripture that supports Annihilation, he is not convinced it means eternal conscious torture.<cite>16</cite> </p>
<p>Perhaps there is a way to harmonize some of these verses.</p>
<p>It could be that if there is a period of temporary suffering as people are being destroyed, that torment is continuous, day and night, while they still exist, while they are "in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb," as in Revelation 14:10.</p>
<p>But sooner or later this torment ends in utter annihilation, when they will be "away from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Since again, if God is omnipresent, the only way to not be in his presence is if they are nonexistent. Then finally "God will be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28).</p>
<p>Therefore, I agree with Fudge when he says:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Perhaps this brings us to the crux of the debate over the nature of final punishment, which finally involves an hermeneutical dilemma. Do scores (if not hundreds) of straight-forward declarative statements throughout the whole Bible finally have to be filtered through two highly-symbolic passages in Revelation, or should we read those two symbolic texts in the Apocalypse in light of pages of straightforward declarations, promises, and warnings from Genesis through Jude?<cite>17</cite></span></p>
<p>Fudge says it would be improper hermeneutics to allow two symbolic passages to interpret the many clear non-symbolic passages.</p>
<p>Like Fudge, I will side with the overwhelming number of clear verses that support annihilation.</p>
<h2>Why Does It Matter?</h2>
<p>I think that our view of hell has important implications in two major areas of theology: the gospel, and God's character.</p>
<p>First, it shifts the gospel message from "believe in Jesus so that God won’t torture you forever", to "believe in Jesus so that you don’t miss out on eternal life".</p>
<p>I think this is much more effective, because it uses positive motivation rather than fear. Who wouldn't want eternal life in a perfect resurrected body, in a perfectly loving society with God, saints, and angels, where there will never again be fear, anxiety, or pain?</p>
<p>Second, God wants us to genuinely love him, and it's very difficult to feel genuine love for someone who threatens to inflict unimaginable suffering on you if you don't love him!</p>
<p>Does it really make sense for God, who is perfect love (1 John 4:8), to say to humanity "Love me, or I'll torture you forever!"? In what human relationship would that be acceptable? And if it's not acceptable on that level, why would it be acceptable in a divine-human relationship? Is this really how the God who is perfectly revealed in Jesus would act?</p>
<p>Instead, hell as annihilation is much more compatible than hell as eternal torment with God's perfectly loving and holy nature. If God is perfect love and the source of all life who upholds all things in existence, then those who reject God are effectively rejecting their own existence. So God gives them what they have chosen: non-existence.</p>
<p>Justice is still served, for sin is still punished with an infinite sentence—eternal non-existence and loss of the infinite happiness of heaven. God's holiness is not compromised.</p>
<p>So the gospel is not lessened if those who reject it will be annihilated, instead of tortured forever. There are still severe eternal consequences for rejecting God's offer of salvation, but, they are much more in alignment with God's perfectly loving and good character.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 19-22.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011) 252.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011) 76-77.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011) 57.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011) 60.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011) 61.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011) 62.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 148-151.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 241.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 241. Fudge cites other verses such as Job 18:15; Psalm 11:6, Isaiah 30:27-33, 34:9, Ezekiel 38:22.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 65.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 241.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 242.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 243.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 246.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 249.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third ed. (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 251-252.</li>
</ul>Why It's Good To Read Theology2019-01-16T00:00:00+00:002019-01-16T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-01-16:/article/why-read-theology/<p>"I never read theology or Biblical studies—I only need one book: the Bible". Or so I've heard some people claim. </p>
<p>While this can sound pious, after thinking about it, I am concerned.</p>
<p>In this article I'll point out some reasons why I think all Christians should read at least …</p><p>"I never read theology or Biblical studies—I only need one book: the Bible". Or so I've heard some people claim. </p>
<p>While this can sound pious, after thinking about it, I am concerned.</p>
<p>In this article I'll point out some reasons why I think all Christians should read at least a little theology, and the problems that can come from not reading any theology at all.</p>
<h2>Why The Bible Isn't Enough</h2>
<p>So why isn't it enough to just read the Bible and trust the Holy Spirit to lead us to the right interpretation?</p>
<p>After all, didn't Jesus tell his disciples that "when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth"? (John 16:13).</p>
<p>Shouldn't this mean that any genuine Christian should be able to be guided into the true meaning of any passage of Scripture by the Holy Spirit?</p>
<p>While this sounds ideal, unfortunately, history seems to prove that this is not the case.</p>
<p>If it were, then why are there so many different theological positions and different interpretations of the same Bible verses?</p>
<p>If it was really <em>so easy</em> to get at the one true meaning of Scripture, then there should not be such a variety of different Christian denominations in the world today, each with their own particular slant on the gospel and Scripture, right?</p>
<p>Of course, someone might simply say that they are right and everyone else is wrong. But that seems very arrogant.</p>
<p>It implies that all historical theologians have nothing at all to contribute at all to our understanding of anything in the Bible. </p>
<p>And really, what are the chances that <em>you</em>, of all the millions of Christians who have ever studied Scripture, are right on everything?</p>
<p>I think there was only one person who was ever right on everything, and He's currently sitting at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33). The rest of us only see things in part, and dimly at that! (1 Corinthians 13:12).</p>
<h2>The Use of Biblical Studies</h2>
<p>At the very least, we should recognize there is a linguistic gap between the original manuscripts of the Bible and whatever language we speak today. Even modern Greek and Hebrew are not identical to the ancient forms of these languages used in the Bible. </p>
<p>This means we need people to study the original languages of the Bible, to compare with other documents from the time to determine the range of possible meanings of each word, and to piece together the best copies of whatever manuscripts we've still got access to. Some people spend entire careers looking at how the authors of Scripture use words, phrases, and narrative or poetic structures to communicate their message.</p>
<p>While it might have been possible for a literate person of the early Church to sit down with the original copies of Paul's letters and understand fairly well most things he says, that is no longer the case.</p>
<p>There is now not only a linguistic gap, but also a cultural gap between our time and the time of the original authors and audience of Scripture. There are cultural differences that we may not know about, which, if ignored, lead to us imposing the culture of the early Church onto the Church today. </p>
<p>This leads to conclusions such as: women should wear head coverings in church (1 Corinthians 11:4-5), women should be silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34), and women should never teach theology to men (1 Timothy 2:12).</p>
<p>Is any church that does not greet one another with a literal "holy kiss" and opts for handshakes instead being disobedient to God? (Romans 16:16, 1 Corinthians 16:20, 2 Corinthians 13:12, 1 Thessalonians 5:26). Is slavery God's will for people today because it was allowed in Biblical times?</p>
<p>These are all possible conclusions which someone who is reading the Bible literally with no information about the ancient cultural contexts which the Bible was written in may come to.</p>
<p>The restricting of women's participation in ministry is one of the more serious errors that is still regularly made by some denominations. They take this instruction in the Bible as valid for all times and all places, instead of taking advantage of the studies which show that the cultural situation regarding women in the early Church was much different than it is now. This mistake has led to the Church missing out on the gifts of so many women for hundreds of years!</p>
<p>Recent studies show that the cultural influence of Gnosticism was probably creeping into the early church and was popular among women, because it taught the error that Eve was the first human, and that Eve liberated Adam from an oppressive sub-deity who had told him not to eat the forbidden fruit because it would bring true wisdom. These Gnostics may have believed women were superior to men, and were discouraging women from having children.</p>
<p>Thus,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">This whole passage probably has nothing to do with the role of women in the church, but is a refutation of a specific position being advanced by false teachers in Ephesus.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>This makes much more sense of Paul's obscure argument in 1 Timothy 2:12-15, which, without this context, seems bizarre and sexist.</p>
<p>So this is one reason why we need Biblical studies.</p>
<p>Another example is when the translations we use today do not quite capture the total meaning of the original.</p>
<p>A simple example is how in English, we use the word "you" to refer to both a single person and also a group of people. Yet in the original Biblical languages, as in French and many other languages today, there are separate words and verb forms to refer to an individual or a group.</p>
<p>Being unaware of this means that sometimes English readers take a Biblical instruction that was originally meant for a group, and apply it to an individual, with negative results.</p>
<p>One example I've seen is when people apply 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 to individuals, which they use to say that anyone who destroys themselves (i.e. commits suicide) is going to be condemned to hell by God.</p>
<p>But in the original languages, the "you" here is plural! So instead, it's better to take it as saying that anyone who destroys <em>a local church congregation</em> will be punished by God.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>It would be nice if we could have an English version of the Bible which would make this more clear (it is translated correctly as plural in the French "Louis Segond" version).</p>
<h2>The Use of Theology</h2>
<p>So someone might admit that yes, we need linguistic and cultural Biblical studies to try to get at what the original authors were attempting to say. But when we have that, then isn't <em>that</em> good enough, and each of us can read the Bible for ourselves and get the right meaning?</p>
<p>Why do we need theological studies, and why should we hear the variety of theological ideas that other people have, which we may not agree with?</p>
<p>The thing is, none of us reads Scripture or does theology independently.</p>
<p>Assuming you have been attending a church, listening to sermons, reading devotionals, watching Youtube videos, or attending Bible studies, you will have heard at many times someone else's opinion of what the Bible says about a particular topic, or how to interpret a particular verse in light of other verses.</p>
<p>Even by reading this blog post, you may have absorbed a few of my ideas which may influence how you think about a Biblical topic in the future.</p>
<p>Reading theology is not really any different from this. So, if you are willing to learn from your pastor, Bible study leader, favourite Youtube speaker, or internet sources, why not be willing to read some theologians?</p>
<p>And if anyone claims to be entirely unaffected by everything they've been taught by their pastors, Bible study leaders, and others, and can still read the Bible objectively, I would be highly skeptical. Either that, or they're just a bad student.</p>
<p>For, as the church historian Justo L. Gonzales writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Without understanding the past, we are unable to understand ourselves, for in a sense the past still lives in us and influences who we are and how we understand the Christian message. When we read, for instance, that 'the just shall live by faith,' Martin Luther is whispering at our ear how we are to interpret those words—and this is true even for those of us who have never even heard of Martin Luther. When we hear that 'Christ died for our sins,' Anselm of Canterbury sits in the pew with us, even though we may not have the slightest idea who Anselm was....The notion that we read the New Testament exactly as the early Christians did, without any weight of tradition coloring our interpretation, is an illusion. It is also a dangerous illusion, for it tends to absolutize our interpretation, confusing it with the Word of God.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>So it's better to recognize where we've learned things from and who we are influenced by, than to think we're reading the Bible with entirely neutral eyes. Otherwise, it's easy to think our interpretation is the only correct one.</p>
<p>Of course, I do think the Bible is the Word of God—the problem is not with Scripture itself, but with our imperfect understanding of it.</p>
<h2>The Value of Reading Theologians You Disagree With</h2>
<p>Reading theologians who you may disagree with, who come from other traditions, and from different time periods, can be one way that we can try to overcome the unconscious theological biases we've absorbed. </p>
<p>Doing this, you will come across a huge variety of ways that theologians interpret Scripture, and encounter ideas of how to understand the Bible in ways you had never even thought possible.</p>
<p>This is not to say that you must agree with all these ideas.</p>
<p>Some ideas will be wonderful; some will be ridiculous. Some ideas you might hate with a passion! At times, I have understood the medieval urge to burn someone's book because it was so awful.</p>
<p>But, the great thing is that by reading multiple perspectives, you will learn the issues involved, the reasons why some take one approach over another, the difficulties of Biblical interpretation, and the complexities of theological discussion that has been going on for thousands of years. It will expose you to different ways of thinking which you may have never considered.</p>
<p>As a result, I can guarantee you will benefit from this, in several possible ways:</p>
<ol>
<li>You may learn more about your own tradition and why you believe the things you do, gaining new arguments or new insights to support and strengthen your existing beliefs.</li>
<li>You may come across a new perspective or idea which you had never considered, and find it more persuasive than what you had been told or had thought in the past, and will accept it and incorporate it into your understanding and system of beliefs.</li>
<li>You may come across a new perspective or idea which you entirely reject, and will be able to articulate the reasons why you reject it, so that if you encounter anyone arguing for that perspective, you can say why you disagree and present some arguments against it.</li>
</ol>
<p>There really is no down-side to reading theology. (But of course, I would think that, wouldn't I!)</p>
<p>To enjoy the above benefits, a great place to start is with books which discuss a particular topic from multiple theological perspectives. Each chapter is written by an author from a different point of view, and then at the end, each author responds to and critiques the others' points of view.</p>
<p>For example, there is the <em>Counterpoints</em> Bible & Theology series(https://www.librarything.com/series/Zondervan+Counterpoints), edited by Stanley N. Gundry for Zondervan,<cite>4</cite> the <em>Spectrum Multiview Books</em> series published by IVP Academic,<cite>5</cite> and the <em>Perspectives On</em> series edited by Leonard G. Gloss for B&H Publishing Group.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>These books go by titles such as "Four Views on Hell", "Divine Foreknowledge: 5 Views", "Perspectives on Election: 5 Views", and many more. So pick a topic you're curious about, and start with one of these.</p>
<p>You might happen to find a perspective that you really like, and fully agree with. If so, that's great!</p>
<p>But you might also come away from these sorts of books feeling confused, and not knowing which author you agree with, if any.</p>
<p>This is actually a good thing—if you use it as motivation to dive further into the topic. It forces you to think for yourself, and wrestle with a topic, to read Scripture, to discuss with other Christians, and pray about it.</p>
<p>Was there a particular verse that you wondered about? Find some Biblical commentaries on the subject, and see if they can help. Was there a reference made to a famous theologian's point of view? See what the source was and if you can find a copy to read it for yourself! Check out what sources these authors make use of, and find some of those to read. See—you're doing theology!</p>
<p>As you read further into an interesting topic, you'll realize how complex it is, how many different issues from Bible translation and interpretation to systematic theology, cultural nuances, philosophy, and more, all play into the things that Christians believe. And over time, you'll start to narrow down your own views on the issue.</p>
<p>This is what makes theology so fascinating to me, and why professional theologians have so much work that they can spend their entire lives studying a small number of issues.</p>
<p>There are also benefits of theology which are not just academic or intellectual. I would not love God nearly as much as I do now, or be able to trust Him as much as now, or be as strong in my faith as now, if I had not spent all the time I have studying theology and Scripture.</p>
<h2>Theology Is Hard Work</h2>
<p>As seen above, theology and Biblical study really can be challenging.</p>
<p>Ideally, pastors and theologians serve the Church by being the ones who have full-time jobs doing this research and writing and debating on behalf of the rest of Christians. This is a privilege, but also a reason why these roles carry extra responsibility (James 3:1). </p>
<p>As John Piper writes,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If the sheep did not need help understanding their Bibles, God would not have given shepherds who had to be apt to teach. The shepherds would just read the Bible on Sunday morning, and the people would see and feel all they need to. No teaching or preaching required. But that's not how Jesus set it up. So the pastor's job is to look at the Bible and work hard to understand what's in it, and then work hard to make it understandable and attractive and compelling to our people.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>This doesn't happen automatically, but requires dedication to careful study:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">We don't read through our Bibles once or twice or ten times and suddenly know the whole counsel of God. We have to ask hard questions about how the different parts of revelation fit together. That's called 'scholarship.' It doesn't have to be in school. It just has to be careful and honest and observant and synthesizing and constructive. It's head work. And it's meant to serve the heart of our people.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>But this doesn't mean the work is unnecessary or unspiritual:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">It takes hard mental work to rightly handle the Word of God. Don't let anybody ever tell you that hard mental work is unspiritual. We are using our minds to understand God's Word, and we are depending in prayer upon the Holy Spirit to guide our minds.<cite>7</cite></span></p>
<p>So I would hope that all pastors would be theologians and students of Scripture, since it's a critical part of their jobs and their duty to the people in their congregation and the Church as a whole.</p>
<p>But it's a good idea to have at least a few other theologically informed people in the congregation too if possible, in order to act as a sort of "quality control" or discernment team, who can raise questions or concerns about what is preached or taught in church with the pastor, or if necessary, the board of elders or denomination hierarchy.</p>
<p>Therefore, I believe "quality control" is one of the main roles of all theologians in the Church.</p>
<p>Another lesser role would be "research and development", especially for those theologians working in academia.</p>
<h2>But What About The Holy Spirit?</h2>
<p>So is the Holy Spirit useless to "guide you into all truth"? (John 16:13)</p>
<p>Actually, in the original languages, the word "you" in this verse is plural!</p>
<p>So maybe the process of theology is meant to be done by the Church as a whole, as we progressively and iteratively make progress through research, writing, debating, and discerning the truth, all done with the promised help of the Holy Spirit.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>As discussed above, reading theology is valuable for any Christian, because:</p>
<ul>
<li>it helps us overcome our unconscious biases when approaching Scripture</li>
<li>helps us gain insight into more accurate ways to read Scripture</li>
<li>makes us ready to serve an important role in the Church by knowing enough to double-check what we hear from the pulpit</li>
<li>prepares us to respond to others who have different views by being able to explain why we believe what we do (1 Pet. 3:15)</li>
</ul>
<p>So as a result, I would really encourage every Christian to read at least a little theology.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Dennis McCallum, <a href="https://www.xenos.org/essays/role-women-church-new-material-leads-new-view">"The Role of Women in the Church: New Material Leads to a New View"</a>, Xenos Christian Fellowship. The source of his claims are from Richard Clark Kroeger and Catherine Clark Kroeger, <em>I Suffer Not a Woman,</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1992).</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/beware-of-destroying-the-temple-of-god/">"Beware of Destroying the Temple of God"</a>, posted April 27, 2018 on the Grace Evangelical Society blog.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Justo L. Gonzalez, <em>The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation</em>, Volume 1, Revised and Updated (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010), 3.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Stanley N. Gundry, ed. <a href="https://www.librarything.com/series/Zondervan+Counterpoints">Counterpoints Bible & Theology</a> series, Zondervan.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> <a href="https://www.ivpress.com/spectrum-multiview-book-series">Spectrum Multiview Books</a> series, IVP Academic.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Leonard G. Gloss, ed. <a href="https://www.bhacademic.com/series/perspectives/">Perspectives On</a> series, B&H Publishing Group.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> John Piper and D. A. Carson, <em>The Pastor as Scholar & The Scholar As Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry,</em> ed. Owen Strachan and David Mathis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 61.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> John Piper and D. A. Carson, <em>The Pastor as Scholar & The Scholar As Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry,</em> ed. Owen Strachan and David Mathis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 62-63.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> John Piper and D. A. Carson, <em>The Pastor as Scholar & The Scholar As Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry,</em> ed. Owen Strachan and David Mathis (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), 63.</li>
</ul>Avoid Comparing Your Ministry or Gifts With Others2019-01-09T00:00:00+00:002019-01-09T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2019-01-09:/article/avoid-comparing-ministries-or-gifts/<p>As we begin the new year, we often take time to reflect on what we've done the past year, and what we hope to do in the upcoming year.</p>
<p>I end up thinking not just about my career or studies, but also about how I've been doing in using all …</p><p>As we begin the new year, we often take time to reflect on what we've done the past year, and what we hope to do in the upcoming year.</p>
<p>I end up thinking not just about my career or studies, but also about how I've been doing in using all my gifts and abilities to serve God.</p>
<p>One of my personality flaws is that I am always comparing myself with others, and worrying that I don't measure up. I do this with nearly everything—my grades, my career, my housing, my clothes, my physical appearance, and more.</p>
<p>This happens especially when I come across some biographies of theologians, professors, authors, or pastors which highlight all their achievements. They've written dozens of books, been missionaries or pastors or served in academic roles for decades, mentored however many students, preached however many sermons, and the list goes on.</p>
<p>Then I end up feeling like nothing I've done can possibly compare to that.</p>
<p>Or sometimes, I see the achievements of these people as standards that I have to meet or exceed in order to please God in my own life. I think to myself, "Wow, if I can't teach like Dr. Whoever does, then I'm going to not be a good professor." Or, "If I don't write as many articles and books as Professor Whats-his-face, then I'm never going to be able to get or keep a job teaching theology."</p>
<p>Plus, since what we do in this life matters for eternal heavenly rewards, then I worry that in heaven I'll be kicking myself for not having done more, in comparison to many other Christians who have had such influential and significant ministries. Will I be disappointed when God judges my life to determine my heavenly rewards? (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).</p>
<p>But after some reflection on what the Bible says about how God will judge our lives and what it is that earns heavenly rewards, I've found some things that help me worry less and compare myself less to others. I will share these here, in the hope that maybe it will help others also.</p>
<h2>The Church as the Body of Christ</h2>
<p>Sometimes I think Christians feel pressured to do everything. Volunteer to serve the poor! Attend or lead bible studies! Make food for church events! Evangelize your neighbors and family and friends! Spend more time in intercessory prayer! Read more books on theology! Step up to fulfill needed church roles! Come help with local outreach! And on and on...</p>
<p>The great thing about the Church (all Christians throughout the world, regardless of which local church we attend) is that all together, we make up the metaphorical body of Christ, which is active in achieving God's purposes in the world, just as Christ's physical body did when he was here during his earthly life.</p>
<p>Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 that individual Christians in the Church are like different parts of a physical body. Just as our physical bodies need many different parts in order to function and do everything we do, so the Church needs many different kinds of Christians, with different gifts and abilities and personalities, in order to function and achieve all that God wants it to do in the world.</p>
<p>No one can do everything, for we are finite beings with limited amounts of time and energy. So we need other Christians to do the things we are unable to do, or that we are not very good at doing.</p>
<p>Paul specifically says the Holy Spirit gives out a variety of gifts to different people. Not everyone gets the same gifts, or will have the same level of gifting even if they share the same gift (1 Corinthians 12:7-11).</p>
<p>Therefore, I do not have to feel inferior to others just because I do not have the same gifts or abilities as others. It's God who has chosen to give me what gifts and what level of abilities that I have. God also has put us in different life situations which means we will have different opportunities to serve Him.</p>
<p>Recognizing what my abilities and opportunities are and learning how to play my role in my local church (or in the broader Christian community) is going to be much better for me and for the Church as a whole than if I tried to do everything, or tried to act out of gifts that I wished I had but which I actually do not have. That's only going to lead to unhappiness and burnout, and I won't be effective in what I do.</p>
<p>Accepting our limits, and recognizing our gifts, will help us realize that we don't have to do everything. We will be most useful to God when we do what he has gifted us to do, and focus on doing that well.</p>
<p>So I don't have to feel bad that I'm not called to go live overseas and be a missionary, or do anything else that someone might hold up as the "ultimate" Christian service, if it's not my gift, not my calling, and doesn't suit my personality or current life situation.</p>
<p>What the Bible teaches about heavenly rewards supports the idea that we are not measured according to others' standards or what others achieve, but according to how well we use the abilities and opportunities that God gives us.</p>
<h2>Principles for Heavenly Rewards</h2>
<p>There are several hints in the Bible about how God will judge our service for him.</p>
<p>In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, we see that each servant is given a different amount of money to invest.</p>
<p>Zane Hodges says that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The lesson is that each of these first two servants does the same thing with the amount he is given. The first man doubles his money, and the second man also doubles his money. From the Lord's standpoint—especially since the original commitments were based on the ability of each individual—they've both done equally well.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>The one who does not invest his money at all is reprimanded. Although it's worth noting that the phrase 'outer darkness' here does not necessarily mean Hell. If it did, then this parable would teach salvation by works. So Free Grace interpreters say the 'outer darkness' means criticism by God and temporary shame and regret as the person mourns their past failure and the lost rewards they could have earned.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>In a nearly identical parable in Luke 19, this time, the servants are all given the same amount of money. However, they invest it differently, and achieve different returns on their money. Each is rewarded in proportion to the amount of profit they made.</p>
<p>So if we combine the principles in both these parables we can see that:</p>
<ul>
<li>If two people have different abilities and opportunities to serve God and do equally well with what they're given, God rewards them equally.</li>
<li>If two people have equal abilities and opportunities to serve God, but one does more or serves better than the other, God rewards them proportionately.</li>
</ul>
<p>We can also look at Jesus' comments on the poor widow in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4. The rich people are all giving large amounts of money to the temple, but the poor widow only gives a few pennies. Yet Jesus says she has given more than the rich people. So because she was willing to give all she had, she was viewed more highly by God (and presumably, will be rewarded more by God) than the rich people who did not give all they could.</p>
<p>So we can perhaps add a third point:</p>
<ul>
<li>If a person does the best with what abilities and opportunities they do have, even if less than others, that person will be rewarded more than someone who had more ability and opportunity but did less than their best.</li>
</ul>
<p>So based on these stories, it seems clear that God will judge us based on what opportunities and abilities we did have and how we used those. It doesn't matter how great or small those were in comparison to others, what matters is how we used what we were given.</p>
<p>Additionally, there may be different temptations or possibly even more struggles for those who are given more opportunities and abilities to serve God, as Hodges and Wilkin say:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In some ways one would almost think that a man [or a woman] with a large amount of ability is called upon to make special efforts in order to maximize that ability. I would think it's a little bit harder in some ways to preach worldwide and not to succumb to the temptations associated with that and to maximize the opportunity, than it is to labor in obscurity and maximize that lesser opportunity. But in any case, God treats his servants fairly, and He measures what we’ve done on the basis of what He's given us.<cite>3</cite></span></p>
<p>However, serving God at any level of ability involves some risk:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The minute I try to serve God, significantly or insignificantly, I run a risk. I not only run a risk of personal failure, because my sinful nature induces me down the wrong path, but I also run into the opposition of Satan and his agents. Satan does not sit idly by while I try to serve God. We take it for granted that he will attack the guy with a lot of talents. But Satan has time to attack the one-talent Christian, as well. There’s risk up and down the line. But the more prominently God places you in ministry, the more the risks multiply because then you become a target for everybody and everything. Therefore, there’s every bit as much risk for the five talent man as there is for the one talent man.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<h2>Not Everyone Has The Same Opportunities</h2>
<p>This knowledge that God's judgment will be fairly based on what abilities and opportunities we each have and how we used those, helps us stop worrying about not being as good as other Christians who appear to have far more ability or opportunity to serve God than we do.</p>
<p>For example, I often feel envious of those theologians who have had the opportunity, due to being born in earlier centuries, to make a much more significant impact on Christian theology than I will be able to make.</p>
<p>Or I envy those professors and theologians who have gone to heaven now, having lived a full life and made their mark on scholarship and influenced many students, when I have not really even begun my career, and may not even have time to finish my degree before Jesus returns.</p>
<p>I need to remember that even though my opportunities to make a mark on theology or serve God with my gifts may appear to be less than for earlier theologians who did get an entire career to make a difference, as long as I'm trying the best I can with what I can do right now, I am doing just as well as they did, and possibly better.</p>
<p>Even if they were fortunate enough to become influential in Christian theology, I need to remember that my situation has different advantages which they did not have. Being an earlier theologian meant that while they were influential, it meant that their mistakes have been passed on down the centuries as well. I would not want to bear the responsibility of making a mistake as big as Calvinism, for example!</p>
<p>Also, due to the changes in technology and culture, as well as the advantages of many more centuries of theological development, biblical studies, language studies, and archaeology, I have the opportunity to be much more well-informed about some issues than past theologians were.</p>
<p>For example, my small 10 shelves of books would look like the largest library a medieval monk had ever seen! And the ability to use the internet to learn from scholars all around the world is a fantastic resource that past generations couldn't even have imagined.</p>
<p>Plus, if I had been born in an earlier culture I might not have had the opportunity to do theology at all, since there is much greater freedom now for women to pursue careers outside of the home, and especially in the male-dominated field of theology.</p>
<p>This is how I understand the opportunities I have now, which helps me see that I should not compare myself to other theologians who I admire, because my situation and theirs are different, my personality is different, and my gifts are different. No one has the same combination of gifts, opportunities, and personality that I do, which makes me unique. That means I need to stop expecting my life to look the same as any other Christian's, and just do the best I can with what God gives me to do.</p>
<p>Although the above is how I have come to terms with my own situation, I hope these same principles will be just as encouraging to any Christian.</p>
<p>Most Christians throughout history have not been famous, influential, or memorable. Most Christians were simple peasants, trying to scratch out a living in whatever difficult time and place they lived, raising families and then dying at what we consider today as a fairly young age from some sort of disease or infection, or being killed in a war. Most were uneducated and couldn't read. Many lived at times when they couldn't even understand the language used by priests in the church services they attended.</p>
<p>Additionally, what about the many Christians who died young? They never got a full lifetime to use their gifts to serve God. A baby can't really do much to be useful to the Church. Or those who were invalids due to disease or deformities which medicine could not cure, which meant these people were dependent on the assistance of others in order to just keep existing, and couldn't really contribute as much as a healthy person could?</p>
<p>And once someone becomes old or disabled, again, their capacity for serving God frequently changes from what it was during the peak of health. They may feel they can't do the things they used to do, and have to rely on others' help to do regular daily activities instead of being the helpers.</p>
<p>Some, today, with the advances in modern communications, publishing, the internet, worldwide travel, have been able to reach millions, if not billions, of people with the message of the gospel. Others might only be able to pray and raise their families in as godly of a way as they can. Some never get much of a chance to do anything at all, if they die as infants or are severely disabled.</p>
<p>So we can see that a Christian's ability and opportunity to serve God is extremely variable, and also changes as we grow up and age, and can fluctuate depending on our physical health and life situations.</p>
<p>Not only this, but our God-given unique personalities mean that not everyone is suited for the same sorts of activities or roles in the Church. Those with roles of preaching or teaching carry more responsibility and will be judged more strictly (James 3:1), and so are not intended for everyone.</p>
<p>However, Hodges and Wilkin suggest that every Christian has some sort of gift meant to serve the local church in some way or another:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For the Christian who feels he [or she] has minimal talents, the church is his [or her] bank. He [or she] can invest it in the church's life. The whole nature of spiritual gifts is that they’re given for the benefit and edification of the church. So it doesn’t matter that he [or she] has a small gift. He [or she] can make a contribution to the church, no matter how insignificant the contribution seems. The bank is there; do something with the ability God has given you.<cite>5</cite></span></p>
<p>Some people hate public speaking, and would never be suited to be a pastor. But, without their contribution to serving God in other ways in the church, a pastor might be totally ineffective! Behind-the-scenes people like janitors, administrators, and other volunteers are all needed to make a church functional and to enable others like pastors to use their God-given gifts most effectively.</p>
<p>And even if a Christian is stuck in a hospital bed or shut-in at home and unable to go to church or do anything active, there are still opportunities to serve through prayer, and the difference your love makes to those in your life, and the personal testimony given through your life, character, and words.</p>
<p>If you don't know what your gift is, the best thing is just to try doing different things, and see what seems to come most naturally or brings you the most happiness. </p>
<p>Plus, every Christian should do some of the basics like praying, encouraging, giving, helping, etc. So having a more specialized gift might make you more effective in some areas, but it doesn't mean you can slack off if help is needed in other areas.</p>
<h2>God Wants Us To Succeed In Serving Him</h2>
<p>One last thing which is encouraging, is the idea that my success is not entirely in my own hands. God wants me to be as effective for Him as possible, for when I am serving God and contributing to His Kingdom effectively it helps achieve God's goals in this world.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is in God's best interest to help me be effective by providing for my basic needs and keeping me healthy (Matthew 6:31-33), while not denying my own responsibility to do the best to manage my finances and health that I can within reasonable limits of my ability. This helps me have some peace and not worry as much about the future.</p>
<p>I also don't have to fear that God will ask me to do something that I'm totally unsuited for. It doesn't help God achieve His goals to put me in situations or expect me to do things that He has not gifted me for, that don't suit my personality or my current situation in life, or that will make me unhappy and depressed.</p>
<p>Therefore, I can trust that what He leads me to do will not burn me out, but will actually be fulfilling, even if there is a level of uncertainty involved, or some courage necessary to go forward with it.</p>
<p>So it's not all up to me. I can trust that God will help me serve Him effectively, and that God wants me to do my best at serving Him, because it is in alignment with His goals also.</p>
<h2>What Matters Is How We Use What We Do Have</h2>
<p>So in conclusion, we can stop comparing our ministry and service to God with others by remembering that it's not about who does the most or is the most successful outwardly according to the world's standards.</p>
<p>Instead, it's about doing the best with what we're given right now. </p>
<p>This means it's an individual competition—like a runner trying to beat their own best time, rather than an external competition where runners try to outdo each other.</p>
<p>So I am not threatened by the success or fame of other Christians and don't have to be jealous of them, for their ministry is not mine, and I am judged by God based on my own opportunities and abilities.</p>
<p>This frees me to stop comparing, and stop placing expectations on myself that I should have a ministry just like someone else. I can just do my best at what God calls me to do, to serve in the ways God enables me to serve, and to take the opportunities God provides to do what He desires (Ephesians 2:10), and not worry that I'm not doing enough or not doing as well as someone else.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Zane Hodges and Robert N. Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/grace-in-focus-articles/the-parable-of-the-talents/">"The Parable of the Talents
(Matthew 25:14-30)"</a> posted June 1, 2017 on the Grace Evangelical Society website.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> ibid.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> ibid.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> ibid.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> ibid.</li>
</ul>Why Jesus Must Be Fully Divine2018-12-12T00:00:00+00:002018-12-12T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-12-12:/article/why-jesus-must-be-fully-divine/<p>It's nearly Christmas, and so the Incarnation is likely a topic you'll hear mentioned in sermons and Christmas carols. Songs about God being born as Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem are something that we hear all around us in the background as we're Christmas shopping or preparing dinners and attending …</p><p>It's nearly Christmas, and so the Incarnation is likely a topic you'll hear mentioned in sermons and Christmas carols. Songs about God being born as Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem are something that we hear all around us in the background as we're Christmas shopping or preparing dinners and attending parties.</p>
<p>But we often don't think deeply about why God had to become a human being.</p>
<p>Last year, I was a TA for a course on early church history. As part of this, I was able to give a lecture on Christological heresies—that is, basically "What Not to Say About Jesus".</p>
<p>As part of this lecture, I spent a little time on why it is theologically essential to say Jesus was fully divine while still being fully human.</p>
<h2>The Biblical Evidence</h2>
<p>Part of the early church's theological challenge was to figure out how to make sense of Jesus' claims about Himself, within the context of a religion that believes there is only one God.</p>
<p>For example, how do we make sense of Jesus' claims that:</p>
<ul>
<li>"Before Abraham was I am" (John 8:58-59).</li>
<li>"I and the Father are one" (John 10:30-39).</li>
<li>He has the authority to forgive sin (Matthew 9:2-6, Mark 2:5-10; Luke 7:47-48).</li>
<li>His teaching is more authoritative than the Pharisees, the religious experts of that time (Matthew 12:8, 12:12, Mark 2:27-28, John 8:1-11).</li>
<li>He would judge the world (Matthew 25:31-46, 28:18, John 5:22).</li>
<li>He had the power to lay his life down and take it back up again (John 10:18).</li>
<li>He had the authority and ability to give eternal life to His followers (John 10:28-29).</li>
</ul>
<p>On top of this, we have Jesus' miracles and actions which confirmed these things. For example, his many miraculous healings, his authority over demons (Mark 1:27), his control over nature (Matthew 8:26-27), and his power to restore life (Mark 5:41, John 11:43-44) are all things only God can do.</p>
<p>Jesus also accepted worship of the disciples (Matthew 14:33, 28:17, John 9:38) and told them to pray to God in Jesus' own name (John 15:16, 16:23). This would have been blasphemy to the Jews, who were taught to only worship God, never angels or prophets.</p>
<p>All these claims were verified by Jesus' resurrection, by his ability to give the Holy Spirit to his followers (John 16:7, 20:22), and by his ascension to heaven (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9, and Stephen’s vision in Acts 7:55-56).</p>
<p>So, it only makes sense, based on the Biblical evidence, to say Jesus is God. He's not just a prophet, or a good moral teacher, or a local unsuccessful revolutionary.</p>
<p>If we want to say that the disciples made all this up, it doesn't fit the facts.</p>
<p>Most of the disciples died in painful ways for their testimony that Jesus was indeed God and had been crucified, died, and came back to life. But people don't die for a lie they invented.</p>
<p>Plus, the Gospels contain many details and stories which make the disciples look foolish, and would not have been included if the disciples had decided to come up with this story to make themselves rich or famous (e.g. Matthew 16:23, 26:75) or even persuasive to others (e.g. having women be the first witnesses to Jesus' resurrection, and even the disciples didn't believe them at first (see Luke 24:10-11), for women were considered less reliable than men in that culture).</p>
<p>So saying that Jesus is fully God and fully human is really the only way to make sense of what Jesus said and did in the Gospels, and the spread of early Christianity, without saying that Jesus (and his disciples) were all liars or lunatics (as C.S. Lewis puts it).</p>
<p>But, theologically, there are several important reasons why we need to say Jesus is actually God Himself.</p>
<h2>Reason 1: For Jesus To Be Our Perfect Sacrifice for Sin</h2>
<p>First, Jesus had to be divine in order to be both sinless, and thus the perfect sacrifice for all humanity's sins while not needing to be redeemed Himself (Hebrews 7:26-27). No human besides Jesus has ever lived a perfect life (Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:22-23).</p>
<p>He also had to be simultaneously fully human in order for that sacrifice to be applicable to humanity, for Christ to be our kinsman-redeemer, our high-priest (Hebrews 2:17), and for him to redeem all parts of our human nature (e.g. body/mind and soul/spirit).</p>
<p>Some reasons for how Jesus being fully human means our sins can be properly transferred to him has been touched on already in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-made-in-image-of-God/">this post</a>.</p>
<h2>Reason 2: For Jesus To Perfectly Reveal God to Humanity</h2>
<p>But, I think one of the most important reasons why we must say Jesus is God is so that we can know exactly what God is like.</p>
<p>Jesus said "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).</p>
<p>Not that Jesus <em>is</em> the Father (we're not Modalists) but that Jesus is a <em>perfect representation of the Father's character</em> to us, in a special and perfect way which involved God interacting with us in tangible ways that we could relate to (1 John 1:1).</p>
<p>T.F. Torrance, in his book <em>The Mediation of Christ</em>, has several excellent quotes that clearly show why we need to know that Jesus perfectly reveals God to humanity:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">If there is no relation of mutual knowing and being and loving between the incarnate Son and the Father, then Jesus Christ does not... provide for us any guarantee in what he was or said or did as to what God is like in himself.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>Then,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Fearful anxiety arises in the human heart when people cannot connect Jesus up in their faith or understanding with the ultimate Being of God, for then the ultimate Being of God can be only a dark, inscrutable, arbitrary Deity whom they inevitably think of with terror ... it is quite different when the face of Jesus is identical with the face of God, when his forgiveness of sin is forgiveness indeed for its promise is made good through the atoning sacrifice of God in Jesus Christ, and when the perfect love of God embodied in him casts out all fear. But all that depends upon the identity between Christ’s mediation of divine revelation and reconciliation and his own Personal Being as Mediator.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>So basically, if Jesus is God, then we can have confidence about God's character, God's love for us, and God's forgiveness of our sins, because Jesus has demonstrated all of these to us in His earthly life, death, and resurrection.</p>
<p>We don't have to be afraid that while Jesus is kind, loving, and forgiving, God the Father might actually be strict, angry, wrathful, and unforgiving.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is the impression of God that we often get, both from bad theology, and also popular depictions of God in our culture.</p>
<p>For example, I remember a song by the Christian artist Carman, titled "The Courtroom", where he depicts the final judgment as a trial where God the Father is the judge, Jesus is our defense attorney, and Satan is the prosecutor.<cite>3</cite> It's up to Jesus to prove your case before God, who may (or possibly may not) forgive your sins. It subtly implies that there is some difference between Jesus and God, that Jesus loves you and forgives you, but God the Father is not quite so sure unless Jesus can present a good case on your behalf.</p>
<p>Somehow, whether it was from this song or elsewhere, I grew up with the impression that maybe, even if Jesus loves me, God the Father might not; God the Father might still be angry at me. Jesus might lose his court case, or maybe, if the Calvinists are right, God actually has predestined me to hell after all, and Jesus' death doesn't apply to me.</p>
<p>It has taken a long time and lots of study to correct my thoughts about God the Father to get over this impression, and like Torrance says above, to realize Jesus does <em>perfectly</em> represent the Father.</p>
<p>There is no chance that Jesus wants to forgive me but God the Father wants to send me to hell instead. Both the Father and the Son (Jesus) are perfect <em>Love</em> (1 John 4:8, 4:16), and perfect light and holiness with no darkness or evil in them at all (1 John 1:5).</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I still have difficulty praying to God as "Father", because the term "God the Father" still brings up ideas of the vindictive, arbitrary, and wrathful God who wants to send me to hell, and so it's easier for me to pray to Jesus instead.</p>
<p>So this is one reason why we need to be really careful in what we say about God the Father and his relationship to Jesus; if there's even a <em>hint</em> that they are not part of the same Triune Deity and have the <em>exact same</em> character, then there's no guarantee that what Jesus says reflects God the Father accurately.</p>
<p>As I've experienced, this can really mess up a person's view of God, which, in my case, even years of theological training has a hard time fully undoing.</p>
<h2>Excursus: Was Jesus <em>Fully</em> Incarnate?</h2>
<p>One interesting and related debate between Calvinists and Lutherans is whether the Son of God was <em>fully</em> incarnate in the person of Jesus. </p>
<p>Calvin argued that the <em>infinite</em> divine nature of the Son could not possibly become fully incarnate in the <em>finite</em> human Jesus. Instead, he said,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning.<cite>4</cite></span></p>
<p>Basically, to Calvin, trying to fit the <em>infinite</em> divine Son into the <em>finite</em> human Jesus is kind of like when we try to squeeze into a pair of jeans that is just too small—there is some part of us that overflows the jeans and can't be contained in them, no matter how hard we try.</p>
<p>So Calvin says the Son was only partly incarnate in the person Jesus, but not entirely.</p>
<p>But, the problem is, if this was true, then the finite portion of the divine Son which could "fit" into the human Jesus would be <em>infinitely small</em> in comparison to the portion of the Son which was not incarnate. Instead of mostly fitting into those tight human jeans (or genes), He can barely fit even a toenail!</p>
<p>So, I prefer the Lutheran claim, that somehow, <em>the finite can contain the infinite</em>, so that the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, was somehow <em>fully</em> incarnate in the finite human person of Jesus.</p>
<p>This is the only way we can be sure that Jesus <em>truly</em> and <em>fully</em> represented God. </p>
<p>Otherwise, who knows if there might not be some part of the Son who is actually not kind, not forgiving, and not loving, and maybe even downright evil?</p>
<p>(Although, Calvin's representation of God would actually fit with that, since he says God predestines most people to infinite torture in hell and these people <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">never had any real opportunity</a> to believe in Christ and be saved. In comparison, this sort of god would make Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Genghis Khan, and others seem like pretty decent people!)</p>
<p>In conclusion, if Jesus was not the full and complete incarnation of the Son, then he could not be the perfect representation of God the Father to us either.</p>
<h2>Reason 3: To Avoid Misconstruing the Atonement</h2>
<p>Theologically, the penal substitution theory of the atonement often claims that God the Father is angry at our sin and must punish us because of it, but Jesus, who loves us, says to God:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Hey, wait a minute—I love all those people, and I don't want them to all be destroyed. So how about you send me down there and you punish me instead? That way, you get to vent your wrath at sin and the punishment that is due for sin is paid by me, so that then you can forgive them!</span></p>
<p>This is often characterized by atheists as "cosmic child abuse", because it depicts God as punishing his Son, who became incarnate as Jesus Christ, for our sins instead of God punishing us.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>Of course, penal substitution is a powerful way of understanding the atonement and does have Biblical support (e.g. 2 Corinthians 5:21, Isaiah 53:4-6, Galatians 3:13, 1 Peter 2:24, 3:18). Penal substitution is also illustrated historically in how Jesus was tortured and killed while the terrorist Barabbas was set free (Matthew 27:26).</p>
<p>But, we need to remember that the Son is fully God and is equal in every way with the Father! So God is not punishing some innocent third-party on the cross—God is actually absorbing His own wrath at sin, through the Son who is incarnate as Jesus. Now there is nothing left for us except love and forgiveness if we believe in Christ.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Timothy Keller has a very helpful explanation of why God had to either inflict His wrath at sin on us or absorb it into Himself. In his book <em>The Reason For God</em>, Keller says that if someone hurts us, for example, by damaging our property which must then be fixed, there are only two options: either the perpetrator pays the cost, or the one whose property is damaged pays the cost. In relationships when one party is hurt by another, either we vent our anger on the person who has hurt us, or we absorb our own anger so that we can forgive them.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>He writes:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">To refrain from lashing out at someone when you want to do so with all your being is <em>agony</em>. It is a form of suffering. You not only suffer the original loss of happiness, reputation, and opportunity, but now you forgo the consolation of inflicting the same on them. You are absorbing the debt, taking the cost of it completely on yourself instead of taking it out of the other person. It hurts terribly. Many people would say it feels like a kind of death.<cite>8</cite></span></p>
<p>The cross is therefore God's ultimate demonstration of God's love and righteous justice, simultaneously. God's holiness means He can't ignore our sin, but must deal with it as it deserves, and yet He does this at great cost to Himself because He loves us.<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>We can see what this cost Him in the time between when Jesus cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, a reference to the Old Testament foreshadowing of the cross in Psalm 22), and when He finally died and said, "It is finished" (John 19:30).</p>
<p>Somehow, the eternal intra-Trinitarian perfect love and intimacy between the Father and Son was interrupted temporarily, when God the Son was experiencing and absorbing the spiritual suffering and abandonment by God the Father which all humans deserve for our sins.<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>I think the physical torment of the cross would have been miniscule in comparison to this spiritual suffering. Perhaps God chose crucifixion as a physical illustration of the sort of terrible suffering the Son of God was experiencing behind the scenes in the spiritual dimension of reality, so that we could get a small picture of what he was going through?</p>
<p>But, if Jesus was not God in human flesh, then none of his sufferings, whether physical or spiritual, could do anything to reconcile us to God. A finite creature could never fully bear God's infinite holy punishment at sin. But because Jesus was God, his temporary sufferings, experienced in his infinite divine nature, can pay for every sin that every human could possibly commit.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>The Incarnation is really a mystery. No one but Jesus knows what it is like to be fully human and fully divine simultaneously, or what he experienced on the cross.</p>
<p>Yet the Incarnation is also a really critical piece of Christian theology, for we must say that Jesus was the full and perfect representation of God, and the only one who could properly atone for our sins and reconcile us to God, for He truly was and is "God With Us" (Emmanuel). </p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> T. F. Torrance, <em>The Mediation of Christ</em>, New Edition (Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1992), 59.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> T. F. Torrance, <em>The Mediation of Christ</em>, New Edition (Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1992) 59-60.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Carman Licciardello <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqOXoXLWN2s">"The Courtroom | Music Videos | Carman"</a>, YouTube.com, April 26, 2016.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> John Calvin, <em>Institutes of the Christian Religion</em> Book 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 2.13.4.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Donald Macleod, <em>Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 63-64.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Timothy Keller, <em>The Reason for God</em> (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2008), 200. See also Donald Macleod, <em>Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 64.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Timothy Keller, <em>The Reason for God</em> (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2008), 194-195.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Timothy Keller, <em>The Reason for God</em> (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2008), 196.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Donald Macleod, <em>Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 115.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Donald Macleod, <em>Christ Crucified: Understanding the Atonement</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 48.</li>
</ul>Reasons to Pursue Sanctification2018-12-05T00:00:00+00:002018-12-05T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-12-05:/article/reasons-to-pursue-sanctification/<p>Recently, I was discussing with a friend about how the Free Grace movement makes a clear distinction between eternal salvation (or <em>justification</em>) and discipleship (or <em>sanctification</em>).<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>In this view, our eternal salvation is based only on our faith in Christ as our savior, whereas discipleship involves following Christ's example …</p><p>Recently, I was discussing with a friend about how the Free Grace movement makes a clear distinction between eternal salvation (or <em>justification</em>) and discipleship (or <em>sanctification</em>).<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>In this view, our eternal salvation is based only on our faith in Christ as our savior, whereas discipleship involves following Christ's example and instructions to love God, love others, and do good works.</p>
<p>Some Christians seem to worry that adopting the Free Grace position would mean that there is no reason for Christians to bother pursuing sanctification.</p>
<p>This is similar to how some Christians fear that the idea that we will be instantly and completely sanctified at death would mean Christians should not worry about doing good works or growing in Christ-like character, as I discussed in my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/protestant-purgatory/">post about Purgatory</a>.</p>
<p>In this post I want to present a short overview of the Free Grace argument for why justification and sanctification are separate things. </p>
<p>I will also try to alleviate some of the fears surrounding the Free Grace perspective by suggesting several good reasons why sanctification is still important for Christians to pursue, even though sanctification is not necessary for eternal salvation.</p>
<h2>Eternal Salvation vs. Discipleship</h2>
<p>Charles C. Bing summarizes the differences between these in his book <em>Simply By Grace</em><cite>2</cite> in a table like this:</p>
<table class="table-centered-text">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Salvation</th>
<th>Discipleship</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Free Gift</td>
<td>Costly</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Received through faith</td>
<td>Requires commitment and obedience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Does not involve our works</td>
<td>Involves our works</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Instant justification</td>
<td>Lifelong sanctification</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Jesus paid the price</td>
<td>The Christian pays the price</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Coming to Jesus as savior</td>
<td>Following Jesus as Lord</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Believe the gospel</td>
<td>Obey the commands</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Bing says the distinction between these categories is clearly shown in Matthew 11:28-29 NRSV.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>The call to come to Christ for salvation is in Matthew 11:28 NRSV:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.</span></p>
<p>The call to follow Christ as his disciple (and thus pursue sanctification) follows in Matthew 11:29-30 NRSV:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.</span></p>
<p>So eternal salvation and discipleship are separate things, even though discipleship should ideally follow after acceptance of Jesus as our savior.</p>
<p>I really like this distinction because without it, we will end up making good works and sanctification a requirement for eternal salvation. This would mean a person could never have full assurance that they are saved, and as a result, they would miss out on the peace and joy that should come from being assured of their eternal salvation. For no one can ever be sure if they've done <em>enough</em> good works or become holy <em>enough</em> to prove they <em>really</em> believe in Jesus as their savior, or to somehow merit their own salvation. I've discussed this problem more <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/treadmill-theology/">here</a>.</p>
<p>So we simply can't have it both ways. Either sanctification and good works are a <em>necessary</em> part of salvation, or they aren't. The Free Grace movement is nearly alone among Christian denominations today for clearly saying that all that is necessary to be saved is faith in Christ.</p>
<h2>The Difference Between Believers and Disciples</h2>
<p>An implication of this view is that there are likely many Christians who believe in Jesus but are not (yet) disciples of Jesus.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>Alternatively, there may be some people who are disciples of Jesus—they want to follow Jesus' teachings and learn from him—but have not actually believed in Jesus as their savior.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>And even among disciples there can be different levels of commitment:</p>
<p>Bing says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">What’s the Biblical definition of a disciple? The word itself comes from the verb "to learn", and so it simply means in its simplest form "learner", "pupil", "adherent to a system". But you and I recognize that there are different degrees of commitment involved in learning something. You know that because you went through college perhaps, or some other kind of school. Some of you may have just taken a course and audited it—a minimum commitment—but you were there, you were a student, you were learning. Others of you might have gone for the whole enchilada, tried to get on the dean’s list, graduated with honors—the ultimate commitment. There are learners at different levels of commitment".<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Jesus's Parable of the Four Soils (Mark 4, Matthew 13, Luke 8) seems to illustrate these points quite well.</p>
<p>Free Grace interpreters point out how all of the last 3 soils represent Christians because the seed (of faith) sprouts in them.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Scripture tells us that the very first moment of faith in Christ leads to the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14). So all Christians represented by the last three soils are eternally saved; it is only the first soil where "the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, <em>so that they may not believe and be saved</em>." (Luke 8:12)</p>
<p>But some Christians' lives are not as fruitful as others because they either fall away from faith during testing (Luke 8:13), or they get distracted with concerns relating to this life and don't mature (Luke 8:14). </p>
<p>Even the soil that is good yields different amounts of crop—thirty, sixty, or a hundred-fold harvest (Mark 4:20, Matthew 13:23). This principle is also taught in the Parable of the Talents, where each person is given different amounts of money to invest (Matthew 25:14-15), or each person is given the same amount but invests differently and receives different returns (Luke 19:16-21).</p>
<h2>Heavenly Rewards are One Important Motivation for Sanctification</h2>
<p>So if we don't need sanctification to be eternally saved, then why should we pursue it? What benefit is there to being one of the Christians in Jesus' parable who produces thirty, sixty, or one-hundred percent of the harvest, versus ones who produce nothing?</p>
<p>I think Jesus's promises of heavenly rewards should encourage us to be as 'fruitful' as we can in this life.</p>
<p>1 Corinthians 3:10-15 teaches that our works will be judged by Christ, not for whether we will be saved or not, but for eternal heavenly rewards. Whatever was worthy of heavenly reward will endure God's judgment and is represented as gold and jewels, but whatever we did in our lives that was unworthy or was just an utter waste of time, will be "burned up" and do not earn any heavenly rewards. See also 2 Corinthians 5:9-10.</p>
<p>So then, once this evaluation of our works is complete, we will be left with a metaphorical pile of heavenly rewards, larger or smaller, depending on our lives. This is our "heavenly treasure" (Matthew 6:19-21). Scripture hints that these rewards may be expressed as different levels of ruling privileges with Christ on the New Earth (Luke 19:16-19; Matthew 25:21-23), or maybe other rewards we can't even imagine now.</p>
<p>Therefore, these rewards that we store up now will last for eternity. Eternity is a very long time and will make this life infinitely short in comparison. So I'd much rather use my short life now to earn heavenly rewards that I'll enjoy forever, rather than slacking off now and missing out on something that lasts forever.</p>
<h2>Further Motivation for Sanctification</h2>
<p>On top of heavenly rewards, I think there are even more good reasons why Christians should pursue sanctification:</p>
<h3>1. Personal Happiness</h3>
<p>John Wesley frequently emphasized that holiness makes us happy. Why? Because sin ultimately leads to suffering and death (James 1:15).</p>
<p>The Law is summed up as love for God and love for others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:8-10), and so sin is the opposite of this: it is unhappy relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. The reason God forbids sin is that it is ultimately harmful and makes us miserable, even if on the surface it seems pleasurable. If you would like to read more on this topic, see my post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christianity-is-not-a-feel-good-religion/">here</a>.</p>
<p>So, to be as happy as possible in this life, holiness is the way to go. I think we can see this demonstrated on many contemporary TV shows where things like lying, adultery, greed, backstabbing, and slandering just complicate people's lives and lead to all sorts of problems that make their lives miserable.</p>
<h3>2. Because We Love God</h3>
<p>As I wrote about in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">this blog post</a>, if God is Love, then if Christians love God, then we can say we love <em>Love</em>. This means we should love to act in loving ways towards everyone else, just as Jesus commanded (e.g. Matt 22:37-40; John 13:34).</p>
<h3>3. To Show Gratitude To God</h3>
<p>God loved us first (1 John 4:19) and sent His Son to die for us while we were sinners and enemies of God (Romans 5:10), so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life (John 3:16). There is no way to compensate God for this, but we can still do all we can to serve God and follow his commands out of gratitude and love for Him.</p>
<h3>4. To Avoid Displeasing God</h3>
<p>Since God loves everyone, whenever we hurt ourselves or others, it makes God angry and sad, just like when a parent sees their child being hurt, hurting others, or hurting themselves. Yes, God still loves us, but if we love God we should want to please Him and not make Him angry or sad as much as possible.</p>
<h3>5. To Avoid God's Discipline or Temporal Punishment</h3>
<p>God disciplines His persistently disobedient children (Hebrews 12:5-6), and may possibly even end their physical mortal lives if their sin is serious enough (e.g. Acts 5, where Ananias and Sapphira die for their lies).</p>
<p>A good article about the Free Grace interpretation of "salvation" in the book of James argues that James is actually encouraging Christians to avoid sin not to avoid hell, but in order to avoid temporal judgment or discipline by God, which may culminate in physical loss of life.<cite>8</cite></p>
<h3>6. Because Jesus Came to Save Us From Sin</h3>
<p>In Romans 6:4, Paul argues that since Christians have been baptized into Christ's death, we should live the new life that Christ intends to give us, which is to be set free from sin.</p>
<p>Sin ends up enslaving us (Romans 6:16), and so the more we're sanctified, the less we're enslaved to sin. If we have believed in Jesus for eternal life, then since that eternal life will take place in the New Heaven and New Earth where there will be no sin at all, we might as well get used to living that way now. As we are sanctified, we are slowly becoming more like the perfectly holy people we will be in heaven.</p>
<h3>7. To Fulfill the Great Commission</h3>
<p>A Christian who acts in unloving ways does not make a good impression on non-Christians, and will not persuasively draw others into considering Christ's love for them.</p>
<p>No one wants to hear about Jesus' love for them from a blatant jerk. But if we demonstrate God's love genuinely in our lives, we will shine like the light on the lampstand and draw others to Christ (Matthew 5:15-16).</p>
<h3>8. To Care For Others</h3>
<p>James 2:15-17 says that if our faith does not lead us to care for those who need help, then our faith is pretty much 'dead', not <em>non-existent</em>, but <em>useless</em> as far as any practical benefit it might give to others. It's useless to wish for people to be fed and clothed when we do nothing to help them. So, applying our faith and doing good deeds out of love for God and others makes a real difference to people who need help in this life.</p>
<h3>9. To Improve Society</h3>
<p>Some Christians believe that we should try to change society to make it more like how God would want it to be, where there is no oppression or hatred of others.</p>
<p>I believe that the best way to do this is by spreading the Gospel, so that more people will accept Christ, and who will then be enabled by the Holy Spirit to make a difference in the world and live righteously.</p>
<p>Unregenerate people (those who have not been made new by having the Holy Spirit indwell their hearts as a result of accepting Jesus as their savior) have very little motivation to love others unless it benefits themselves, and so I think social activism alone won't make much of a difference. What we need to fix society is more people committed to following Christ.</p>
<p>Therefore, there are <em>TONS</em> of good reasons why Christians should care about going on from simply having faith in Christ as savior, to making a commitment to being his disciple also.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>In conclusion, the Free Grace perspective that we are saved the very first moment we put our faith in Christ as our savior <em>does not in any way</em> undermine the emphasis we see in Scripture on becoming Jesus' disciples, by learning to avoid sin and follow Jesus' commands to love God and love each other.</p>
<p>There is no need to include sanctification or good works in our definition of faith (or to insist they are a necessary by-product of <em>real</em> faith) in order to have reasons to encourage Christians to pursue holiness and develop Christ-like character.</p>
<p>If you're interested in learning more about the Free Grace perspective, I'd highly recommend Charles Bing's book <em>Simply By Grace</em>. It's short, easy to read, and very clear. Or you can read some articles on the <a href="https://faithalone.org/">Grace Evangelical Society website</a> and <a href="https://faithalone.org/category/blog/">Grace Evangelical Society Blog</a>.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> For an overview of the Free Grace movement's history and theology, check out this link: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_grace_theology">Free Grace Theology</a> Wikipedia.org</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Charles C. Bing, <em>Simply By Grace: An Introduction to God's Life-Changing Gift</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2009), 121.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> ibid., 120.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Some might argue the book of Acts makes no distinction between believers and disciples. But this could be because at that time just being a Christian would involve ostracism, persecution, and potentially death. So back then, all Christians were disciples, for all made potentially costly commitments to follow Christ at the same time they believed in Him for salvation. This is not the case in our society right now. Charles C. Bing, <a href="https://faithalone.org/journal/1992i/Bing.html">"Coming to Terms with Discipleship"</a>, <em>Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society</em> Vol. 5, no. 1 (Spring, 1992): 35-49.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/magazine/y1990/90march1.html">Are All Believers Disciples?</a>, Grace In Focus, March 1, 1990.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Charles C. Bing, <a href="http://faithalone.org/journal/1999ii/J23-99a.htm">"Why Lordship Misses the Mark for Discipleship"</a>, <em>Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society</em> Vol 12, no. 23 (Autumn, 1999): 37-52.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/impossible-interpretation-of-the-parable-of-the-four-soils/">"Impossible Interpretation of the Parable of the Four Soils"</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog, June 24, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/what-type-of-salvation-is-james-talking-about/">"What Type of Salvation Is James Talking About?"</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog, November 28, 2018.</li>
</ul>Theological Insights on Why We Eat2018-11-28T00:00:00+00:002018-11-28T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-11-28:/article/why-do-we-have-to-eat/<p>The upcoming Christmas season is a good time for an article about eating, for many of us will be enjoying especially good food with family and friends at dinners or parties over the next month or so.</p>
<p>However, the specific question I will address was inspired by a friend who …</p><p>The upcoming Christmas season is a good time for an article about eating, for many of us will be enjoying especially good food with family and friends at dinners or parties over the next month or so.</p>
<p>However, the specific question I will address was inspired by a friend who raised the question "Why did God make humans so that we have to eat to survive?"</p>
<p>My friend implied that this was a stupid way for God to design humans. Instead, my friend said that God should have made humans so that we can either absorb energy right from the sun, or have some sort of a built-in perpetual energy source, like some sort of nuclear battery.</p>
<p>Basically, God should have made us in a way that frees us from the risk of dying from starvation, and of having to spend many long hours working or farming to provide enough food for ourselves and our families, and also free us from the inconvenience of having to cook. (My friend hates cooking).</p>
<p>There are interesting scientific studies on why eating (and cooking) is the most efficient and practical way for humans to take in energy. For example, some scientists have concluded that humans need to cook to provide enough energy to sustain our brain size; foraging for raw food would require too much time and wouldn't provide enough calories.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>And imagine: if we were plant-people and had to stand outside for hours to get energy, then it would severely reduce the environments we could survive in. We couldn't easily go to space, underground, or in dark areas for long periods of time. Winter would be tough, unless we were coniferous plant-people (although that would be really weird).</p>
<p>But the fact that eating is an efficient way to get energy still doesn't answer my friend's question of why God made us so that we have to eat at all.</p>
<h2>Eating in the Garden of Eden</h2>
<p>As I thought about this question, certain Biblical facts started to come to mind. Let's start at the beginning.</p>
<p>The Bible tells us Adam and Eve had to eat in the garden of Eden, even before they sinned (Genesis 1:29; 2:16). This would not have been a problem for them, for fruit and vegetables would have been readily available (Genesis 2:9).</p>
<p>We don't know for sure what would have happened if they didn't eat. Would they get hunger pains? Could they potentially die if they refused to eat?</p>
<p>We could suspect that Adam and Eve would never have gotten to that point, because food is enjoyable, and there would have been no reason for them to deny themselves when surrounded by many types of fruit trees.</p>
<p>In fact, since God loves us and wants what is best for us, then refusing to eat would be an act of rebellion against God's good will for our well-being. So, if Adam and Eve had remained obedient to God, they would never have willingly starved themselves.</p>
<p>We could suspect there was some sort of physical indication of when it was time to eat, but it might not have been experienced as painful or unpleasant. Plus, the very moment they got the slightest bit peckish, they would have had wonderful fruit within arm's reach.</p>
<p>Of course, in the garden there was also the very special Tree of Life. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were kicked out of Eden specifically so that they would no longer have access to the Tree of Life, so that they would not live forever in their sinful state (Genesis 3:22-23 NRSV).</p>
<p>This is actually very merciful—can you imagine how terrible the world would be if every evil person who has ever existed was still alive today, and had endless years with which they could perfect their cruelty and exercise their destructive ways? Having evil people's time on earth limited by death is a very good thing.</p>
<h2>Eating on the New Earth</h2>
<p>Now, let's skip to the complete opposite end of the Bible: Revelation chapters 21-22 which describes the New Jerusalem, on the New Earth.</p>
<p>This city will have a river running through it, and Trees of Life are once again planted on the sides of this river and down the main street, and they make a different type of fruit each month (Revelation 22:1-2).</p>
<p>I presume these Trees of Life are not just decorative, but will serve the same purpose they were meant to serve for Adam and Eve, that is, for people to continually eat their fruit in order to live forever.</p>
<p>This raises all the same questions as for Adam and Eve in the garden: What if we don't eat? Do we get "hangry" in heaven if we don't eat enough? Could we potentially die from starvation if we choose not to eat?</p>
<p>The same answers previously mentioned can still apply here. We won't have any shortages of food or of the special fruit of the Tree of Life on the New Earth, for it would not be heaven if that were the case. Fruit will be tasty and plentiful and we will enjoy eating it, and no one will have any desire to harm themselves by not eating.</p>
<h2>Eating Is An Indication That We Are Not Self-Sufficient</h2>
<p>But my friend's question has still not been answered: <em>why</em> did God design us to have to eat?</p>
<p>To answer this, we should look at what happens when we don't or can't eat: we die.</p>
<p>We can also look at what happened when Adam and Eve sinned.</p>
<p>God told Adam,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Genesis 3:17-19)</span></span></p>
<p>So, the punishment for disobeying God was that Adam and Eve now had to work hard for their food, instead of God providing it for them.</p>
<p>I think the reason for this makes total sense. When they sinned it was because they wanted to be like God (Genesis 3:4-5). But God is self-existent—he can't cease to exist, and depends on nothing for his existence.</p>
<p>In contrast, Adam and Eve <em>do</em> have to eat, or they will die and turn back into what they were formed from: dirt. Now, they have to use their own energy and work to partly sustain their own existence.</p>
<p>Thus, having to work for their food in order to eat to stay alive is a constant reminder to them that <em>they are not God</em>. They are not self-sufficient, but instead, they are entirely dependent on God's continual provision of food through giving them rain and sun for their crops.</p>
<p>While they should have realized this in the garden, having that easy source of food taken away from them when they were expelled from the garden would have made them even more aware of their finitude and dependence on God.</p>
<p>It's as if God partly backed off and said to them (and by extension, to us),</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Ok, let me show you what life is like when you think you don't need Me, even though I am the very source of your life and I uphold you in existence. Go ahead and try sustaining yourselves with your own power, and see how much fun that is.</span></p>
<p>Therefore, I think we can say that the reason God designed us so that we have to eat to stay alive (even in Eden, and even on the New Earth) is because it gives us a constant reminder that we are contingent creatures who are entirely dependent upon God's sustaining power and provision for us.</p>
<p>Realizing this should keep our pride in check, and should humble us enough to realize that we are not the sovereign masters of our own fate that we tend to think we are, and remind us to turn to God for all our needs. It also reminds us that we need to be constantly grateful for God's provision, recognizing that without it we would cease to exist.</p>
<h2>But Won't Our Resurrected Bodies Be Immortal?</h2>
<p>This idea that we might have to eat even in resurrected bodies on the New Earth rejects the Greek philosophical idea that our souls are inherently immortal. Often, an argument for why heaven and hell are eternal is that God <em>cannot</em> destroy our souls, and so we have to exist somewhere forever.</p>
<p>In contrast, Jesus says that God could destroy us both body <em>and soul</em> (Matthew 10:28), which shows that there is nothing about our bodies or souls/spirits that is inherently immortal or indestructible.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Even though Paul describes our resurrection bodies as 'imperishable' and 'immortal' (1 Corinthians 15:53-54), does it mean that once we're resurrected we will no longer depend on God to continually uphold our existence so that we <em>can't</em> ever die?</p>
<p>Alternatively, maybe Paul just means that we <em>won't</em> ever die, because God will ensure it will never happen.</p>
<p>So I don't think the term 'immortal' contradicts the idea that we may still have to eat, since eating will be an eternal reminder of our dependence on God even after we are resurrected. After all, we never actually become divine; we will still be finite creatures and God remains our creator and sustainer.</p>
<p>I'll finish this article with a few interesting implications of this discussion.</p>
<h2>Prayer Before Meals</h2>
<p>When I was a child, I was taught to pray before meals. I didn't really understand why, other than that my parents wanted me to, and I wanted to be an obedient child. </p>
<p>Other times, I've heard people say praying before meals is just a good way to fit some prayer in during the day, because otherwise we get too busy and forget.</p>
<p>When I moved out of my parents' house I fell out of the habit of praying before meals. No one else at university did that, and I figured as long as I went to church and prayed at night before bed, that was good enough.</p>
<p>But now, I see that it definitely makes sense to pray before we eat. Once we realize how dependent on God we are, we should enthusiastically thank God for his provision for our daily food, to keep us alive and healthy for a little longer. I'm trying to get back into the habit of praying before meals.</p>
<p>It's fairly easy for most who are moderately well-off in our Western culture to not have to worry about having enough food. Most of us are not farmers and it's easy to think the food will just keep appearing on the shelves of our grocery stores. </p>
<p>But it can be good to think about the reality of where our food comes from, including all the processes and work of other people that we are dependent on, as well as the risk of unpredictable and uncontrollable factors such as the right weather and protection from disasters that our food supply depends on.</p>
<p>This reflection humbles us and reminds us that it really is such a blessing to have enough food to eat and to not generally have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. We should be so thankful for God's provision for every thing that we eat, and not take any of it for granted.</p>
<h2>Relationship to the Lord's Supper</h2>
<p>Based on all this, isn't it interesting that Jesus chose to use food—bread and wine—to represent the life that Christians gain when we trust in Jesus' as our savior?</p>
<p>Repeating the Lord's Supper until Jesus' return (1 Corinthians 11:26) continually reminds us that our eternal life is dependent on God's provision of Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection for us, in the same way that our physical life is dependent upon God's provision of physical food for us.</p>
<h2>Eating and Relationships</h2>
<p>Additionally, there is a relational dimension to eating. We enjoy eating with others as an expression of relationship. We usually only want to eat with people whose company we enjoy. We don't really want to go out for dinner with our worst enemy, or with people that we hate talking to.</p>
<p>Scripturally, relationship and eating go together.</p>
<p>Abraham dined with the Lord (Genesis 18:3-8), and the 70 elders and Moses also dined with God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:9-11).</p>
<p>Jesus created food for the multitude (Matthew chapters 14-15, with parallels in Mark 6, Luke 9, John 6), ate with sinners (Luke 19, Matthew 9:11; Luke 15:2).</p>
<p>Jesus ate with his disciples many times, including at Bethany (John 12:1-2) and also before his death at the Last Supper (Luke 22:14-20), and also after the resurrection (John 21:9-14).</p>
<p>Jesus also told many parables about the kingdom of God as being like a wedding banquet (Matthew 22:1-14, 25:10) and promises his disciples will eat and drink with him in heaven (Luke 22:30).</p>
<p>In contrast, the Laodicean church thought that they were completely self-sufficient (Revelation 3:17), and Jesus asks for them to metaphorically let him into their lives and to dine with him (Revelation 3:20).</p>
<p>Therefore, eating simultaneously enables both our existence and loving relationships between people, and even with God!</p>
<p>So we might say that God doesn't only want us to exist, but also wants us to enjoy perfectly loving relationships with Himself and with each other, forever. I talk more about this in my article about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/">why God created the world</a>.</p>
<p>So when we eat, we can be reminded of all these things:</p>
<ol>
<li>That we are completely dependent upon God for our existence</li>
<li>To be thankful for God's provision for us.</li>
<li>That God wants to know us and for us to be in loving relationships with Him and all others.</li>
</ol>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong>. Rebecca Boyle, <a href="https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-10/eating-cooked-food-made-us-human-study-finds">"Eating Cooked Food Made Us Human"</a>, <em>Popular Science</em>, October 22, 2012.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Some good discussion of the origin of the immortality of the soul and its incorporation into Christian theology can be found in Edward William Fudge, <em>The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment</em>, Third Edition (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011), 19-32.</li>
</ul>Purgatory for Protestants?2018-11-21T00:00:00+00:002018-11-21T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-11-21:/article/protestant-purgatory/<p>I've come across something strange in several books I've read. Certain Protestant authors are actually considering the idea of <em>purgatory</em> as legitimate, and even advocating for it to be included as a part of Protestant eschatology.</p>
<p>It's because, they say, some Christians die who are not yet <em>holy</em> enough for …</p><p>I've come across something strange in several books I've read. Certain Protestant authors are actually considering the idea of <em>purgatory</em> as legitimate, and even advocating for it to be included as a part of Protestant eschatology.</p>
<p>It's because, they say, some Christians die who are not yet <em>holy</em> enough for heaven; and so Christians have to finish being <em>sanctified</em> (made holy) in some place before they can enter heaven.</p>
<p>I've seen this idea now a few different places, and it's somewhat troubling, for it implies that while we're saved by God's grace, we're sanctified partly by our own efforts, and this sanctification is <em>mandatory</em> before we're allowed into heaven.</p>
<p>Of course, usually Protestants say that no one achieves perfect holiness in this life (except Wesleyans who sometimes claim people can be 'entirely sanctified'). But that would mean that nearly everyone who is saved must endure some amount of purgatory before entering heaven.</p>
<p>In the book <em>Four Views on Hell</em> (1996), Zachary J. Hayes argues that the Catholic view of purgatory is a "state of purifying suffering for those who have died and are still in need of such purification".<cite>1</cite> As expected, two other Protestant authors use Scripture to challenge Hayes.</p>
<p>But Clark Pinnock, a lifelong Baptist, says, "Hayes got me to thinking about this as an area of evangelical doctrine which may need opening up," specifically, because he claims "it is obvious that Christian character is not perfectly transformed at death," although Pinnock offers no scriptural evidence for this supposedly 'obvious' statement besides further unproven claims that sanctification always requires our active cooperation.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>And Jerry L. Walls in his book <em>Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory</em> (2015) also seems to support the possibility of purgatory as a place where people finish their sanctification, based on Hebrews 12:14. He also claims that purgatory is needed is because personal repentance and cooperation is necessary for genuine moral transformation, and so God can't just 'zap' people and make them instantly holy.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>I think that sometimes legalistic threats of hell are used to motivate Christians to behave according to a pastor or theologian's standards, by saying things like if our faith doesn't lead to good works then we're not really saved at all.<cite>4</cite> Usually what follows is a subtle (or not so subtle) hint that Christians need to <em>do more</em> to ensure their faith is real—such as volunteer more at church, get involved with the church's pet projects, or give more money to charity and/or the church.</p>
<p>It seems to me that this new use of purgatory is very much the same: to threaten Christians with future time in purgatory if we don't become holy enough by the time we die! Conveniently, of course, this holiness would be demonstrated by what we <em>do</em> in this life, and so again: more volunteering, more giving, more [insert desired behavior here].</p>
<p>All this does is throw Christians back onto the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/treadmill-theology/">treadmill of constant performance</a> that we have barely just escaped, or adds one more layer on to it, for those who still think their works have something to do with their eternal salvation.</p>
<p>It's disappointing how one of my favourite theologians—Gregory Boyd—endorses the idea of a place where people finish being sanctified before moving on to heaven.</p>
<p>But, I think that what he says about purgatory is actually inconsistent with other very helpful things he says about sanctification, and in fact, his views on sanctification can support the idea that we <em>do</em> experience instant perfection at death, so that no purgatory is necessary!</p>
<p>Boyd's work clearly illustrates some problems that every theologian who seriously wants to advocate for purgatory will have to address.</p>
<h2>Gregory Boyd on Purgatory</h2>
<p>The first I read about the idea of a sort of purgatory in Gregory Boyd's work was in <em>Satan and the Problem of Evil</em> (2001), titled "Appendix 3: On Incomplete Probation Periods."</p>
<p>Here, Boyd argues that because love requires a free choice, but some people die before they reach the point when they can make that choice (or may never reach it at all in this life due to mental disability), there must be some time after death for these people to develop to that point where this choice is possible. For he says that no one can be in heaven who did not choose to participate in God's love, but these people also have not chosen to reject God, and thus they are not fit for hell either.</p>
<p>I do think this is an interesting attempt to solve this issue.</p>
<p>However, he goes on to say that there is also need for a place where "believers whose sanctification is not completed in this life may somehow be completed and made fit for the kingdom of God in the next". He refers to Matthew 5:25-26, which he interprets as "we either make things right <em>now</em> or we get them made right <em>later</em>, and getting them right later is <em>going to take time</em>".<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>He suspects that finishing off our sanctification could be part of the judgment of believers that takes place in 1 Corinthians 3:13-14 and may involve "refining chastisements".<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Boyd expands on this idea in a blog post written in 2009, titled "Purgatory and the Judgment Seat of Christ".<cite>7</cite> Here, he seems to use the idea that we have to finish being perfectly sanctified—either in this life or the next—as a way to discourage Christians from committing suicide. He says suicide is not a short-cut to heaven, because we don't just enter heaven immediately, but have to endure purgatory where our character is made entirely holy.</p>
<p>He says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">While your faith in Jesus in principle reconciles you to God, your character has to be refined before you enter heaven. It's like Christ's death on the cross lets you out of prison but you still need to have your criminal character reformed before you are fit for the heavenly society. And there's simply no short cut to this process of character reformation.</span></p>
<p>He fears that the idea that we are perfectly sanctified at death would encourage Christians to give up and commit suicide when they tire of the ongoing struggle of sanctification in this life. Or else, it might discourage Christians from even bothering to pursue holiness at all, since we will automatically become perfect at death, and so gives Christians license to continue living in worldly/sinful ways.</p>
<p>I wondered if his views have changed on the topic since that time. However, in a recent June 2018 podcast titled "Between Here and Heaven: What are Your Views on Purgatory?" Boyd repeats the idea that our character is perfected in purgatory before we enter heaven. He suggests that the amount of time that this process takes depends on our willingness to cooperate with it, and that it may involve suffering (as all sanctification does, he claims).<cite>8</cite></p>
<h2>Gregory Boyd on Sanctification</h2>
<p>However, I think that what Boyd has said about purgatory is actually inconsistent with what he has said elsewhere about the process of sanctification. </p>
<p>I really like what Boyd says about sanctification. He clearly locates where the struggle is within Christians in a way that I think makes perfect sense of Romans 7:14-25, and in this way, helps us understand what we're struggling with and how to overcome it.</p>
<p>Not only this, but I think that his statements on sanctification <em>actually do</em> support the idea that we are instantly perfected at death, and therefore, no purgatory or further sanctification will be necessary!</p>
<p>I will lay out the logic of some statements I've found in several of Boyd's blog posts to paint a picture of how he understands sanctification. (If you just want a summary you can skip down to the next section).</p>
<p>First, Boyd argues that when we became Christians, "All that is part of our old self, all that is sinful and contrary to God, has been crucified. It is dead (Romans 6:2-11; Galatians 2:20)." Next, we are entirely remade and so become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).<cite>9</cite> </p>
<p>So Christians are made entirely holy and perfect in our inner spirits/souls the moment we're born again, through the work of the Holy Spirit. There is no "sinful nature" that remains as part of our spirits/souls.</p>
<p>However, we do not experience this transformation instantly:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God doesn’t destroy who we are with all of our memories, our habits, or our past associations when he re-creates us in Christ Jesus. He rather seeks to transform all of our memories, habits and past associations on the basis of our re-created identities. We do not automatically see and experience ourselves as we truly are in Christ. Therefore to some extent we continue to think and act as though what is true about us in Christ were not true.<cite>10</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, we must try to put off the 'old self' (Ephesians 4:22), which is a constant struggle between our 'spirits' and our 'flesh' (Galatians 5:17).</p>
<p>This struggle occurs in our <em>minds</em>. Boyd says God's design is for our spirits to control our minds, our minds then control our bodies' actions, and our actions make an impact in the world. But, Satan tries to reverse this order, using our experiences in the world and other people's influences on us, which we take in through our bodily senses, to influence how we think about things (like ourselves, God, sin, etc.), hoping ultimately to keep us spiritually alienated from God.<cite>11</cite></p>
<p>Boyd specifies that our <em>minds</em> are connected to our <em>bodies</em>, for he says our thoughts are <em>rooted in our physical neural-nets</em>:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">The spirit of the regenerate person genuinely wants to live in relationship with God and to do his will. All that God says is true about us in Scripture is true on this level. We are in our innermost being identified with Christ and are holy, blameless, filled with all the fullness of God, etc. But the proper spirit >>> mind relationship is not automatically restored. On the contrary, because they are rooted in our physical neural-nets, our thoughts and emotions continue on in their autopilot fashion, however they’ve been programmed to run, for good or for ill. This is why we don’t automatically experience the truth of who we truly are in Christ.<cite>12</cite></span></p>
<p>If you're interested to learn more about these connections in our brains and how they are built, there's a really fascinating article I read titled "How Porn Changes the Brain" which gives a great introduction to this idea. This article shows how the neural connections that human brains produce when viewing pornography are either reinforced or decay depending on if a person chooses to continue viewing pornography or not.<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>So if what we think about literally changes the connections in our brains, then Paul's suggestion to think only of whatever is good, true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8) totally makes sense!</p>
<p>Therefore, Boyd interprets the term "flesh" which Paul uses to describe what opposes the desires of our holy spirits/souls (Galatians 5:17) not as something sinful or evil due to our existence as physical beings, but as</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">a deceptive way of seeing and experiencing oneself and one's world and thus a deceptive way of living in the world. It is that way of thinking, and experiencing, and living that is conformed to 'the pattern of this world'.<cite>14</cite></span></p>
<p>Thus, the problem is that we struggle against our "flesh", literally—that is, against our sinful neural connections encoded within our physical brains.</p>
<h2>Summary of Boyd on Sanctification</h2>
<p>So, here's my three-point summary of what I understand Boyd is saying about sanctification:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>When we're saved, we are instantly made new creations and are made perfectly holy in our inner spirits/souls. We cannot be made any more perfect in our inner spirits/souls than we already are the moment we first believed in Christ as our savior.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>But, our thoughts are still being influenced by our physical brains, which have sinful neural connections that have developed due to all our years living in this sin-filled world and being told lies about ourselves, others, God, what we're made for, what our value is, and all sorts of other false messages we take in on a daily basis. On top of this, there are also our own sinful actions and thoughts that have ingrained these sinful neural connections in our brains which make it very easy to continue to sin.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Therefore, sanctification is the on-going process of "renewing our minds" (Romans 12:2), literally, by trying to avoid repeating those sinful patterns of action and thought, thus, letting those old sinful neural connections decay, while building new neural connections involving patterns of thought and action that are in alignment with God's will for our lives—that is—loving God and loving others (Mark 12:29-31).</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h2>What Does This Have to Do With Purgatory?</h2>
<p>Now, this is where I think Boyd's position on sanctification can endorse a view of instant sanctification at death.</p>
<p>For, if as seen above, our problem with sin as Christians is not based in our spirits/souls (which are instantly made holy when we first accept Christ). Instead, it's due to our physical brain's residual sinful neural connections.</p>
<p>But obviously, when we die, our brains die too! The spirit/soul separates from the body temporarily and goes to be with Christ in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Philippians 1:23-24), until the time when we are resurrected with perfect new bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 15:51-54).</p>
<p>Therefore, the brains we have now are not the same brains we will be resurrected with.</p>
<p>After all, anyone who has had a brain injury or disease, or anyone who was born with a physical deformity of the brain will be made perfect and whole when they are resurrected (for these things are a result of this fallen sinful world), and thus, their new brain will not be the same as the old brain they had when they died. But, they will still be the same person, even with a new brain.</p>
<p>Thus, who we are in our spirits/souls must be, in some way, independent of our physical brain structure.</p>
<p>So, I think there's no reason why God <em>has</em> to resurrect us with brains that contain the same sinful neural connections as when we died, in order to keep our personal integrity intact.</p>
<p>It would make no sense for God to resurrect our brains with our old sinful neural connections, just to make us have to spend time in purgatory to finish re-wiring and purging these sinful connections from our brains before we can live in heaven, if he can just instantly re-create our brains without them.</p>
<p>Therefore, I think it's better to say that the moment we die, our perfectly holy spirits/souls will be freed from the remaining sinful patterns of thought and action ingrained into these brains we have now, and we will indeed be perfectly free of sin. Our new resurrected bodies will match with the holy nature of our spirits/souls.</p>
<p>Thus, no purgatory is necessary, and we get instant sanctification at death. Hebrews 12:14 will be fulfilled, for everyone in heaven <em>will be</em> perfectly holy (not that we must be perfectly holy <em>before</em> we make it into heaven!).</p>
<p>And remember: Jesus told the thief on the cross that "<em>Today</em> you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).</p>
<p>He didn't say, "After you've had your character refined for some unspecified amount of time in purgatory, <em>only then</em> will you be with me in paradise"!<cite>15</cite> If anyone was ever a prime candidate for some need of sanctification in purgatory, wouldn't be a criminal who is saved just before they get the death penalty?</p>
<p>Also, I cannot see how purgatory could possibly fit with 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52.</p>
<p>When taken as referring to the same event, these verses seem to indicate that at the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/when-millions-of-people-suddenly-disappear/">Rapture</a>, Christians who are still alive will have their bodies instantly transformed, are caught up to heaven, and from then on "will always be with the Lord". There is clearly no time for purgatory here, because some Christians will skip the intermediate state between death and resurrection altogether! These verses also give further support to the idea that the problem of sin is related to these current bodies, which is rectified when these Christians' bodies are instantly transformed.</p>
<p>What about the claim that personal cooperation or choice is necessary for sanctification?</p>
<p>As I discussed in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/">my previous post</a>, love for God includes love for <em>Love</em> (since God is <em>Love</em>), and thus, when we love God we will love to act in loving ways, in our innermost spirit/soul (Romans 7:22). The only reason we can't love perfectly now, is due to the above problem with remaining sinful neural connections in our physical brains (the 'flesh').</p>
<p>This is a source of grief for Christians who recognize we are not acting the way our spirits/souls actually do want to act (Romans 7:16-17, 7:24). Therefore, we will gladly and freely consent to our instant post-mortem sanctification.</p>
<p>There will not be anyone in heaven who says to God "Hey, wait a minute, I would rather continue to have those sinful fleshly desires running around in my thoughts, causing me to sin and bringing suffering on myself and others—so give me back my old sinful brain!"</p>
<p>Therefore, I think Gregory Boyd's work here shows that anyone who advocates for purgatory as a place for finishing our sanctification will need to deal with several issues.</p>
<p>First they need to consider exactly where is the problem with sin is located—our spirits/souls, or our bodies?</p>
<p>If it's our bodies, they need to consider what happens when we leave these bodies at death, and also consider the differences between our bodies now and future resurrected bodies.</p>
<p>If they want to claim the sin problem is in our spirit/soul, then they're going to have to make a case for that based on Scripture, which I think will be difficult to do.</p>
<h2>A Better Option: Heavenly Rewards</h2>
<p>But what about the criticisms that holding to a view of instant sanctification at death encourages Christians to either contemplate suicide as a short-cut to holiness, or allows Christians to ignore the need for sanctification in this life?</p>
<p>Instead of thinking we have to threaten people with either hell or purgatory in order to encourage sanctification, I think the Free Grace emphasis on heavenly rewards is a better solution to encourage sanctification.<cite>16</cite></p>
<p>Instead of interpreting 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 as Boyd does—as some sort of purgatorial refinement of our <em>character</em>—we should see that what is clearly being judged here is our <em>works</em>.<cite>17</cite></p>
<p>Whatever was worthy of heavenly reward will endure God's judgment and is represented as gold and jewels, but whatever we did in our lives that was unworthy or was just an utter waste of time, will be "burned up" and do not earn any heavenly rewards. This matches with 2 Corinthians 5:9-10.</p>
<p>So then, once this evaluation of our works is complete, we will be left with a metaphorical pile of heavenly rewards, larger or smaller, depending on our lives. Scripture hints that these rewards may be expressed as different levels of ruling privileges with Christ on the New Earth (Luke 19:16-19, Matthew 25:21-23), or maybe other rewards we can't even imagine now.</p>
<p>Therefore, if we can only earn heavenly rewards in this life, and these rewards will last for eternity, then we shouldn't cut our time short through suicide, and shouldn't waste our time and opportunities by thinking what we do now doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Instead, heavenly rewards encourage us to make the best use of our lives now, by not resisting the Holy Spirit's prompting and enabling to overcome sin and become more like Christ, which will then enable us to do the things God has called us and enabled us to do (Ephesians 2:10), for which we will be eternally rewarded.</p>
<p>Of course, this is not the only reasons why Christians should not commit suicide or skip out on sanctification in this life. But if someone wants to claim that there are going to be negative consequences for this in the afterlife, the only Biblical one I can think of is missing out on heavenly rewards.</p>
<p>P.S., I did send an email to Gregory Boyd's contact on his blog a while ago about this issue, but he never responded. Dr. Boyd, if you happen to read this, feel free to email me and let me know what you think of my critique.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Zachary J. Hayes, "The Purgatorial View" in <em>Four Views on Hell</em>, eds. Stanley N. Gundry and William Crockett (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 93.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, "Response to Zachary J. Hayes," in <em>Four Views on Hell</em>, 130.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory: Rethinking the Things That Matter Most</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2015), 151-153.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> John Calvin, <em>Institutes of the Christian Religion</em> Book 3, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 3.16 and 3.2.11-12.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), 384.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <em>Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), 385.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Gregory Boyd, <a href="https://reknew.org/2009/03/purgatory-and-the-judgment-seat-of-christ/">"'Purgatory' and the Judgment Seat of Christ"</a>, ReKnew.org, March 17, 2009.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Gregory Boyd, <a href="https://reknew.org/2018/06/podcast-between-here-and-heaven-what-are-your-views-on-purgatory/">"Podcast: Between Here and Heaven: What are Your Views on Purgatory?"</a>, ReKnew.org, June 6, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <a href="https://reknew.org/2015/03/9-things-that-are-true-of-us-when-were-saved/">"9 Things That Are True of Us When We're Saved"</a>, ReKnew.org, March 30, 2015.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <a href="https://reknew.org/2015/04/why-do-christians-keep-struggling-with-sin/">"Why Do Christians Keep Struggling With Sin?"</a>, ReKnew.org, April 1, 2015.</li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <a href="https://reknew.org/2014/08/im-saved-but-i-still-struggle-why/">"I'm Saved, but I Still Struggle. Why?"
</a>, ReKnew.org, August 21, 2014.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <a href="https://reknew.org/2014/08/im-saved-but-i-still-struggle-why/">"I'm Saved, but I Still Struggle. Why?"
</a>, ReKnew.org, August 21, 2014.</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> <a href="https://fightthenewdrug.org/how-porn-changes-the-brain/">"How Porn Can Change the Brain"</a>, Fight The New Drug.</li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Gregory A. Boyd, <a href="https://reknew.org/2014/07/what-is-the-flesh-or-the-sinful-nature/">"What is 'The Flesh' or 'The Sinful Nature'?"</a>, ReKnew.org, July 10, 2014.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> If someone wanted to argue that "paradise" here means purgatory, it would indicate that purgatory is a very different sort of experience than what is usually implied in purgatory (i.e. refining/purgatorial suffering).</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> For an overview of the Free Grace movement's history and theology, see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_grace_theology">Free Grace Theology on Wikipedia.org</a>. A good summary of how some Free Grace proponents discuss heavenly rewards can be found in Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/bruce-wilkinson-speaks-on-eternal-rewards/">Bruce Wilkinson Speaks on Eternal Rewards</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog, March 31, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> When discussing 1 Corinthians 3:13-14 Boyd does use the term <em>works</em>, but just a few lines down from this he seems to swap out <em>works</em> for <em>character</em>. He says "God's chastisements that refine our character in this life are done out of love and do not compromise our salvation by grace .... Why think differently if similar refining chastisements occur after death before the judgment seat of Christ?" (Gregory A. Boyd, <em>Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), 385).</li>
</ul>God Commands What He Is: Love2018-11-14T00:00:00+00:002018-11-14T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-11-14:/article/god-commands-love-for-god-is-love/<p>One sentence spoken by Jesus had always perplexed me: "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:14).</p>
<p>I always thought to myself, "What sort of person would demand that their friends obey them in order to be considered their friends? Who would say they …</p><p>One sentence spoken by Jesus had always perplexed me: "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:14).</p>
<p>I always thought to myself, "What sort of person would demand that their friends obey them in order to be considered their friends? Who would say they will only love you if you do what they command?"</p>
<p>Probably only someone who is arrogant, bossy, and controlling. But no Christian wants to say Jesus is arrogant, bossy, or a control freak!</p>
<p>Yet there are more places where Jesus and other Biblical authors equate love for Jesus/God with obedience to His commandments:</p>
<ul>
<li>"If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).</li>
<li>"They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them" (John 14:21, NRSV).</li>
<li>"Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me" (John 14:23-24, NRSV).</li>
<li>"If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" (John 15:10-11).</li>
<li>"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3).</li>
<li>"And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it" (2 John 1:6).</li>
</ul>
<p>So what is going on here?</p>
<h2>Delighting in God's Commandments?</h2>
<p>Equally perplexing to me were how the Psalms could talk about loving God's commandments:</p>
<ul>
<li>"For I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes" (Psalm 119:47-48).</li>
<li>"Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold" (Psalm 119:127).</li>
<li>"The rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb" (Psalm 19:9-10).</li>
</ul>
<p>This may seem especially strange to Christians since Paul at times portrays God's Law as something that brings knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20), brings wrath (Romans 4:15), causes sin to increase (Romans 5:20, 7:5), and ends up leading to death (Romans 7:9).</p>
<p>Probably most Christians have at some point heard a sermon about how the Law is bad but the Gospel is good and the Gospel is the remedy to sin which was caused by the bad Law. (Even though Romans 7:10-12 explains this is not true, for the Law is good and righteous, it is just our sinfulness that prompts us to rebel against God's good Law).</p>
<p>So for a long time I didn't understand why the Law was a good thing. But finally, I had a breakthrough that helped me make sense of how love for God and obedience of God's commands go together.</p>
<h2>What Does Jesus Command?</h2>
<p>I think the key is found by looking at what commands Jesus gives to his followers:</p>
<ul>
<li>"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34).</li>
<li>"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).</li>
<li>"The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also" (1 John 4:21, NRSV).</li>
<li>"And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us" (1 John 3:23).</li>
</ul>
<p>Also, Jesus sums up the Old Testament law in this way:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Matthew 22:37-40, also parallels in Mark 12:29-31, Luke 10:26-28)</span></span></p>
<p>Paul agrees with this:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Romans 13:8-10)</span></span></p>
<p>So to shorten the length of this post, I won't bother going into the Old Testament to look at what it says, because it will just agree with these two summaries by Paul and Jesus.</p>
<h2>Solution: God is Love</h2>
<p>Therefore, I think the answer to how love for God and obedience of God's commands are connected is by remembering that God is <em>Love</em> (1 John 4:8). This means that if we love God, we will also love that which God is: love. </p>
<p>The doctrine of the Trinity is how Christians can understand God as being <em>Love</em> in his very being. The three Persons within the single Triune Godhead all know and love each other perfectly, and so God in his most inner being actually <em>is</em> the most perfect and loving relationship.</p>
<p>And as seen above, all Jesus' commands to Christians involve love for God and love for fellow Christians and all others, which matches with how the Old Testament Law is summed up as love of God and love of others.</p>
<p>Therefore, if God is <em>Love</em> and God commands us to love both God and others, then we can say that God only commands what he is!</p>
<p>Thus, if we love God, we love Love itself, and accordingly, we will love to act in ways that are loving towards both God and all others.</p>
<p>Now Jesus' sentence "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" makes total sense!</p>
<p>(Jonathan Edwards' work <em>True Virtue</em> says something very similar, although he does not arrive at this conclusion in the same way, and personally, I think the approach above is more Biblical and less metaphysically speculative than Edwards').<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Could we flip this around, and say that acting in loving ways towards others is, in some way, expressing love for God Himself? This could possibly be supported by verses such as Mark 9:36-38, Matthew 18:5, Luke 9:48, Matthew 10:41-42, Mark 9:40-42, Matthew 25:40, where love for others is treated/rewarded as if it is love for Jesus himself.</p>
<p>This could also help make sense of the last half of 1 John 4:7, NRSV: "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God," and also the last half of 1 John 4:16, NRSV: "God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." </p>
<p>Although it's speculative, I wonder if this is how it could be possible for God to save people who never heard of Christ? Maybe, if these people aspired to love <em>Love</em> in general—and since God is <em>Love</em>—then God can apply the atoning effects of Christ's death to these people, presuming that if these same people had a chance to know <em>Love</em> incarnate (i.e. Jesus Christ) they would have been drawn to Him and believed in Him? We can't know for sure until eternity, but I think it could work.</p>
<p>Note: This would not include those who only loved others that were immediately beneficial to themselves (e.g. friends and family, and which could perhaps be extended to include those who only love people of their own ethnicity, language, religion, nationality, etc.)—see Matthew 5:46. I agree with Edwards when he argues that love for only a small group of individuals is not really love at all, but is actually selfishness and will inevitably lead to hatred of others outside of this limited group.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Of course, I don't mean to say that we have to love God and others perfectly to be eternally saved; no one but Jesus has ever done that! That's the whole reason why we needed God to step down into human history as Christ to die for our sins, because otherwise, even the most loving person we can think of—say for example, Mother Theresa—would be doomed to eternal destruction for the inevitable times when she sinned by not loving God and others perfectly.</p>
<p>But in heaven everyone who is saved will be perfectly holy, and thus, <em>we will be</em> able to love everyone perfectly! Then there will be no more sin at all—for all sin is a failure to love (again, Matthew 22:37-40; Romans 13:8-10).</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So Jesus is not being bossy when he says that if we love him, we'll do what he says. God, by giving us his good and perfect Law which is summed up as love for God and love for others, is simply commanding us to do what God is: love! And if we love God, then we should love what God is (i.e. <em>Love</em>) and thus, we should love to act in loving ways.</p>
<p>I do want to deal with two further questions that will inevitably be raised by the above discussion which relate to some difficult topics. But if you would rather end this article on a happy note, feel free to stop reading now.</p>
<h2>Question 1: Do We Have to Obey Everyone We Love?</h2>
<p>So now we might wonder—does the same logic apply to obeying others that we love? For example, if we're married, could our spouse legitimately say "Well, if you love me you'll do what I say!"? Or could a parent demand that a child give unquestioning, immediate obedience out of love for the parent?</p>
<p>I would say no.</p>
<p>Why? Because I think Jesus' statements above which equate love for Him and obedience to Him only works because of God's special nature which means God literally is <em>Love</em>. I do not think this same sentence could be properly spoken by anyone else whose nature is not perfect <em>Love</em>.</p>
<p>And so, although it might be helpful and respectful to follow the reasonable requests or instructions of our parents or spouses, we do not owe them absolute obedience even if we love them, for our allegiance to the higher standard of love for God and love for all others overrides any obedience we may owe to any particular human in authority over us.</p>
<p>Also, note that the love commanded by God includes love for ourselves, for "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39) implies love for self.</p>
<p>So, for example, we do not have to stay in abusive relationships out of 'obedience' or 'love' to an abuser. Staying in or enabling a situation which gives an abuser further opportunities to continue abusing a person does not show love towards the person being abused. Additionally, remaining in or enabling such a situation is simply allowing the abuser to continue storing up wrath for themselves on the day of judgment (Romans 2:5), which is not a way of showing love towards the abuser, either.</p>
<h2>Question 2: But What About God's Commands in the Old Testament?</h2>
<p>Of course, this idea that God only commands what is loving might make us wonder about all those difficult commandments in the Old Testament to put people to death for violating some parts of the Law, or when God gives instructions for Israel to go to war against certain other groups of people. This is a complicated topic, and I've written more about it <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/the-justice-of-god-regarding-death/">here</a>.</p>
<p>All I will say now is that sometimes, it is loving to destroy the doers of sin/evil if all other attempts to stop said sin/evil have failed, or if there is an immediate and severe threat posed by the doer of a particular sin/evil which requires them to be stopped as soon as possible. I do believe Christians can act lovingly when using (even deadly) force to defend others from sin/evil, if necessary.</p>
<p>It is also loving to enforce tough penalties that should dissuade others from committing sin that harms others and/or themselves.</p>
<p>For sin, as a violation of love for God/Love and love for others, is inherently evil and harmful. This is precisely why God forbids sin—not because He's trying to ruin our fun or deprive us of pleasure, but because sin is always destructive and leads to suffering for everyone involved: the sinner(s), the victim(s), and society as a whole. Allowing it to continue unchecked is not showing love towards anyone.</p>
<p>Although some suffering may be experienced in the act of opposing, restraining, or (at worst) <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilating</a> the sinner, the sinner has brought it on themselves and, in some cases, it is a fair recompense for the pain the sinner has caused others.</p>
<p>Now, we should recognize that the use of violence as judgment on sin and as restraint of evil in this fallen world is often partly unjust, such as when collective judgments come upon entire groups of people in the form of wars or natural disasters, even when not every individual in the group may be worthy of the judgment, or when our human justice systems wrongly convict and punish innocent people.</p>
<p>Yet we can be confident that God will one day right all the wrongs of temporary violence or suffering that has been unjustly done to anyone, and ultimately God will wipe away all the tears of everyone who loves God (Revelation 21:4, Isaiah 25:8).</p>
<p>So yes, although God is <em>Love</em> and commands us to love others, unfortunately, this will only be perfectly realized in the New Heaven and New Earth.</p>
<p>In the meantime, we can be encouraged by knowing that God's love is not a wishy-washy, hand-wringing, wimpy love which just rolls over and lets evil people get away with hurting others forever, or imposes no limits on sin/evil in this world.</p>
<p>This is comforting, for we know that one day perfect justice will be done, sin will not triumph, and all evil will be destroyed. This will be an amazing day, and all that will remain is perfect love everywhere and in everyone.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjYud2plbw==">"True Virtue"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 8, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 550-551.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjYud2plbw==">"True Virtue"</a>, 555-556. Also Edwards explains that self-love apart from love for God/love of all others will end up leading to sin: Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yOjc6Mi53amVv">"Original Sin"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 3, ed. Clyde Holbrook (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 381-383.</li>
</ul>Why Did God Create the Universe?2018-11-07T00:00:00+00:002018-11-07T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-11-07:/article/why-did-god-create-the-universe/<p>For my PhD dissertation, I am studying the American pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards, who lived in the 1700s.</p>
<p>To me, one of his most interesting writings is titled "Concerning The End for Which God Created the World," sometimes shortened to "End of Creation". It was one of the last …</p><p>For my PhD dissertation, I am studying the American pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards, who lived in the 1700s.</p>
<p>To me, one of his most interesting writings is titled "Concerning The End for Which God Created the World," sometimes shortened to "End of Creation". It was one of the last works Edwards ever wrote.</p>
<p>Here, Edwards tries to answer the question of why God created the universe.</p>
<p>This is an interesting question for Christians, because we don't want to say that God <em>needed</em> to create the universe (as if God is dependent on the universe, or as if God would not be complete or happy without it). Instead, most Christian theologians (including Edwards), say that God was perfectly happy and complete in His eternal self-existence before He created anything at all.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>So then, what possible motive could God have to create anything?</p>
<p>Edwards's solution in <em>End of Creation</em> is to say that God created the universe for whatever purpose is the highest and most worthy. Edwards then says that since God is the highest and most worthy thing there is, God creates the universe for God's own self.</p>
<p>Specifically, God creates to reveal God's own glory, which is perceived by intelligent creatures, who then praise and love God eternally. And to avoid portraying God as selfish or prideful, Edwards has to explain how God's glory is identical to the happiness of His intelligent creatures.</p>
<p>Note: In this article, the term "elect" or "the elect" refers to all the humans that will be eternally saved and will live forever in heaven as well as any angels who have not rebelled, and the term "reprobate" or "the reprobate" refers to all humans who are not saved and rebellious angels who will therefore be thrown into hell to be tortured forever (according to Edwards). In this article I will refer to both humans and angels as God's "intelligent creatures" as Edwards does.</p>
<p>Edwards says,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">God's seeking Himself in the creation of the world, in the manner which has been supposed, is so far from being inconsistent with the good of His creatures, or any possibility of being so, that it is a kind of regard to Himself that inclines Him to seek the good of His creatures.<cite>2</cite></span></p>
<p>So we could say God is kind of like an artist, who creates the universe as a piece of artwork in which God expresses Himself and reveals His own inner character. God then creates His own audience of intelligent creatures who admire God's creation and find their own happiness in worshipping God and enjoying God and God's creation (i.e. the New Heaven and New Earth) forever.</p>
<p>This looks like it's got some potential.</p>
<p>I also think Edwards is absolutely correct in his sermon "Heaven is a World of Love", when he says that heaven will be a society full of perfect love between saints, angels, and the members of the Trinity.<cite>3</cite> Thus, God's elect intelligent creatures find their eternal happiness by participating in these mutually loving relationships.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>So based on the above, Edwards should say that both God and the elect would be even more happy in heaven if more people are eternally saved, for then there will be more loving relationships possible in heaven to participate in. Therefore, both God and the elect should want as many people as possible to be saved, for it will increase their eternal happiness in heaven.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>So far, so good!</p>
<h2>One Problem with Reprobation in Edwards' Theology</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, Edwards says that seeing the reprobate being tortured in hell is another source of happiness for the elect.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Why? Because <em>all</em> of God's attributes must be <em>eternally</em> demonstrated in order for God to be completely and eternally worshipped by the elect.<cite>7</cite> That includes God's wrath at sin and His justice in punishing sin, which is shown by having the reprobate suffer in hell for all eternity.<cite>8</cite> (Apparently, Edwards didn't think that Jesus' death on the cross and the constant reminder of the cross that the elect will see forever in the permanent wounds on Jesus' resurrected body are enough for this purpose?)<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>But Edward's claim is bizarre, because it means that, somehow, the elect in heaven observing God torturing the reprobate in hell for all eternity must bring the elect <em>more joy</em> than the joy they would have gained from participating in the larger number of loving relationships which would have been possible if the reprobate had been saved.</p>
<p>Because if the elect truly gained <em>more joy</em> from more people being in heaven, then if God truly cared about maximizing the happiness of the elect (and thus, simultaneously maximizing God's glory), then He would save more people.</p>
<p>Now, this scheme might work perfectly fine if the only reason people end up in hell is because of their own free choice to reject God's offer of salvation. We could say that while it would have been better if more people had accepted God's offer, the happiness of the elect which comes from seeing God's justice and wrath at sin in hell is a sort of second-best outcome, a way that God redeems even the rejection of God's offer of salvation and turns it into something that serves God's glory.</p>
<p>But sadly, in Edwards' point of view, God is fully in control of who is saved and who is not, because if God wants to save someone, He will give them the necessary <em>divine and supernatural light</em> which will irresistibly and effectually guarantee that the person who receives it will turn to God in faith and love.<cite>10</cite> Therefore, God <em>could</em>, if He wanted, give this divine light to everyone, thus saving everyone. After all, God is omnipotent, and no one is forcing Him to act the way He does.</p>
<p>So if God <em>could</em> irresistibly guarantee that everyone would be saved, but he <em>does not</em>, then it implies that some number of people in hell is <em>necessary</em> for God's maximum glory and the eternal happiness of the elect. Thus, God must have in mind some sort of ideal ratio between the number of elect and the number of reprobate which maximizes the happiness of the elect. (And unfortunately, Edwards notes that only <em>very few</em> are elect).<cite>11</cite></p>
<p><em>But if so, this means that God could not save one more person because it would decrease the happiness of heaven!</em> This is an absurd thought!</p>
<p>We can't even say that the joy gained by the elect from seeing the reprobate in hell is <em>equal</em> to the joy that could be gained from the elect participating in the equivalent number of loving relationships in heaven if the reprobate had been saved, because then there would be no reason for God to predestine anyone to hell. For the happiness of the elect would be the same regardless of how many people end up in hell, whether that is billions or zero. God might as well save everyone then, so that at least He would get more praise from more people being in heaven.</p>
<p>Thus the only conceivable reason why God would predestine anyone to hell is because it makes the elect <em>more happy</em> than if He did not, and makes God <em>more glorious</em> than if He did not.</p>
<p>So ultimately it seems that in Edwards' theology that—contrary to his earlier claims—God's maximal glory is not compatible with the ultimate happiness of His intelligent creatures, for many of them end up suffering in hell forever. If you're interested in what Edwards says hell is like, you can read his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God".<cite>12</cite></p>
<p>And of course, the reprobate never had any real ability to believe in Jesus and be saved, because again, the only reason anyone is saved is because of that irresistible <em>divine and supernatural light</em> which God only gives to the elect.<cite>13</cite></p>
<p>In fact, if, as shown above, the happiness of the elect actually <em>depends</em> on there being a specific number of people in hell to be tortured by God forever, then God indeed must <em>want</em> and <em>intend</em> for people to sin and <em>want</em> and <em>intend</em> for them to not believe in Jesus, so that they can be "justly" damned.</p>
<p>All as part of God's plan for glorifying His perfect love and holiness forever.</p>
<p>I hope I'm not the only one seeing problems here?!</p>
<h2>Rehabilitating Edwards' <i>End of Creation</i></h2>
<p>Therefore, I firmly believe that Edwards' theology here is seriously flawed.</p>
<p>But, I think it can be rehabilitated if we make a few changes to it, so that we can present God as actually fully good and loving, and affirm that God doesn't want <em>anyone</em> to go to hell (as per 1 Timothy 2:3-4).</p>
<p>I think we must start with the fact that God <em>IS LOVE</em> (1 John 4:8).</p>
<p>The doctrine of the Trinity is how Christians can understand God as being <em>love</em> in his very being. The three Persons within the single Triune Godhead all know and love each other perfectly, and so God in his most inner being actually <em>is</em> the most perfect and loving relationship. Edwards admits this in his own dissertation on the Trinity.<cite>14</cite></p>
<p>But Edwards also claims that God has a variety of semi-independent attributes that occasionally conflict and oppose one another, such as <em>Grace</em> vs. <em>Justice</em>.<cite>15</cite> In fact, he even says that these conflicts or "complexities" are what makes God's character beautiful—more beautiful even than if God did not have such conflicts in his own character!<cite>16</cite></p>
<p>However, in the <em>Religious Affections</em>, Edwards notes how all other "holy affections" can be derived from the one principal affection of love to God. Also, love for God will necessarily produce in the elect a hatred of sin<cite>17</cite>, and a hatred of any being who is opposed to God.<cite>18</cite> I do not know why he doesn't apply this same logic to God, where God's only real attribute would then be <em>love</em>, which then is the source of all of God's other "attributes", such as <em>Grace</em> and <em>Justice</em>.<cite>19</cite></p>
<p>For example, instead of <em>Justice</em> or <em>Wrath</em> being separate attributes from <em>Love</em>, we could say <em>Justice</em> and <em>Wrath</em> are actually expressions of God's perfect holy <em>Love</em> when it encounters sin. For example, a parent who loves their child will become angry and seek justice if their child is harmed by someone else. Or a parent may even become angry if their child is ignorantly or persistently harming itself and will desire to discipline the child, due to the parent's love for that child's well-being.</p>
<p>So then, if God is <em>Love</em>, I think it makes most sense to say that what God loves most, is Himself; that is, <em>love</em> (i.e. perfect loving relationships).</p>
<p>So what is the most loving thing that God could do? And what would make God even more happy than His own internal loving relationships within Himself?</p>
<p>Answer: Creating and participating in even more loving relationships!</p>
<p>Therefore, my view is that God chooses to create intelligent creatures with genuine free will in order to enable the possibility of loving relationships between God and these creatures, and between these creatures themselves, because this is what God loves most.</p>
<p>The rest of the universe is then created to allow for the existence of these intelligent creatures, as well as, I think, a way for God to have fun creating all sorts of wonderful things for his creatures to enjoy and then praise God for. Just as a parent enjoys giving gifts to their children for their enjoyment.</p>
<p>Therefore, for all these reasons which can be found in Edwards' own work (i.e. God's only attribute is love, God exists as a Trinity of loving relationships, and God takes pleasure in loving relationships between Himself and intelligent creatures) it makes no sense for Edwards to claim that God actually wants to send people to hell, or that this makes God and the elect more happy than if those in hell had been saved.</p>
<p>Instead, I'm convinced God never predestines anyone to hell; the only reason why people will be eternally destroyed is because they do not want to live in loving relationships with God and everyone else forever. They reject God's prevenient grace, given to all, which enables everyone to have a real opportunity to say Yes to God's love shown through Jesus Christ by trusting in Christ as their personal savior (or in some other way, for those who never heard of Christ).</p>
<p>Yet unlike what universalists claim, <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">love cannot be forced</a> but must be freely chosen. This means that rebellion, sin, and hate are all possibilities that could not be precluded in this temporary world, if God's goal was to create the possibility for genuinely loving relationships in eternity.</p>
<p>The main purpose of this world, then, is to give people the opportunity to make that free choice of whether they want to live in a perfect mutually-loving society forever with God—or not!</p>
<p>Although Adam and Eve sinned and all humanity became trapped in bondage to sin, God loves people so much that He would rather bear the consequences of our sin Himself as Jesus Christ on the cross, than be God without us. God works in our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit, to restore the ability to respond to God's love and His offer of eternal salvation.</p>
<p>God truly loves everyone, and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">wants everyone to be saved</a>, and Christ's death on behalf of everyone means that all can be saved, if we only do not reject his offer.</p>
<p>I have a proposal about how God might make it possible for everyone to be saved, even those who never heard the gospel during their lives, in <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/my-theory-of-christian-inclusivism/">my theory of Christian inclusivism</a>.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjU6Mi53amVv">"Concerning The End for Which God Created the World"</a>, in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 8, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 420.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Edwards, "Concerning The End for Which God Created the World", 452.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjQ6MTUud2plbw==">"Heaven is a World of Love"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 8, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008). </li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy43OjQ6MTUud2plbw==">"Heaven is a World of Love"</a>, 373-374.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Edwards writes "One that loves Being in general will necessarily value good will to Being in general, wherever he sees it. But if he sees the same benevolence in two beings, he will value it more in two than in one only. Because it is a greater thing, more favorable to Being in general, to have two beings to favor it than only one of them." So the elect should be happier if more people love God, because they value love of God. </li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yMTo0Ny53amVv">"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"</a>, in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 22, Sermons and Discourses 1739-1742, ed. Harry S. Stout (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 415.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Edwards, "Concerning The End for Which God Created the World", 429-431, 442-443, 528-529.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Edwards, "Concerning The End for Which God Created the World", 495, 498, 509, 536.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Stephen R. Holmes, <em>God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 234, 247-249. <!--9. "This light, and this only, will bring the soul to a saving close with Christ. It conforms the heart to the gospel, mortifies its enmity and opposition against the scheme of salvation therein revealed: it causes the heart to embrace the joyful tidings, and entirely to adhere to, and acquiesce in the revelation of Christ as our Savior; it causes the whole soul to accord and symphonize with it, admitting it with entire credit and respect, cleaving to it with full inclination and affection. And it effectually disposes the soul to give up itself entirely to Christ."--></li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xNjoyMDoyLndqZW8=">"A Divine and Supernatural Light"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 17, Sermons and Discourses 1730-1733, ed. Mark Valeri (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 424. <!--10. "The doctrine of determining efficacious grace certainly follows from things proved in the foregoing discourse; hence will necessarily follow the doctrine of particular, eternal, absolute election. For if men are made true saints, no otherwise than as God makes 'em so, and distinguishes 'em from others, by an efficacious power and influence of his, that decides and fixes the event; and God thus makes some saints, and not others, on design or purpose, and (as has been now observed) no designs of God are new; it follows, that God thus distinguished from others, all that ever become true saints, by his eternal design or decree."--></li>
<li><strong>11.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yOjQ6MDo2LndqZW8=">"Original Sin"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 3, ed. Clyde Holbrook (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 161-162.</li>
<li><strong>12.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yMTo0Ny53amVv">"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"</a>, in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 22, Sermons and Discourses 1739-1742, ed. Harry S. Stout (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008).</li>
<li><strong>13.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4wOjkud2plbw==">"Freedom of the Will"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 1, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 435.<!--12. "For love is not only one of the affections, but it is the first and chief of the affections, and the fountain of all the affections. From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in: and from the various exercises of love and hatred, according to the circumstances of the objects of these affections, as present or absent, certain or uncertain, probable or improbable, arise all those other affections of desire, hope, fear, joy, grief, gratitude, anger, etc. From a vigorous, affectionate, and fervent love to God, will necessarily arise other religious affections: hence will arise an intense hatred and abhorrence of sin, fear of sin, and a dread of God's displeasure, gratitude to God for his goodness, complacence and joy in God when God is graciously and sensibly present, and grief when he is absent, and a joyful hope when a future enjoyment of God is expected, and fervent zeal for the glory of God. And in like manner, from a fervent love to men, will arise all other virtuous affections towards men."--></li>
<li><strong>14.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4yMDozOjEud2plbw==">"Discourse on the Trinity"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 21, Writings On the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 113-114, 121-128.</li>
<li><strong>15.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xODoyNToxLndqZW8=">"The Excellency of Christ"</a> in <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 19, Sermons and Discourses, 1734-1738, ed. M. X. Lesser (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 567 ; or Jonathan Edwards <em>End of Creation</em>, 429, 528.</li>
<li><strong>16.</strong> John J. Bombaro, <em>Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate</em>. (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012), 59, 208. He refers to Edwards' essay "EXCELLENCY" in his notebook The Mind, entry no. 1 (WJE 6:332-333)</li>
<li><strong>17.</strong> Jonathan Edwards, <a href="http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xOjQud2plbw=="><em>Religious Affections</em></a>, <em>Works of Jonathan Edwards Online</em>, Volume 2, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 107-108.</li>
<li><strong>18.</strong> Edwards, <em>True Virtue</em>, 545.</li>
<li><strong>19.</strong> Amy Plantinga-Pauw notes that "Edwards never tried to argue that all these attributes of Christ are really identical and identical to the divine essence." Amy Plantinga-Pauw, <em>The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 84.</li>
</ul>What Does it Mean to Be Made in God's Image?2018-10-31T00:00:00+00:002018-10-31T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-10-31:/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-made-in-image-of-God/<p>For one assignment in a Christology course I took as part of my PhD, I wrote a review of Oliver D. Crisp's book <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (2016).</p>
<p>While this book is quite philosophical and not meant for beginners in theology, there were a …</p><p>For one assignment in a Christology course I took as part of my PhD, I wrote a review of Oliver D. Crisp's book <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (2016).</p>
<p>While this book is quite philosophical and not meant for beginners in theology, there were a few ideas in it I especially liked about what it means to say that humans are made in the image of God.</p>
<p>The image of God is one of the oldest theological ideas about humanity, going back to Genesis 1:27 which says God made humans in God's own image. This is repeated in Genesis 9:6. But the Bible is not very clear on exactly what being made in the image of God <em>actually means</em>.</p>
<h2>What is the Image of God?</h2>
<p>Crisp points out that there have been many different attempts by Christians to explain what being made in God's image means.</p>
<p>First, obviously, it cannot mean our physical bodies look like God.</p>
<p>While there are references in the Old Testament to God's "eyes" (Deuteronomy 11:12) or "arm" (Exodus 6:6, Deuteronomy 7:19), these are metaphors for God's knowledge (<em>omniscience</em>) or power (<em>omnipotence</em>).</p>
<p>For the Bible says God is spirit (John 4:24), and does not have a body until the Son becomes incarnate as the human Jesus. However, there are pre-incarnate appearances of the Son in the Old Testament when he is called the "Angel of the Lord",<cite>1</cite> and angels can take on human appearance to communicate with us (Genesis 19).<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Some have said that the image of God involves having intelligence, free will, or a soul.</p>
<p>But Crisp points out that other creatures are also intelligent (e.g., dolphins) or have free will and souls (e.g., angels).</p>
<p>The problem is if we tie the image of God to any particular trait such as intelligence, rationality, creativity, compassion, etc., then since humans naturally vary in individual exhibition of these traits, it could justify bias against those who show lower levels of these traits than others—as if they are somehow less like God than others.</p>
<p>Another approach is to say that what makes us human is that we relate to God and each other.</p>
<p>But Crisp points out that again, this doesn't distinguish humans from angels. Plus, what about people who are in comas or who are effectively brain-dead? Are they no longer made in the image of God, because they are no longer able to have two-way relationships with anyone?</p>
<p>Finally, Crisp critiques the view of Robert Jenson, who says the image of God involves being able to love and pray. </p>
<p>Yet this suffers from the same problem as above—not all humans are able to love and pray (e.g. babies, people in comas, etc.) So that doesn't work either.<cite>3</cite></p>
<h2>Oliver Crisp on the Image of God</h2>
<p>Instead, I really like Crisp's ideas about what it means to be made in the image of God.</p>
<p>He begins by saying that God had always intended for the Son to become incarnate as Christ. And thus, Crisp says "Human nature is created in order that it might reflect the divine image and be united to God."<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>So God designed human nature so that it has all the properties necessary for the incarnation of Christ to be possible (i.e for the Son—the Second Person of the Trinity—to take on a human nature in addition to his divine nature, so that he was both fully human and fully divine simultaneously). </p>
<p>This has an advantage in that we are not limiting the image of God to any one trait or combination of traits, which suffers from the above problems.</p>
<p>(Although I might say that some level of intelligence, free will, language skills, emotions, creativity, and so on are necessary features of Jesus's human nature in particular, and thus, features of human nature in general, since Jesus can't benefit anyone if he can't think, choose, feel, or talk to anyone!)</p>
<p>But then, how does this apply to all the rest of us? Here's what's cool about Crisp's idea.</p>
<p>Crisp says that we too are designed for union with God. For us, this occurs by being indwelled by the Third Person of the Trinity (the Holy Spirit).<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>So being made in the image of God means that we can be united to God by being indwelled by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 1:14, 1 Thessalonians 4:8, Ephesians 1:13, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).</p>
<p>So I really like this idea. I also think that Crisp's ideas here could be very helpful to build on in order to explain some differences between humans and angels.</p>
<p>In particular, I have two somewhat speculative ideas that I think can be supported by Crisp's claims.</p>
<ol>
<li>Humans can experience a closer relationship with God than angels can.</li>
<li>Humans are able to be saved from their sins by the death of Jesus Christ, while angels cannot.</li>
</ol>
<p>I'll explain each of these in turn.</p>
<h2>Humans Experience Closer Relationships with God?</h2>
<p>One thing that has perplexed me is the question of why God chose to make humans at all. Why didn't God just stop after He made angels and enjoy their love and praise for all eternity?</p>
<p>I think Crisp's idea above is part of the answer: God has made humans so that God can actually unite himself with humanity, either through the incarnation of the Son as Jesus Christ, or through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers.</p>
<p>Whereas the Bible never talks about angels being united with God or indwelled by the Holy Spirit.</p>
<p>In fact, I think it might actually be <em>impossible</em> for angels to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Because angels are spirits (e.g. Hebrews 1:14), they don't have a real physical body as humans do.<cite>6</cite></p>
<p>Angels are never mentioned in the Bible as being able to be possessed by evil spirits. Only humans and things with physical bodies (e.g. pigs—Matthew 8:32) can be inhabited by evil spirits.</p>
<p>So I wonder if that same feature of being able to fit multiple "spirits" within one physical body (as in the case of demonic possession), is the same feature that enables humans to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and thus, be united with God's own divine nature in a special way that angels can never experience?</p>
<p>Peter notes that people can actually be <em>partakers of God's own divine nature</em> (2 Peter 1:4) The Bible also compares the union of Christ and the Church to how two people become one flesh in human marriage (Ephesians 5:31-32). This union with Christ happens through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Christians, for the Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9).</p>
<p>So Crisp suggests the Holy Spirit somehow "really and truly unites us to Christ so that we are, in some carefully circumscribed sense, one entity with him."<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, I think humans are designed in such a way that we can experience a much deeper intimacy with God than angels ever can, partly because we have physical bodies.</p>
<p>One benefit that may come from this special union with God is how the Bible hints that we will have some sort of authority over the angels in the afterlife (1 Corinthians 6:3). Just as Jesus was temporarily lower than angels during his earthly life (Hebrews 2:6-9), but then was raised above them (Heb. 1:4), so Jesus has promised that faithful believers will also share in his ruling authority (Revelation 3:21, Luke 19:17). This is an amazing privilege.</p>
<h2>Only Humans are Redeemable?</h2>
<p>Additionally, there is no hint in the Bible that the angels who sinned (now called demons, and their leader Satan—a.k.a the Devil, Beelzebub, Lucifer, etc.) can ever be saved. </p>
<p>Hebrews 2:16 says "Jesus clearly did not come to help angels, but he did come to help Abraham’s descendants" (CEV). This is not limiting salvation to Jews—it includes anyone who has faith in God's coming Messiah like Abraham did (Galatians 3:6-9).</p>
<p>Also, the Son had to become fully human in every way in order to redeem humans:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Hebrews 2:17 NRSV)</span></span></p>
<p>Crisp has some interesting ideas about how it is possible for Jesus to redeem humans.</p>
<p>Crisp says humans are all part of one <em>four-dimensional metaphysical entity</em> (essentially, one being), presumably, because all humans are inter-related by our DNA due to our biological descent from Adam, and from Eve who herself came from Adam (Genesis 2:21).<cite>8</cite></p>
<p>We can think of it like how an acorn is planted and grows into a tree. The tree of humanity grows through time, as well as in the three dimensions of the physical world, as the original DNA of Adam and Eve spreads out into many more individuals with different variations of recessive/dominant combinations of genes, but which all come from the same original source. So essentially, we are all just variations of Adam, and thus, part of the same <em>four-dimensional metaphysical entity</em>.</p>
<p>This is Crisp's way of explaining how the consequences of Adam and Eve's first sin are still properly transferred to later humans even though we did not personally sin the same way that Adam and Eve did (Romans 5:14).<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>Because Jesus became human, he also became part of this same <em>four-dimensional metaphysical entity</em>. This means the consequences of all humanity's sins can be justly transferred to Jesus Christ, even though He was personally sinless.</p>
<p>Crisp feels this avoids the "forensic fiction" of God treating Christ only "as if" he had been guilty of all our sins. Plus, he thinks it makes sense of passages like Isaiah 53:6, Romans 5:12-19, and 2 Corinthians 5:21, and so may offer a better philosophical basis for the <em>penal substitution theory of atonement</em> (the idea that Jesus is punished for our sins in our place, so that God can forgive us).<cite>10</cite></p>
<p>Thus, Jesus has died for the sins of literally every human being—see 1 John 2:2: "Christ is the sacrifice that takes away our sins <em>and the sins of all the world’s people</em>." (CEV)</p>
<p>But this doesn't mean all will be saved—as I have discussed in my <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">earlier post</a>, I think the only people who will have eternal life are those who don't opt-out of this salvation by resisting the work of the Holy Spirit, who if not resisted, will bring someone to have faith in Christ as their savior.</p>
<p>So based on all this, I think angels are inherently un-redeemable, for there is no hint in Scripture that angels are all part of one <em>four-dimensional metaphysical entity</em> as humans are. They are simply spirits, created individually and instantly by God at some point in the past. Therefore, one angel's suffering could never atone for all other angels' sins. The only solution is for each separate angel to suffer the consequences of their own sins.</p>
<h2>The Image of God: A Very Helpful Doctrine</h2>
<p>So overall, the doctrine of humans being made in the image of God is actually very helpful theologically.</p>
<p>Not only does it give each of us a special dignity, worth, and importance which is not dependent on any particular attributes we have or anything we can do; it also explains how we have the opportunity to experience intimate union with God forever through the Holy Spirit, and to be redeemed by Jesus Christ through his becoming incarnate as a human and dying for our sins.</p>
<p>But of course, this union with God is not automatic. It happens only when we first <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">have faith in Christ</a> as our savior: Ephesians 1:13-14. But it will last forever and ever, which is totally amazing.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> See a number of these Bible verses that refer to the "Angel of the Lord" at <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=angel+of+the+lord&qs_version=ESV">BibleGateway.org</a>.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> And there is possibly some other strange sort of interaction going on between angels and humans in Genesis 6:4, also referenced in 1 Peter 3:19-20 and 2 Peter 2:4.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 55-59. </li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 64. </li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 165-166.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> I have no idea what that means for how angels could appear as humans, how they can eat food (Genesis 18:8, Hebrews 13:2), or how fallen angels could produce Nephilim by marrying and mating with human women (Genesis 6:4).</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 160.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 131-135.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 137.</li>
<li><strong>10.</strong> Oliver D. Crisp, <em>The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016), 129-130, 141.</li>
</ul>Is Eternal Life Opt-In or Opt-Out?2018-10-24T00:00:00+00:002018-10-24T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-10-24:/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/<p>One of my highly recommended books is <em>Does God Love Everyone? The Heart of What is Wrong with Calvinism</em> by Jerry L. Walls.</p>
<p>Walls has a very good introduction to the debate between Calvinists and Arminians, and good insight into what he thinks the debate is ultimately about.</p>
<p>I do …</p><p>One of my highly recommended books is <em>Does God Love Everyone? The Heart of What is Wrong with Calvinism</em> by Jerry L. Walls.</p>
<p>Walls has a very good introduction to the debate between Calvinists and Arminians, and good insight into what he thinks the debate is ultimately about.</p>
<p>I do have a criticism of one part of his book though.</p>
<p>Near the end of his book, he shows his model of the process of human salvation in a diagram. He uses large arrows pointing forward to show what God does (create us in God's image, Christ dies for us, the Holy Spirit draws us, regenerates us, justifies us, sanctifies us, and glorifies us), and small arrows pointing forward for what we do (freely respond in faith, and cooperate in sanctification).<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>(Note: I don't agree with Walls that sanctification is necessary for salvation—see my earlier articles <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/treadmill-theology/">here</a> and <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">here</a>).</p>
<p>This sort of model is opposed by some theologians because, they say, even having to do a very small <em>something</em> in order to be saved—such as "freely respond in faith" as Walls says—becomes a human "work". This tiny "contribution" would be a source of boasting (Romans 3:27-28, Ephesians 2:8-9).</p>
<p>It would mean that a tiny portion of the credit for the Christian's salvation belongs to the Christian themselves, and not to God. God only gets 98% of the glory and credit and praise for the Christian's salvation, whereas the Christian individual can claim 2% of the credit and praise.</p>
<p>These theologians might imagine a Christian in heaven saying to themselves:</p>
<p>"Well, the reason I'm saved is because <em>I</em> believed in Jesus as my savior! Those other people who weren't saved just weren't <em>smart enough</em> or <em>humble enough</em> to believe the gospel message like <em>I</em> did. Clearly, <em>I'm</em> a much better person because <em>I</em> believed and they did not. No wonder God loves <em>me</em>! In fact, how could God <em>not</em> love someone as humble, intelligent, and obedient as <em>me</em>? Wow, I totally <em>deserved</em> to be saved—God simply <em>could not</em> be eternally happy without <em>me</em> here..."</p>
<p>So therefore, some theologians (usually Calvinist, Reformed, and sometimes Lutheran) say that the only way to avoid all pride or boasting in ourselves is to say that Christians contribute absolutely nothing towards our salvation.</p>
<p>They say that because we are all born with a totally corrupt and sinful nature inherited from Adam and Eve, it is only God's irresistible grace which makes Christians able to hear and understand the gospel, and guarantees Christians actually will accept it and believe in Jesus as their savior. God chooses who to give this irresistible grace to, and he doesn't give it to everyone.</p>
<p>But if God does give it to you, you <em>will</em> have faith and be saved. Yet irresistible grace has some very negative implications for God's character, as I talk about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/will-god-save-everyone/">here</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, Walls (along with other Arminian, Open Theist, Free Grace, and usually Catholic theologians) wants to preserve some place for human free will to either accept or reject God's offer of salvation. Because otherwise, it would seem God's offer of salvation to all is not genuine. It would mean <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/does-god-really-want-to-save-everyone/">God doesn't really want everyone to be saved</a>. This is a problem for upholding belief in God's goodness, and also a problem for interpreting many Bible verses, such as 1 Timothy 2:3-4 or John 3:16.</p>
<p>But I think there's a way that we can affirm that salvation is fully due to the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and not partly due to anything we actively do, while still not requiring us to say God's grace is irresistible.</p>
<h2>Salvation is Opt-Out?</h2>
<p>There are often two ways that we think of contracts. One approach is that people have to intentionally sign up or opt-in to whatever is being offered. The other approach is that a person is signed up for an offer by default, but can choose to decline or opt-out.</p>
<p>Unlike Walls, I do not think there is any "active" or "positive" contribution we make to our salvation.</p>
<p>Instead, our only "contribution" to our salvation is <em>passive non-resistance</em> to the prevenient work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, who, if not resisted, will eventually bring us to the point where we consent to believing in Jesus as our savior. </p>
<p>But, a person could choose to resist and reject the Holy Spirit's leading (Acts 7:51, Luke 7:30, Matthew 23:37).</p>
<p>Thus, salvation would be "opt-out" instead of "opt-in".</p>
<p>Yet, we can never claim any credit for our salvation, since without this activity of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, all people would remain stuck in sin and would never have any desire to be saved, to love God, or to do any good. Therefore, any progress we make along the way towards having faith in Christ as our savior is only due to the work of the Holy Spirit, and we can never claim any positive contribution.</p>
<p>Even after we're saved, any progress in giving up particular sins and growing in Christ-like character (<em>sanctification</em>) is also due to the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and we again, choose to resist or not.</p>
<p>Resistance to sanctification means we may miss out on some of the good things God wants us to do (Ephesians 2:10) and as a result, we might miss out on some of the heavenly rewards we could have earned (Matthew 6:20, 10:42, 1 Corinthians 3:14-15). But our eternal salvation is secure the moment we first believe (Ephesians 1:13-14), as I talk more about <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">here</a>.</p>
<h2>GPS Analogy</h2>
<p>I think the Holy Spirit works in people's hearts kind of like how a GPS tells the driver of a car the suggested best route to their intended destination.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>If the driver takes a wrong turn, the GPS will say "Recalculating..." and will find the shortest and easiest way to get back on track. If a person chooses to listen to the GPS, it is usually fairly easy to find a way to turn around without going too far away and wasting too much time.</p>
<p>However, the driver could choose to ignore the GPS and drive further and further away from the destination that the GPS is guiding them towards. They will become more and more lost, the streets get more bumpy and twisted, street-signs disappear, and soon they end up in the seedy part of town. But the GPS never gives up.</p>
<p>A driver could choose to turn off the GPS altogether, and thus they would never hear the warnings or promptings of how to get back towards their intended destination. We could compare this to when a person's conscience becomes seared (1 Timothy 4:2), when they harden their hearts (Hebrews 3:15, 4:7), and eventually, God might give them over to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28).</p>
<p>But if a person chooses to listen to the GPS before they reach that point, then they will slowly start to be turned around. Depending on how far off course they went, they might have a longer and more difficult journey to turn around and get back on track. But if they keep listening to the GPS, they will eventually find their way back to the well-paved road with good lighting, clear signs, and pleasant scenery.</p>
<p>If we believe the Holy Spirit works in people's hearts from the moment they are born (acting as <em>prevenient grace</em>), then we can think of the journey to the point of becoming Christians as something like the above journey for a driver following GPS directions.</p>
<p>The exact route each person takes to come to the point of recognizing Christ as their savior will depend on their personal situation, personality, background, and may other factors, such as how easily available the gospel is to them.</p>
<p>If a child is blessed with Christian parents, the parents will be able to tell the child what direction they should go, what their destination is meant to be, and help them learn to pay attention to the Holy Spirit's promptings. Parental discipline can help guide a child and make the child's journey to faith in Christ easier and shorter than for someone who is not born to Christian parents.</p>
<p>But in any case, I believe the Holy Spirit makes use of everything available to get a person's attention and alert them to their need for God's forgiveness, the need for Christ to be their savior, and to their desire for eternal life in heaven with God.</p>
<p>For example, a person might be in a bookstore and a particular book with a Christian message in it might catch their eye on the shelf. They can choose then whether to stop and pick it up and examine it further, or ignore this and keep browsing.</p>
<p>A few weeks or months later, a Christian friend might invite them to come to church. Again, they can accept, or brush it off with a "Nah, not interested", "Maybe sometime later", or even "Oh come on, that's for losers!"</p>
<p>But if they say yes, then there's a chance they will hear the gospel, and can make further choices of whether to believe it or not. If they're not quite ready to accept it, but are still open to chatting about it with their Christian friend, they might eventually learn enough to be convinced of the truth of the gospel.</p>
<p>So each time the Holy Spirit tries to get our attention or suggest an idea or course of action, people can choose to resist it. They might distract themselves with entertainment or pleasure, might try to fill any longings for God with other things like wealth, fame, or power. They might just say they're too busy right now to think about that, and bury themselves in work or family obligations.</p>
<p>At each decision point, a person could freely choose to reject the direction the Holy Spirit is suggesting. If they do not, then eventually, they will be brought to a point where they can choose not to resist being brought to faith in Christ as their Savior.</p>
<h2>Another Analogy for Salvation as Opt-Out</h2>
<p>However, some critics might still say that a choice to not resist the Holy Spirit is still a human "work" that we could boast about. However, I think this is nonsense, as we can show by use of another analogy.</p>
<p>Let's imagine a person trapped in a burning house. This person actually willingly and consciously started the fire themselves, for some unknown and totally unthinkable reason.</p>
<p>Now, the house is about to collapse on them, and part of the house has already fallen in, pinning the person's legs under a heavy beam they cannot lift. They can't get out now even if they wanted to.</p>
<p>Then, a fireman runs in! He uses his axe to cut the beam and frees the person from the debris. But, the person's legs are broken!</p>
<p>So the fireman picks them up, wraps them up in his own fireproof coat, and carries them out of the building, while receiving serious burns in the process as he shields the victim from the flames. As a result of these injuries, the fireman later dies in hospital.</p>
<p>Now, can we really imagine that this person, having been rescued like this from a situation that they stupidly got themselves into and could never have gotten themselves out of on their own, and who actually <em>did nothing at all during the process of being rescued</em>, would then say:</p>
<p>"Well, <em>I</em> clearly saved myself, because <em>I</em> contributed to my salvation by choosing not to resist the fireman's rescue. That fireman is lucky he had such a cooperative victim as <em>me</em>—now he will be remembered as a hero, but only because <em>I</em> was <em>so helpful</em>!"</p>
<p>No one would take them seriously. Everyone would realize this person did nothing to be saved, and so deserves no credit for their own rescue.</p>
<p>But it is still true that the victim could have resisted the fireman's efforts to save them. </p>
<p>They could have irrationally chosen to fight off the fireman, punching and biting and screaming as the fireman attempted to save their life. The fireman, after struggling with them as long as he could, would eventually have to give up, accept the sad and irrational fact that this person just doesn't want to be saved, and leave them to their self-chosen fate.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Therefore, I think these two analogies help us understand how we cannot brag that we contributed to our salvation at all, for our only role is to choose to not resist the Holy Spirit's work in our hearts.</p>
<p>And as a result, anyone who chooses to persistently reject the Holy Spirit's attempts to draw them to faith in Christ has opted-out of God's purposes for their lives both now and in eternity, and is fully to blame for their fate.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Jerry L. Walls, <em>Does God Love Everyone? The Heart of What is Wrong with Calvinism</em> (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 72.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> I have heard that others use this analogy also, but this is my own idea, which came to me while watching an ad for a car while I was working out at the gym.</li>
</ul>Being Open to Changing Our Minds2018-10-17T00:00:00+00:002018-10-17T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-10-17:/article/being-open-to-changing-our-minds/<p>I've called my blog <em>Continually Sharpening</em>, based on Proverbs 27:17, NIV: "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."</p>
<p>I hope that as I study and teach, I will have my theological views continually sharpened and refined, so that they become more and more Biblical and in alignment …</p><p>I've called my blog <em>Continually Sharpening</em>, based on Proverbs 27:17, NIV: "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."</p>
<p>I hope that as I study and teach, I will have my theological views continually sharpened and refined, so that they become more and more Biblical and in alignment with the truth. This process means that I may (and hopefully will) change my mind on some things.</p>
<p>I think this is a slogan that each Christian should personally appropriate, by being open to continually learning and revising their theological beliefs.</p>
<p>In the book <em>Virtuous Minds</em>, Philip E. Dow says that intellectual virtue partly consists of <em>intellectual courage</em>.</p>
<p><em>Intellectual courage</em> means wanting to know the truth, and thus, being willing to hear ideas that we may currently disagree with, and being open to changing our beliefs. It also means having the courage to stand firm on what we are convinced is true even if it is unpopular.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>So we should try as hard as we can to be open to seriously considering alternative views and the arguments and evidence they appeal to, and to allow the possibility for changing our minds if we find these are better than our own.</p>
<p>If our beliefs have never changed about anything, then there's a chance we're not really open to learning, and don't really care about finding out the truth or having beliefs that are well-supported by reason and evidence.</p>
<p>To say that our beliefs as we currently have them are completely perfect and could not benefit from some level of further revision is highly unlikely.</p>
<p>One of my favourite Bible verses is 1 Corinthians 13:12, which affirms that in this life our knowledge and understanding is only partial at best. So I think no one (except Jesus) has ever had or ever will have 100% correct theology in this life.</p>
<p>While this may seem discouraging, it actually should stimulate the theological enterprise, for it means there is always room for improvement, and is helpful to avoid both complacency and arrogance.</p>
<h2>Not Just Change for the Sake of Change</h2>
<p>Now, I'm not saying that we should change our beliefs simply for the sake of change.</p>
<p>I once had a discussion with a man who said he highly respected people who changed their religious beliefs. But he didn't seem to care whether the change was in a direction that was true or not, or care about what prompted such change. A Christian who became a Muslim, or a Muslim who became a Christian, would be equally respectable to him.</p>
<p>Now, if both the Christian and Muslim changed their beliefs because they were genuinely convinced their new views were more true than their old ones, then that is commendable, because they are showing commitment to seeking the truth and the courage to act on their beliefs. </p>
<p>(And from an evangelical Christian perspective, since I believe Christianity is true, there is hope that the Muslim may return to Christianity by continuing to seek truth.)</p>
<p>But if they just got bored and wanted to try something new, or changed their minds because their friends and family wanted them to, or to rebel against friends and family, or because it was politically expedient or even just trendy, then that is not so commendable.</p>
<p>I have changed my mind on a few different theological issues, and each time it was a little mind-blowing. Certain books I read had convincing arguments supported by strong evidence, which persuaded me that these ideas were more consistent and correct than what I had previously believed. But I'm glad I did, because it has made my Christian worldview more consistent and Biblical.</p>
<p>For example, Edward Fudge's book <em>The Fire That Consumes</em> convinced me that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/arguments-for-annihilationism/">annihilation</a> is what the Bible really teaches about the nature of hell.</p>
<p>Previously I held to the eternal conscious torment view, even though it always bothered me. I like to think that I didn't change my mind just because I thought eternal hell was a problem for God's goodness and justice, or because I worried about what it could mean for my friends and family who don't believe in Jesus, but because the Scriptural exegesis and logical arguments presented by Fudge were more convincing than what I had previously read by proponents of the eternal conscious torment view.</p>
<p>Of course, I was also happy that it solved a problem for <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/why-study-theodicy/">theodicy</a> and helped me see God as more just and loving than before. But I hope that if I read another book by someone from the eternal conscious torment view who was able to effectively refute Fudge with even better Scriptural evidence and arguments, then I would switch back to that view.</p>
<h2>Testing Our Beliefs</h2>
<p>So ideally, when we change our minds it should be because we are convinced that our new ideas are more in alignment with reality than our old views were.</p>
<p>A good challenge to test this is to ask ourselves "What evidence could convince me that my belief is false?". This is the principle of <em>falsifiability</em>.</p>
<p>Now, not every belief may be falsifiable. Some things may be self-evident (e.g., that you are currently reading this sentence), or true simply by definition (e.g., an unmarried man is a bachelor).</p>
<p>Other parts of our worldview are constructed beginning with basic presuppositions that we simply believe to be true and may not have a solid argument or evidence for. For example, the philosopher Alvin Plantinga has argued that belief in God is "properly basic", and can be believed without a need for complicated evidence and arguments.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>One way to tell if a debate is ultimately about basic presuppositions is to see if the debate ends up in an unsolvable stalemate where one side insists "Yes" and the other insists "No", and there is no way to prove it one way or the other.</p>
<p>For example, in the debate between materialists and idealists, it is impossible to prove whether the world actually exists outside of ourselves, or if what we experience as reality is actually just a bunch of inputs being given to our minds (something like in the movie <em>The Matrix</em>).</p>
<p>Another example is the debate between libertarians and determinists on the topic of free will. Libertarians say that for any past choice we made, we could have chosen to do differently than what we actually chose to do, whereas determinists say no, this is impossible. Given that the only way to prove this debate would be to go back in time and actually choose differently, it is impossible to prove one way or the other, and what we believe on the topic comes down to a basic presupposition about free will.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>However, simply having a consistent or coherent system of beliefs is not enough to ensure they are true—they need to match up with reality as much as possible.<cite>4</cite> So for more complex beliefs, it's good to consider what sort of evidence might convince us to change our minds. Because then we know that we are not believing something blindly. It's also a fun way of challenging ourselves and carefully considering what we believe and why.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Even if I think that it is highly unlikely that anything could change some of my current beliefs, because I am presently convinced that the evidence is solid and the arguments are true, to be intellectually honest, I need to keep myself open to the possibility of changing my mind. Otherwise, I become narrow-minded, dogmatic, indoctrinated, and no longer open to pursuing truth.</p>
<p>So therefore, I want to say that I'm not certain I will always believe what I now believe. In the future it is possible that I'll look back on some of these blog articles and disagree with them.</p>
<p>But I can say that the positions I have changed my mind on will be very difficult to reverse, for I have studied the arguments for and against these carefully, and found one view much more persuasive than the others. But in theory, I need to stay open to the possibility.</p>
<p>I hope we would all be open to potentially changing our minds and not being ashamed to admit it or afraid of doing so. For this is how we make progress towards truth.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Philip E. Dow, <em>Virtuous Minds</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 28-29.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Thomas H. McCall, "Religious Epistemology, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, and Critical Biblical Scholarship" in <em>Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?</em> ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 37-38.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> T. J. Mawson, <em>Free Will: A Guide for the Perplexed</em> (New York, NY: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), 17.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Thomas H. McCall, "Religious Epistemology, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, and Critical Biblical Scholarship" in <em>Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?</em> ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 37.</li>
</ul>Is Correct Theology Necessary for Salvation?2018-10-10T00:00:00+00:002018-10-10T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-10-10:/article/is-correct-theology-necessary-for-salvation/<p>While I'm not really a history expert, I was called on to TA a course last winter on the history of early Christianity. As part of this, I gave a lecture on early Christian heresies about Jesus, and why they were problematic.</p>
<p>If you're not familiar with the term:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Heresy …</span></p><p>While I'm not really a history expert, I was called on to TA a course last winter on the history of early Christianity. As part of this, I gave a lecture on early Christian heresies about Jesus, and why they were problematic.</p>
<p>If you're not familiar with the term:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Heresy is best seen as a form of Christian belief that, more by accident than design, ultimately ends up subverting, destabilizing, or even destroying the core of Christian faith.<cite>1</cite></span></p>
<p>And so when dealing with the topic of heresy, we might start to wonder—are heretics saved? Or put another way, how wrong can a person's theology be before it impacts their eternal salvation?</p>
<p>Near the end of the lecture, I asked the class this question:</p>
<h2>What statement about the salvation of heretics is most correct?</h2>
<ol>
<li>All heretics are unsaved, for they believe wrong things about Jesus, and thus worship a different Jesus and trust in a false savior.<cite>2</cite></li>
<li>Only those who were intentionally or stubbornly heretical cannot be saved; accidental heresy is forgivable.</li>
<li>It depends on the heresy.</li>
<li>Heresy is a theological problem, but if heretics trusted in Jesus as their savior, they're saved.</li>
</ol>
<p>There was a wide spread of answers, but I choose number 4. Let me explain why.</p>
<p>I sometimes see Christians claiming that you must not only <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">believe in Jesus as your savior to be eternally saved</a>; you also have to believe certain other theological ideas.</p>
<p>Some of the ideas commonly listed may include: Jesus' virgin birth, that Jesus is simultaneously 100% human and 100% divine (the <em>hypostatic union</em>), and that Jesus rose from the dead bodily.</p>
<p>Other things might include the nature of the atonement, that God is Triune, or whatever other doctrines a person or denomination feels particularly passionate about and wants to ensure others adhere to.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>A critic once said about Jonathan Edwards that "He was a very great bigot, for he would not admit any person into heaven, but those that agreed fully to his sentiments".<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>If it were true that we needed to believe the exact same things as Edwards did in order to be saved, then most Christians throughout all history are headed for hell! Heaven would be a very empty place indeed, except for some Puritans and maybe a few other Calvinists.</p>
<h2>Gnosticism</h2>
<p>There was a group of early church heretics who also claimed that they were the only Christians who were really saved because only they had the <em>secret knowledge</em> that was critical for salvation. </p>
<p>They were called Christian Gnostics, from the Greek word <em>gnosis</em> (knowledge).</p>
<p>Their views are represented in writings such as the <em>Gospel of Thomas</em>, the <em>Gospel of Judas</em>, and the <em>Gospel of Truth</em> by Valentinius. While Gnosticism also included a variety of other strange beliefs that the early Church deemed problematic, the name comes from the emphasis they put on having the special secret knowledge necessary to be saved.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>It is in this sense of the term that I believe some Christians are still under the influence of "gnosticism", by insisting that only those Christians who know certain theological truths are saved.</p>
<p>The problem with this is highlighted by Gregory of Nazianzus, who was an early church theologian who argued against various heresies. He wrote that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">[Heretics] proclaim to us today a wisdom hidden ever since the time of Christ—a thing worthy of our tears. For if the faith began thirty years ago, when nearly four hundred years had passed since Christ was manifested, vain all that time will have been our gospel, and vain our faith; in vain will the martyrs have borne their witness, and in vain have so many and so great prelates presided over the people; and grace is a matter of meters and not of the faith.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>So basically, if it was true that real Christianity only began with certain heretics who claimed that salvation had to do with particular knowledge not available until 400 A.D. or so, then any Christian who lived in the years before this were not saved.</p>
<p>So whenever we make a claim that some specific theological knowledge is absolutely necessary for salvation, we should carefully consider whether the Church has had access to this knowledge from the beginning of Christianity. Because otherwise we are writing off huge numbers of Christians as unsaved.</p>
<p>But as Gregory pointed out above: Gnostic Christianity cannot be true, for then Christianity would not be about faith in Christ as Christians have always believed, but would be about having the right theological knowledge or saying the correct words in the correct order, like a magical incantation or secret password to open the gates of heaven.</p>
<p>Yet, ironically, Gregory also argued that having non-heretical beliefs was necessary for salvation.<cite>7</cite> So Gregory is actually just as "gnostic" as the heretical Gnostic Christians were, because both insisted on adherence to particular beliefs beyond simple belief in Jesus as savior!</p>
<p>Now, it is certainly helpful to have certain Christian theological beliefs. It helps us make sense of the Bible and of what Jesus was able to do for us and why, and build a Biblical and self-consistent Christian worldview. But are these beliefs necessary for a person's eternal salvation?</p>
<h2>The 'Thief on the Cross' Test</h2>
<p>One way we can answer this question is to see if any particular doctrine or idea passes what I call the <em>Thief on the Cross</em> test. That is, we ask ourselves "Did the thief on the cross know and believe this?"</p>
<p>The thief on the cross is recorded in Luke 23:40-42 as making a simple statement that consisted of three main points:</p>
<ol>
<li>That the thief had done wrong and was being justly punished for it.</li>
<li>That Jesus had done nothing wrong.</li>
<li>That Jesus would one day have a kingdom.</li>
</ol>
<p>Yet Jesus said that the thief would be with Jesus in paradise that very day (Luke 23:43). So the thief was eternally saved.</p>
<p>But when we look at what Luke records the thief said, there is nothing here about the virgin birth. Nothing about the hypostatic union. Nothing about a lot of other doctrines that are frequently listed as essential things Christians must believe.</p>
<p>We see some hint of belief that Jesus would be resurrected and is some sort of king (or how else could he have a kingdom in the future?), but that's it.</p>
<p>If someone says "Well, this is a special case, because he was about to die and didn't have time to learn any theology", then let's look at all the people listed in Hebrews 11 and see how many of them likely knew these things. When we read Hebrews 11 we see the emphasis is on faith in God, not belief in specific doctrines or knowledge of certain facts.</p>
<p>If someone insists that "Yes, all these people did believe these exact things; the Bible just doesn't mention it," this is presumptuous and cannot be proven from Scripture.</p>
<p>Since Scripture doesn't provide a comprehensive checklist of all that must be believed for eternal salvation, if there really is such a list, then God has either misled us or is not very good at letting us know all that we need to know.</p>
<p>Can we really imagine that an early Christian heretic dies, stands before God, and God says to them:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Well, you did believe that Jesus was your savior. But, you didn't believe that Jesus is actually the second person of the Trinity incarnate, fully God and fully human. And yes, I really didn't make it clear that you had to believe these things to be saved—I only inspired John and Paul through my Holy Spirit to mention that faith in Christ was all that was necessary. But, because you disagreed with the Council of Nicaea's creed (even though you died before this creed was created), I can't let you into heaven, and due to this technicality I'm going to have to destroy you eternally. Sorry about that.</span></p>
<p>Obviously, the above is sarcasm. But whenever someone claims that Christians must believe in Christ as their savior AND also believe [ <em>insert doctrine(s) here</em> ] to have eternal life, a scenario very much like the above is implied.</p>
<h2>Heresy: Not a Salvation Issue</h2>
<p>So this is why I believe that heresy is a <em>theological</em> problem, but not necessarily a <em>soteriological</em> problem.</p>
<p>In other words, heresy is a problem involving how we understand the gospel, Christ, God, or some other topic related to the Bible, but it is not a problem that will keep people from being saved.</p>
<p>And yes, we do have the right to determine what we want to be taught in our churches, and heretics are free to go start their own churches. And we're free to debate with heretics why we think they are wrong, and why we think we're right.</p>
<p>But we should never say that a particular idea or doctrine is so wrong that it cannot be discussed by Christians. And it is never right to persecute those who disagree with us.</p>
<p>In fact, debating with heretics can actually strengthen Christianity by refining our doctrine, as it did in the early Christian era where councils were called to sort out key debated issues.</p>
<p>As a result, we clarified that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, the second person of the Trinity incarnate (contra the Arians). We understood more about how we're saved (that the initiative begins with God, not us, contra the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians), defined the doctrine of the Trinity (contra the Modalists), and many other things that are not explicitly mentioned in Scripture, but which can be derived from it by in-depth study.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>So in conclusion, I don't think we should say that only those Christians who are part of our particular denomination or who believe the exact same things that we do are truly saved. We are not the gatekeepers of heaven who have authority to judge others' beliefs and say whether they're saved or not.</p>
<p>We all understand theology only in part and dimly at that (1 Corinthians 13:12), and God's grace is enough to cover theological misunderstandings or errors.</p>
<p>Therefore, we can debate theological ideas with Christians who disagree with our beliefs, while still considering them brothers and sisters in Christ and treating them with respect and love.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Alister McGrath, <em>Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth</em> (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2009), 11-12.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> For an example of this kind of claim, see Douglas Wilson, "Foundations of Exhaustive Foreknowledge," in <em>Bound Only Once: The Failure of Open Theism</em> (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2001) 163-168. Wilson argues here that because Open Theists have a different understanding of God's foreknowledge and omniscience than some Christians, they are not worshipping the same God as some Christians, and therefore Open Theists are heretics. This is utterly ridiculous. The question the Open Theists ask is "What does Scripture teach about God's omniscience and foreknowledge?" This is a completely legitimate question for Christians to investigate and is not an issue that compromises the Gospel.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> For example, the Council of Trent said that "No one can be justified unless he faithfully and unhesitatingly accepts the Catholic doctrine on justification." Henri Rondet, <em>The Grace of Christ: A Brief History of the Theology of Grace</em>, ed. Tad W. Guzie (Westminster, MD; Toronto: Newman Press, 1967), 413.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> George M. Marsden, <em>Jonathan Edwards: A Life</em> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 380.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Justo L. Gonzalez, <em>The Story of Christianity</em>, Volume 1, Revised and Updated (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2010), 70-73.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Gregory of Nazianzus, "Epistle 102", in <em>Church and Society in Documents (100-600 A.D.)</em>, ed. Alan L. Hayes (Toronto: Canadian Scholar's Press, 1995), 160.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Gregory of Nazianzus, "Epistle 101", in <em>Church and Society in Documents (100-600 A.D.)</em>, ed. Alan L. Hayes (Toronto: Canadian Scholar's Press, 1995), 151-153. Here he says that various heretics who do not believe correct things about Jesus are "severed from the Godhead", and they "lose [their] part in the adoption promised to those who believe aright", are "anathema", should be condemned, and are "unworthy of salvation". </li>
</ul>The Antidote to Treadmill Theology2018-10-04T00:00:00+00:002018-10-04T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-10-04:/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/<p>In my previous post, I had discussed a form of theology I like to call <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/treadmill-theology/"><em>Treadmill Theology</em></a>. </p>
<p>This theology insists that continual obedience in doing good works and <em>sanctification</em> (growth in holiness) is mandatory in order to be finally <em>justified</em> (qualified for eternal life).</p>
<p>The problem is that it effectively …</p><p>In my previous post, I had discussed a form of theology I like to call <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/treadmill-theology/"><em>Treadmill Theology</em></a>. </p>
<p>This theology insists that continual obedience in doing good works and <em>sanctification</em> (growth in holiness) is mandatory in order to be finally <em>justified</em> (qualified for eternal life).</p>
<p>The problem is that it effectively leads to a form of Christian life where all the focus is on our actions instead of on God's grace. Since in this view our final salvation depends on our lifelong performance, there can be no real assurance of salvation, and thus no consistent experience of peace or joy.</p>
<h2>The Antidote: Eternal Security and Free Grace</h2>
<p>I am convinced that the only antidote to this form of theology is the doctrine of eternal security, which says that once a person believes in Christ, they are permanently saved and can never lose their salvation.</p>
<p>Some theologians such as John Calvin would agree with this. But then Calvin defines the requirements for this eternal salvation in such a way that we can never be really sure that we are saved or not—because if we're really saved, Calvin says, then we will persevere in faith and grow in sanctification until the end of our lives (see his Institutes 3.16 and 3.2.11-12).</p>
<p>Even worse, Calvin said that if at any point in life we seem to fall away and never appear to return to Christianity, the conclusion is that, well, we never were really saved at all, even if we once professed belief in Christ as our savior.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Therefore, eternal security is not enough. We must combine this with the <em>Free Grace</em> perspective that people are permanently and eternally saved the moment they first place their faith in Christ as their savior.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>There are several Bible verses which I believe teach this truth so clearly that it cannot be denied.</p>
<p>Let's start with some verses that clearly say salvation is based completely and only on faith in Christ (I am using the ESV):</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. <span class="blockquote-verse">(John 6:40)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. <span class="blockquote-verse">(John 6:47)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Romans 3:20-25)</span></span></p>
<p>And this is entirely apart from any works that we do either before or after our salvation:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. <span class="blockquote-verse">(John 6:28-29)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Romans 4:4-5)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. <span class="blockquote-verse">(1 Corinthians 3:11-15)</span></span></p>
<p>So, belief in Christ is all that is necessary for eternal life; no works are necessary. Even if our entire lives are judged to be unworthy of any heavenly rewards, but we believe in Christ, we will be eternally saved.</p>
<p>But, someone might argue that these verses only mean that the person who <em>continually</em> believes in Christ has eternal life; as if someone who stops believing also loses the promise of eternal life. So then we need the eternal security verses:</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Ephesians 1:13-14)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Ephesians 4:30)</span></span></p>
<p><span class="blockquote">And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. <span class="blockquote-verse">(Philippians 1:6)</span></span></p>
<p>Therefore, we can summarize the teaching of the above three sets of verses as this: We receive eternal life simply by believing that <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">Jesus is our savior</a>, apart from any works we have ever done or will ever do. The instant we believe, we are permanently indwelled by the Holy Spirit who is our personal guarantee from God that we will be resurrected and experience eternal life. The good work of sanctification that the Holy Spirit begins in all Christians will be instantly completed when we are resurrected or transformed and meet Jesus in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).</p>
<h2>But What About Other Verses?</h2>
<p>Since the proper method of Biblical interpretation is to use the clear verses to interpret the difficult or unclear verses, the clear meaning of these verses cannot be ignored by appealing to more obscure verses. If a verse is capable of being interpreted in more than one way, then we should consider all possible interpretations and compare with other verses on the same topic to determine which interpretation is most consistent, digging into the meaning of the words in the original languages of the Bible if necessary.</p>
<p>However, I'm convinced the above verses are just <em>so</em> clear that they simply cannot have any alternative meanings that could make them consistent with the idea that works are necessary for salvation, or that once a person has faith they can lose their salvation. While some difficult verses may <em>appear</em> to teach that true Christians can lose their salvation, we must say that this interpretation is impossible, for their meaning can never contradict these clear verses.</p>
<p>We can use the same approach to the difficult Bible verses that John Wesley used in his controversy over predestination with the Calvinists.</p>
<p>He said that because of the very clear verses which say God truly wants all to be saved (e.g. 1 Timothy 2:3-4), when it came to the difficult verses the Calvinists used to try to disprove this, Wesley could proclaim "Whatever these verses mean, they cannot mean that!".<cite>3</cite> </p>
<p>So whatever the difficult verses mean, they can never mean that we have to do certain works or persevere in faith in order to keep our eternal salvation.</p>
<p>Of course, we should try to find better interpretations of these challenging verses. But that might not be possible given our distance from the original Biblical authors in time, culture, and language, and we also will never understand everything clearly in this life (1 Corinthians 13:12).</p>
<p>We might be tempted to just throw up our hands in exasperation and say "Well, how can we know what any verse really means then?" </p>
<p>The Protestant doctrine of the <em>Perspicuity of Scripture</em>,<cite>4</cite> also called the <em>clarity of Scripture</em>,<cite>5</cite> as expressed in the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, article VII, means that,</p>
<p><span class="blockquote">those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.<cite>6</cite></span></p>
<p>Basically, what we need to know about the absolute basics of the gospel about eternal salvation are clear enough in the Bible that we don't need to be an expert in the Biblical languages or theology to understand them. That must include the basics of if we are saved by faith alone, or if other requirements exist.</p>
<p>(Note that I do not subscribe to the Westminster Confession—I just find its description here of this idea helpful.)</p>
<h2>Making Sense of Difficult Verses</h2>
<p>But some will ask: how can we possibly re-interpret some of the most famous verses that seem to imply that faith alone is not enough to be saved?</p>
<p>First, we must say that when the Bible says someone believed or had faith in Christ, that means they really did believe or have faith in Christ. There is no distinction between genuine faith and non-genuine faith.</p>
<p>So for example, in the parable of the four soils, when Jesus says that some believed for a time, but then fell away (Luke 8:13), we can't write off these people's faith as unreal or nonexistent. They did believe, and based on the above eternal security verses, they are eternally saved, even if they didn't persevere in faith in this life.<cite>7</cite></p>
<p>Or the famous verses in James, which claim that faith without works cannot save (James 2:14) or is dead (James 2:17), cannot mean that faith without works is not really faith at all. This is how many commentators interpret it, but it is actually contradictory: faith is either faith or it isn't, you can't have some sort of faith that is not really faith, or believe but not really believe!<cite>8</cite> </p>
<p>Yes, faith without works is useless and as good as dead for all the help it is to others in this life (James 2:15-16), and useless for earning eternal rewards (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). But it's not non-faith.</p>
<p>So <em>Free Grace</em> interpreters say that James 2:14-17 does not mean that faith alone is not enough for eternal salvation; the term "save" here is not referring to eternal salvation, but to salvation from negative temporal consequences of sin (i.e. physical death, James 1:21, 5:20).<cite>9</cite></p>
<p>We can't say that James contradicts John and Paul, for they were all inspired by the same Holy Spirit. And we can't read back a misinterpretation of James into the extremely clear verses by John or Paul that specifically negate any role for works in our eternal salvation, or claim that Paul or John actually meant something different than what they wrote.</p>
<p>Therefore, I'm convinced that even if we can't explain every difficult verse, we can know enough to say "Whatever it means, it can't mean that!" And then keep looking for other possibilities for interpretation which are consistent with the basics of the gospel of salvation by faith alone.</p>
<p>For the only alternative is to jump back on that treadmill of constant performance, and give up any possibility of assurance of eternal salvation, and the peace and joy that come along with it.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> John Calvin, <em>Institutes of the Christian Religion</em> Book 3, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> For a basic introduction to the history and theology of the Free Grace movement within Christianity, check out the link here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_grace_theology">"Free Grace Theology"</a>, Wikipedia.org.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> My paraphrase, from Wesley's sermon "Free Grace". See: Albert Outler, ed. <em>The Works of John Wesley</em>. Volume 3: Sermons. Frank Baker editor in chief. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982-1984), 556.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> <a href="https://www.gotquestions.org/perspicuity-of-Scripture.html">"What is the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture?"</a>, GotQuestions.org</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarity_of_scripture">"Clarity of Scripture"</a>, Wikipedia.org.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> <a href="https://www.apuritansmind.com/westminster-standards/chapter-1">"Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scripture"</a>, The 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith, hosted at A Puritan's Mind. For the entire Westminster Confession, see <a href="https://www.apuritansmind.com/westminster-standards/">https://www.apuritansmind.com/westminster-standards/</a>.</li>
<li><strong>7.</strong> Alberto S. Valdez, <em>Luke</em>, in The Grace New Testament Commentary, Volume 1, Robert N. Wilkin ed. (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010), 263.</li>
<li><strong>8.</strong> Bob Wilkin, <a href="https://faithalone.org/blog/impossible-interpretation-of-the-parable-of-the-four-soils/">"Impossible Interpretation of the Parable of the Four Soils"</a>, Grace Evangelical Society Blog. Accessed September 20, 2018.</li>
<li><strong>9.</strong> Zane Hodges, <em>James</em>, in The Grace New Testament Commentary, Volume 2, Robert N. Wilkin ed. (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2010), 1108-1109, 1116-1118.</li>
</ul>The Exhausting Teachings of Treadmill Theology2018-10-01T00:00:00+00:002018-10-01T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-10-01:/article/treadmill-theology/<p>It's probably safe to say that no one really likes to be on a treadmill. Even if it's good for our health and gives some people a rush of endorphins, is there anyone who wouldn't rather, if they had a choice, get off the treadmill and take a break?</p>
<p>But …</p><p>It's probably safe to say that no one really likes to be on a treadmill. Even if it's good for our health and gives some people a rush of endorphins, is there anyone who wouldn't rather, if they had a choice, get off the treadmill and take a break?</p>
<p>But, what if—like in an awful dream—you can't get off it! You must run and run for the rest of your life, because if you stop running or fall off, there's a giant lake of fire below you!</p>
<p>Run! Run! Or <em>else!</em> And where's that evil laughter coming from anyways?</p>
<p>Regrettably, this surreal dream is all too real in certain theologies which put Christians onto a treadmill of performance and insist that we keep on performing for the rest of our earthly lives... or else!</p>
<p>Or else <em>what?</em></p>
<p>Or else, maybe you won't have enough merit to enter heaven. Or else you might not die in a state of grace. Or else you won't have become holy enough for God to accept you. Or else your faith was never truly real. In all cases, it's not looking good for your eternal salvation.</p>
<p>For my cognate comprehensive exam I've been studying all about different historical Christian theologians' views of God's grace.</p>
<p>Lamentably, many theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, end up with a theology of grace which in one way or another insists that <em>sanctification</em> (being made holy or like Christ) in this life is mandatory for <em>justification</em> (being qualified for eternal salvation).</p>
<p>They do all correctly assert that the beginning of the Christian life and all progress in sanctification is totally due to God's grace, because God is the one who draws us to himself through the Holy Spirit, and who once indwelling us, gives us the motivation and ability to give up on sin, do good works, and love God and others.</p>
<p>This is all very true, and necessary to avoid any idea that we earn our own salvation or have done anything that we can brag about before God. All the good we do is totally due only to the Holy Spirit's calling, enabling, and assisting. The only thing we do is <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/eternal-life-opt-in-or-opt-out/">choose to not resist</a> the work of the Spirit in our hearts (and this is not a work, any more than accepting a gift is a work).</p>
<p>However, the problem comes when continual sanctification becomes a requirement for justification.</p>
<p>Sadly, one way or another, something like this is claimed by all the major theologians I studied, including Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, John Wesley, Bernard of Clairvaux, the Council of Trent, the Catholic-Lutheran Joint Declaration on Justification, and historical Anabaptists. Martin Luther was the only exception.</p>
<p>Whether it's the insistence by Calvin in his Institutes 3.16 and 3.2.11-12 that one who is truly elect will persevere in faith and good works to the end of life,<cite>1</cite> Wesley's view that "Without God's grace, we cannot be saved; while without our participation God's grace will not save",<cite>2</cite> the later Lutheran qualification that we are saved by faith alone, but the only faith that counts is faith that is "active in love",<cite>3</cite> even these Protestants have fallen away from the Reformation position on <em>sola fide</em> (that we are saved by faith alone).</p>
<p>It can all be summed up in that popular yet contradictory claim that "we're saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone".</p>
<p>As soon as someone claims that it is literally just faith in Christ that saves (as per John 6:28-29 or Romans 3:22-25, for example) without any other works being necessary, then come the accusations of cheap grace, easy-believeism, or <em>antinomianism</em> (lawlessness).</p>
<p>It's like these critics think God is gracious, but not <em>THAT</em> gracious. Like there must be some catch or something we have to do, because otherwise it's just <em>too easy</em> to be saved. As if it wouldn't be fair to those who have worked <em>so hard</em> for God, if God just let people into heaven who haven't done hardly anything for the kingdom (seemingly forgetting the parable of the vineyard workers in Matthew 20:1-16.)</p>
<p>No matter how much these above theologians qualify their statements that we are saved only by God's grace, because all our cooperation or participation is enabled by God's grace, it all is subject to the same criticism Karl Barth makes in his <em>Church Dogmatics</em> 4.1 paragraph 58.1.<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>Here, Barth argues that all the technical Catholic distinctions between types of grace really end up with the effect that the grace that we have to cooperate in ends up overshadowing the grace that is purely from God and requires no human cooperation.</p>
<p>The same thing happens when we insist that Christians must participate in sanctification in order to be justified. The practical effect is to put the focus on what we do or don't do, and not on God's graciousness to us in Christ and the prevenient work of the Holy Spirit.</p>
<p>Sermons encourage Christians to avoid more sin, do more good works, pray more, read more Scripture, attend church more often, volunteer, tithe, serve, witness, evangelize, speak in tongues (if that's their thing), love others more, love God more, and on and on. Bible study groups then discuss how to do these things better, and provide accountability on how we're doing these things. All the focus is on us and our actions.</p>
<p>I'm not saying every church, every sermon, or every study group is guilty of this, but it is very easy to accidentally to give this impression, or for someone who has been exposed to this treadmill theology to read it into sermons and Biblical texts when we don't actually mean it.</p>
<p>So no wonder then that if we ask many Christians why they think they're going to heaven, the answer is "Because I believe in Jesus as my savior ... AND also I ... [ <em>insert thing they do here</em> ]".</p>
<p>But this means that to keep our salvation we have to keep doing [ <em>insert thing here</em> ].</p>
<p>And then, at the end of life, what really made the difference in our salvation is what we did [ <em>insert thing here</em> ].</p>
<p>Not God's grace. Not Jesus' death and resurrection. Not the prevenient drawing of the Holy Spirit. But our own constant effort in doing [ <em>insert thing here</em> ].</p>
<p>Thus, we end up on the performance treadmill.</p>
<p>The only way to get off is to make the clear distinction between faith and discipleship, as the theology of the Free Grace movement does.<cite>5</cite> We must say we really are saved by faith alone, and that even if that faith doesn't last for a lifetime it is still enough to save a person eternally, although there are many good reasons to persevere in sanctification and discipleship. If you want to read my argument for this, see my next post <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/antidote-to-treadmill-theology/">here</a>.</p>
<p>Then, our Christian daily walk of sanctification and discipleship can be one of gratitude, joy, and peace. Our motivation will be the pleasure of serving God to the best of our abilities, without the constant threat of "or else...".</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> John Calvin, <em>Institutes of the Christian Religion</em> Book 3, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Randy L. Maddox, <em>Responsible Grace: John Wesley's Practical Theology</em> (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1994), 19.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. October 31, 1999, paragraph 25. Accessed Sept. 4, 2018 from <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html">here</a>
</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Karl Barth, <em>Church Dogmatics IV.1: The Doctrine of Reconciliation</em>, trans. G. W. Bromiley, eds. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 87.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_grace_theology">"Free Grace Theology"</a>, Wikipedia.org</li>
</ul>Why I Study Theodicy and Difficult Topics2018-09-28T00:00:00+00:002018-09-28T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-09-28:/article/why-study-theodicy/<p>Some Christians and even pastors shy away from the difficult topics in theology such as evil, suffering, reprobation, and hell. They say we shouldn't think about such awful things, and should focus on the positive parts of Christianity.</p>
<p>However, I am drawn to the challenge of these areas, all of …</p><p>Some Christians and even pastors shy away from the difficult topics in theology such as evil, suffering, reprobation, and hell. They say we shouldn't think about such awful things, and should focus on the positive parts of Christianity.</p>
<p>However, I am drawn to the challenge of these areas, all of which relate in one way or another to how we understand God's goodness.</p>
<p>I don't want to deal with these topics just because it's intellectually challenging, or out of some morbid fascination with evil or suffering, but because I'm convinced that the issue of theodicy is one that theology must adequately deal with in order to make Christianity plausible and acceptable to many people today.</p>
<p>Theodicy is a word invented by the 17th century German thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who combined the Greek words for <em>God</em> (<em>theos</em>) and <em>justify</em> (<em>dikaioo</em>). So <em>theodicy</em> means an attempt to justify or defend God's goodness despite all the evil and suffering in the world.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>The fundamental question of theodicy is: why do evil and suffering still exist if God is both all-good and all-powerful? For wouldn't such a God want to eliminate these, and also have the ability to do so?</p>
<p>I am convinced that our Christian theology is only as good as our theodicy is.</p>
<p>Philosopher Alvin Plantinga says the argument that because evil exists, therefore, an all-good and all-powerful God must not exist, is a serious one that must be dealt with.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>David and Randall Basinger argue that theodicy is one of the most important factors to consider when discerning the superiority of rival theological systems.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>Based on these statements, I am persuaded that whichever system of Christian theology is able to present God as the most good and the most loving is the best one (provided it is not contrary to Scripture).</p>
<p>For examples of some issues in theodicy, many theologians insist that God is good, despite:</p>
<ul>
<li>Setting up Adam and Eve for the first sin, then punishing them and the rest of their descendants for it.</li>
<li>Leaving all people in such a state that they can't help sinning, and then punishing them for it.</li>
<li>Randomly choosing a small number of people for eternal life while condemning most of humanity to unimaginable eternal torture—even those who never had a chance to hear the gospel.</li>
<li>Secretly wanting (and predestining or arranging) all the evil and sin that has ever occurred and will ever occur, because it's all somehow a necessary part of God's plan for greater good.</li>
<li>Controlling everyone's decisions so that whatever they do is what God wants, and then punishing them for their sins that they were made to do and could not avoid.</li>
<li>The fact that God might just smite me with illness or some other tragedy or loss, for my own spiritual good, even if I've been praying for health and safety, because God knows what is best for me.</li>
<li>God not offering any guarantee that I am even actually saved and will remain saved, because I might actually be just a deceived reprobate who is predestined to burn in hell for all eternity. Thus making me live in a constant state of fear.</li>
<li>Or alternatively, God not offering any guarantee that I will remain saved, because it's up to my free will to never turn away or fall away from faith, and to continue showing my faith is real by constant effort in doing good works to stay on God's good side.</li>
</ul>
<p>But still, God is supposedly <em>good</em>, even <em>perfect</em>, and I am expected to love, worship, and praise him, and trust him with all of my life. Because if I don't then this good and loving God will send me to hell.</p>
<p>Also, because God sets the standard for goodness, and so if all this is considered to be good by him, well, then it is, and who am I to argue against God?</p>
<p>While I never openly acknowledged or even consciously recognized that some of these ideas are what I had been taught about God, when I look back, many of the above twisted beliefs were subtly there. As a result, my spiritual life from the earliest I can remember was primarily driven by fear of hell, and thus, fear of God who might send me there.</p>
<p>While I tried to put on the happy Christian face of joy and peace, and for some periods of time was able to ignore or minimize the implications of the above beliefs, underneath there was a subtle terror and anxiety to continually obey (or <em>else!</em>).</p>
<p>This psychological suffering that I was put through by this bad theology was so awful that at times I wished God would just kill me so that at least I would know for sure if I was saved or not, and wouldn't have to live wiith the constant fear and worry.</p>
<p>Therefore, I know first-hand the negative impacts that bad theology can cause. I can relate to Clark Pinnock's experience, who said that when he identified as a Calvinist he would "slip into [his] reading of the Bible dark assumptions about the nature of God's decrees and intentions".<cite>4</cite></p>
<p>This is why theodicy has become such an obsession for me. I simply don't see how anyone could fully love God while holding beliefs such as listed above.</p>
<p>Good theology will make God far more glorious, praiseworthy, and trustworthy than any of the above bad theology ever could. And so I will fight against all of these distortions of God's character and behavior, because that's the only way I can genuinely love God.</p>
<p>Everyone has acquired biases or preferences from their past experience which influence their theology. I admit this need to believe in God's perfect goodness is one of mine, but for very good reason.</p>
<p>I think it's far more honoring to God for Christian theologians to struggle with these issues and find ways to understand how God operates in the world which portray him as the absolutely perfect, beautiful, pure, good, and wonderful God that he is, rather than justifying bad theology by appeals to tradition, authority, or the lazy claim "whatever God does is good because God defines goodness".</p>
<p>So that's what drives me to deal with all these challenging topics in my research. It's not some twisted obsession with evil or suffering or hell, but because I believe God is being horribly misrepresented by some theologians, thus making evangelism and personal love for God much more difficult for many people than it should be (if not altogether impossible).</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Richard Rice, <em>Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain</em> (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2014), 20.</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Richard Rice, <em>Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain</em> (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2014), 16.</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> David Basinger and Randall Basinger, "Theodicy: A Comparative Analysis," in <em>Semper Reformandum: Studies in Honour of Clark H. Pinnock</em>, eds. Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (Carlisle, Paternoster Press, 2003), 144.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Clark H. Pinnock, "From Augustine to Arminius," in <em>The Grace of God and the Will of Man</em> (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1995), 21.</li>
</ul>Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech Under Threat2018-09-27T00:00:00+00:002018-09-27T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-09-27:/article/academic-freedom-and-freedom-of-speech-under-threat/<p>There is a concerning trend today in academia and public discourse.</p>
<p>It is the claim that not all views are worthy of being heard or discussed seriously. The idea is that certain ideas are beyond question or debate, and that there are settled truths which must be accepted by everyone …</p><p>There is a concerning trend today in academia and public discourse.</p>
<p>It is the claim that not all views are worthy of being heard or discussed seriously. The idea is that certain ideas are beyond question or debate, and that there are settled truths which must be accepted by everyone.</p>
<p>Then, if a person does want to question or debate these ideas, that person's credibility, reputation, or job is instantly threatened.</p>
<p>In academia, they might simply not be hired in the first place, because they don't share the same views as the hiring committee. Journals or book publishers might not be willing to publish their ideas, and they might not be able to receive necessary grants or funding. Thus, a person's academic career can be destroyed by simply wanting to discuss an idea that is unpopular.</p>
<p>For example, there is the worrying case of the TA Lindsey Shepherd at Wilfred Laurier University, who showed a clip of the University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson expressing his controversial views in one of her classes. Yet she was reprimanded for this, when she was just trying to present multiple points of view to the students.<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Or the many well-documented examples of scientists who have lost their careers for questioning the theory of evolution.<cite>2</cite></p>
<p>Or the hypocrisy of a professor speaking at a conference on academic freedom, who in his speech argues that news programs should not allow critics of climate change to be heard alongside scientists who accept climate change.<cite>3</cite></p>
<p>Or the news stories about various activist groups trying to shut down debate on university campuses, by threatening violence, or shouting down anyone who tries to say something they disagree with.</p>
<p>For example, in August 2018, Ryerson University in Toronto ironically had to cancel it's event, <em>The Stifling of Free Speech on University Campuses</em>, due to "safety concerns".<cite>4</cite> How ironic.</p>
<p>Even an article in the <em>New York Times</em> claims that certain ideas are "violence" because they may cause a person stress! And therefore, they say, certain ideas cannot be discussed on university campuses.<cite>5</cite></p>
<p>But this is simply not how academic debate or free speech works!</p>
<p>(A great rebuttal to the article I mention above was written by Jonathan Haight and Greg Lukianoff for <em>The Atlantic</em>, titled "Why It's a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence").<cite>6</cite></p>
<p><em>All</em> ideas should be up for open and serious debate, because the best ideas will eventually be revealed as having the most support of reason and evidence.</p>
<p>In some cases, there may be many equally plausible interpretations or arguments, and if so, then the ideas should be fairly presented along with the alternative theories or ideas, and let individuals make up their own minds. We win people over to our view by persuasion and compelling evidence, not by coercion or preemptively silencing any opposition.</p>
<p>And no, it's not hypocritical for me to be criticizing the idea that certain ideas do not deserve to be considered. I'm not saying that we should prohibit anyone from discussing this idea. I just believe that it must never be implemented, for the good of individuals and society as a whole.</p>
<p>This is why, even if I have my own preferred views, if I were to teach in a university or seminary, I am committed to fairly presenting and discussing other points of view.</p>
<p>I will give the students freedom to disagree with me and write papers that advocate for views I do not personally endorse, and provided they can provide decent arguments and plausible evidence, I will give them a good grade. This is all part of the learning process and a necessary part of critical thinking.</p>
<p>In fact, I actually do hope that students will not just accept whatever I say as absolute truth, for this shows they are thinking for themselves. We need more people to do this and not just parrot whatever their favourite source or <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/trusting-the-experts/">expert</a> has claimed.</p>
<p>To decide ahead of time that a particular idea is unacceptable, and being unwilling to debate it or hear any arguments in favor of it, and disparaging or threatening those who feel it is worthy of discussion is not academic, but totalitarian.</p>
<p>The only reason why someone would want to exclude any legitimate discussion or debate is if they fear that their own idea cannot withstand criticism.</p>
<p>The claim that some ideas are dangerous, harmful, offensive, or even just unpopular, and therefore unworthy of debate is not legitimate. Ideas and words are not violence. The law already has categories for things such as uttering threats, advocating for genocide, or slander.</p>
<p>The freedom to disagree with popular ideas is extremely important. We can’t let this be taken away from our society, because if we do, then all academic freedom disappears.</p>
<p>It turns universities into indoctrination centres where only the approved narrative and viewpoints are taught. This is doing a disservice to students and to society, since the only way for society to determine which ideas are the best is for all ideas to be considered and discussed openly and vigorously, yet without violence or coercion.</p>
<p>Christians should be especially concerned about these recent threats to free speech. Jesus said that he was offensive (Matthew 11:6, Luke 7:23). He said he would lead to division between people, even between family members (Luke 12:51-53).</p>
<p>And if people were offended by Jesus, and insulted and hated him, then Christians will also be deemed offensive and insulted and hated by society (Matthew 10:25, John 15:18-20). Eventually, it might become illegal to preach the gospel, because <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/christianity-is-not-a-feel-good-religion/">the gospel offends people</a> by saying that we're all sinners who need Jesus as our savior.</p>
<p>So Christians absolutely must defend freedom of speech to protect our ability to freely share the gospel, to maintain our freedom to preach and teach what we believe in our churches, and even keep ourselves, our families, and our churches physically safe from violent mobs that may be offended by us and our beliefs.</p>
<p>This means being strong enough to allow others to say things we disagree with. For the alternative is much worse; once we give someone the power to silence our opponents, it can easily be used to silence us.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Shepherd">"Lindsay Shepherd"</a>, Wikipedia.org</li>
<li><strong>2.</strong> Jerry Bergman and Kevin Wirth, <em>Slaughter of the Dissidents</em> (Port Orchard, WA: Leafcutter Press, 2011).</li>
<li><strong>3.</strong> Safiya Merchant, <a href="https://record.umich.edu/articles/academic-freedom-lecturer-takes-claims-climate-change-deniers">"Academic freedom lecturer takes on claims of climate change deniers"</a>, <em>The University Record</em>, University of Michigan, October 4, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>4.</strong> Debra W. Soh, <a href="(https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/ryerson-free-speech-1.4259360)">"The left is alienating its allies by shutting down free speech"</a>, CBC News, August 28, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>5.</strong> Lisa Feldman Barrett, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html">"When Is Speech Violence?"</a>, <em>The New York Times</em>, July 14, 2017.</li>
<li><strong>6.</strong> Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/why-its-a-bad-idea-to-tell-students-words-are-violence/533970/">"Why It's a Bad Idea to Tell Students Words Are Violence"</a>, *The Atlantic*, July 18, 2017.</li>
</ul>Why Theology Matters2018-09-25T00:00:00+00:002018-09-25T00:00:00+00:00jzeeb.comtag:jzeeb.com,2018-09-25:/article/why-theology-matters/<p>When I made the switch from engineering into theology, it was based on the question of what I felt I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, and thus, what would be personally meaningful enough to re-train and (hopefully) start a new career for?</p>
<p>I already had some …</p><p>When I made the switch from engineering into theology, it was based on the question of what I felt I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, and thus, what would be personally meaningful enough to re-train and (hopefully) start a new career for?</p>
<p>I already had some interest in theology, having attended churches my whole life, and from reading blogs and popular Christian books, and I became convinced that the most important thing that I could spend my time on was to make a contribution to teaching good Christian theology.</p>
<p>The term <em>theology</em> means "A religious belief system about God or ultimate reality".<cite>1</cite></p>
<p>Theology may seem like an abstract niche area of study that is irrelevant to most people's day-to-day activities.</p>
<p>However, since what we think about God (and thus, about how God relates to us and to the world) is a core part of a person's worldview and personal identity, then it becomes clear that everyone is a theologian in some way or another, for we all have some sort of ideas about this topic.</p>
<p>Therefore, good theology really matters, as what someone truly believes on this core issue will influence almost all aspects of their life.</p>
<p>It will influence how they spend their time and money, and affect how they treat themselves and others.</p>
<p>We've seen how religious beliefs have life or death consequences, in those who feel the need to please their god by sacrificing their lives to harm many others.</p>
<p>Theological debates can ruin friendships, split families, and cause massive schisms within Christianity which have had major historical consequences.</p>
<p>And if the particularly exclusive claims made by Jesus are true, then what people believe about Jesus will have eternal consequences.</p>
<p>Doing theology well is critical, as incorrect theological ideas can cause severe harm to individuals, churches, denominations, and even to the future progression of Christian doctrine as a whole.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://jzeeb.com/page/how-can-i-have-eternal-life/">gospel is simple</a>, it is also very easily distorted, and so the Church constantly needs people to think critically about the theological beliefs being accepted and repeated by pastors and laypeople as we preach, teach our children, and witness to the world.</p>
<p>The most significant factor in my personal spiritual growth has been to get my personal theological beliefs straightened out. I don't claim to have everything figured out, but I have made progress in making my Christian worldview more consistent and Biblical than it was before.</p>
<p>The result has been a significant increase in peace, joy, assurance of salvation, less emotional turmoil or doubt, and more love and trust for God.</p>
<p>We can think of our individual Christian worldviews as a sort of personal raft that we each build piece-by-piece, as we assemble a collection of ideas about God and the world throughout our lives. This raft supports our faith in the midst of the stormy seas of life.</p>
<p>There may be better and worse ways to construct such a raft, which will directly impact how easy it is to weather such storms with peace, or if we will be temporarily submerged by the waves and face struggle, turmoil, and doubts.</p>
<p>My goal is to try to build the most consistent, Biblical, and supportive Christian worldview that I can, and to teach others do the same. I want each of us to look at our own rafts that we've constructed, and see if there might be holes, or pieces that don't quite fit, parts that need to be rearranged, or even a few pieces that should be thrown out altogether.</p>
<p>This can be a scary process because while renovating our rafts it feels like things are less certain and more shaky. But as one who has done this several times by <a href="https://jzeeb.com/article/being-open-to-changing-our-minds/">changing my mind</a> when a better view came along, I can say that over time my raft has become much stronger and more stable.</p>
<p>This is why I feel called to be a theologian, and hopefully, to teach and write about ideas that can make a difference in people's worldviews, relationships, and lives, both now and forever. I hope to pass on to others what I have learned in whatever way I can, to also help others enjoy the benefits of good theology that I have experienced.</p>
<h2 class="footnotes-header">Footnotes:</h2>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li><strong>1.</strong> Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki, and Cherith Fee Nordling, <em>Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms</em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 113.</li>
</ul>