Faith Fusion http://www.faithfusion.net/ en-us Nucleus CMS v3.50 Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.faithfusion.net//nucleus/nucleus2.gif Faith Fusion http://www.faithfusion.net/ <![CDATA[Christ’s death, God’s wrath: the vital connection]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=572 (This is adapted from forum discussion posts written July 27 and July 29. These were mostly in response to a member who wrote that he disagreed on that Christ on the cross suffered God’s wrath as punishment for humans’ sin — an issue that transcends “Calvinism” vs. free-willieism.)

Both Biblical Calvinists and Free-Willies believe a loving God will send people (and/or allow them to go) to Hell. We also fully agree that God allows suffering for his own good reasons. And both Calvinists and Free-Willies would (or should!) disagree with the sentiment below:

I fail to see how any such sin sacrifice would pacify God. Does God delight in blood and vengeance? Is he not a merciful God?

The two “sides” within Christendom both believe that God is merciful, yet also just. Yes, a sin sacrifice is what is required, made evident from the entirety of the Old Testament and Christ’s fulfillment of the Law. God is love, but if He ignored a rebel sinner spitting in His eye, He would not be holy; He would be evil.

As my wife said over the weekend, some think as if God were like Tinker Bell from Peter Pan, only able to have one attribute or emotion at a time. This not only cheapens and humanizes God (and we are able to have more than one emotion at once!), but worse, bypasses Scriptures that clearly present Him as both love/mercy and holy/wrathful, not just all-love-all-the-time.

I believe free-willies also exaggerate God’s love to an extent, but not so much as this. My free-willie friends may believe Christ died to set up a salvation “system,” rather than as a direct substitute for His people. But at least they believe that His sacrifice was for people’s sins and did satisfy God. This is the essence of Christianity, however you think the “mechanics” work. Scripture is so clear about this — try the whole book of Hebrews just for starters!

Rather than talking about Predestination versus Free Will, I think the question needs to become: why did Jesus have to die? That is much more foundational to Christianity, and what our beliefs are based upon — God’s Word, or human-limited “logic”? To be frank, what one believes about it will separate true Christians from “Churchians.”

More paramount than predestination

As to the discussion, I simply find predestination intensely interesting. [. . .] I find the topic of Christ’s atonement a little less interesting[.]

Intriguing — because I find the topic of Christ’s atonement even more interesting, and not only interesting but vital. Scripture talks a lot about predestination and such, but as a corollary of Christ’s atonement for sin. What one believes about why Christ died is much more paramount to growth in Christ, or whether one is a Christian in the first place.

My basis is the Roman Catholic Church. Reject her authority if you like, but the ultimate test for any theological meanderings I might engage in is the Church's dogma.

Though I am unfamiliar with the Catholic Church’s teaching on the atonement, persp, it doesn’t much matter to me because — as we’ve already established — we have different starting points for what counts as ultimate authority. I would have the same perspective against a church or denomination that claims it’s a requirement for believers to speak in tongues, or else they’re not believers or don’t have the Holy Spirit; or a church that claimed one cannot be a good Christian if one enjoys recreational alcoholic beverages or reading fantasy novels; or a group that claims drums, guitars, or any kind of instrument in church is of the Devil or else automatically takes the focus off “real” worship. Scripture should be the test.

But I think that even if people here quote lots of Scripture “at” you — Romans 9, 1 John 2, lots of other passages, perhaps a reference or two to Jesus clearly drinking the “cup” of God’s wrath — am I right in assuming you’ll side with what you believe is the Catholic Church’s teaching instead? If so, I hope to avoid “picking” at you, but I do want to show others too — and remind myself — where such views are at odds with the Bible’s plain wording.

Furthermore, the discussion here is not meant as just on-paper-only debating, scoring points against the other side which are thus redeemable for — um — what exactly? Slapping ourselves on the back? Rather, it should be to edify each other, and encourage all of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, to think harder, and perhaps re-evaluate what they’re using as their “ultimate test” for Truth.



The God Who crushed His Son

In the case of Christ’s atonement, I am familiar with a lot of professing Christians (I am not necessarily saying you are one of them) who are uncomfortable with the idea of a merciful God needing to punish anyone, even if that is Himself/His own Son, in place of sinners.

“Emergent church” groups, for example, refer to the idea of God crushing His own Son as disgusting to the modern mind and equivalent to “divine child abuse.” This is an un-Biblical objection that should be appalling to all Christians, whether they are Calvinist, free-willie, Catholics or Protestants. Why? Because Scripture is so clear, not just in a single word like “propitiation” (the NIV’s “atoning sacrifice”) that Jesus didn’t just suffer physical or abstract pain. He suffered God’s wrath. This may be personally uncomfortable, or seem offensive to the modern mind (as argued by nonbelievers and some professing Christians). But it’s Biblical.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

[. . .]

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Isaiah 53: 4-6, 10 (ESV)(emphases added)

God is a wrathful God, and He will impose penalties for rebellion against Him. If Christ did not “take the hit” of God’s wrath on the Cross, where do you believe that wrath went? Did God divert it somewhere else? Did He ignore it? How could He do so, and continue to be the loving-yet-holy-and-righteous God Scripture clearly shows Him to be?

I do not think he took the literal penalty of our sins and suffered it on our behalf. This is why I say he suffered for us, but do not say he suffered our punishment, in our place. You can see the difference, right?

That may be what you think — in which case I would ask why, and upon what basis — but what does Scripture say? Was Christ’s death meant only to remove some other kind of abstract penalty — perhaps the some kind of natural consequences of sin? Or did He suffer the specific penalty of God’s punishment for humans’ rebellion against Him?

He is saving us from the penalty of sin - and the reality. You seem to be conflating ‘saving us from the penalty of sin’ with ‘saving us from the penalty of sin by taking that penalty upon himself.’

This is where I believe the focus on human responsibility, untempered by the Biblical balance of God’s sovereignty and ownership of the universe, leads to some tricky theology. Yes, sin has “natural” consequences, such as death, but those consequences were enacted by God, made clear from checking in Genesis. The main consequence is God’s wrath. Jesus did not just suffer torture and death on the cross. He suffered the withdrawing of God’s very presence. He even cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” Isaiah 53:10: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him.” It doesn’t say, “It was the will of the Lord to let Him be crushed,” but “to crush Him.” It’s an active verb. God actively crushed His Son and that was His will all along.



Justice or mercy

We have different conceptions of God’s justice. I think God desires repentence; you think he desires a blood sacrifice. [. . .] God does not truly want payment in pain and death - he desires restitution. He desires that wrongs be set right.

This seems a false dichotomy. Scriptures shows that God desires both. The first because He wants people (or in the Reformed view, His people) to be reconciled to Him. The second because He is holy and “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22; this whole chapter, and book, is vital to seeing the connection between Christ’s sacrifice and Old Testament sacrifices, and the reasons why Jesus needed to die).

He wants us free from sin, and that’s the purpose of Christ’s Atonement. It is first and foremost an act of mercy, not justice.

No, recall the words of Paul: the Cross showed God’s mercy as well as His righteousness. In fact, if we read this passage by itself, it would almost seem God’s main purpose was to show His justice and righteousness, not just His mercy.

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 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. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3: 19-26 (ESV)(emphases added)

However, the main difference we may have is this: the reason, underlying all this, why Jesus had to die, and why God wanted this redemption to go forward in the first place. Is it because God is love and He loves people? Or is there a deeper magic behind even that?

In closing, I’d like to make that my main question here: According to Scripture, what is God’s main goal, or “chief end,” for doing anything?]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=572 Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:53:05 -0400 <![CDATA[Are you missing the point of Scripture passages?]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=570 (Edited from the originally written version, available here.)

Here is something I’ve had on my mind for a while, based on a little series of broadcasts called “Discover the Word,” by RBC Ministries. In early May, I mini-blogged this to my website:

Just now I’m finishing my catchup with the most recent “Discover the Word” broadcast, by RBC Ministries. They’re doing a fantastic series about misreading of Scripture, including Matthew 18: 19-20 ... offering the true context of this passage that I hadn’t seen before ...

They continued the Biblical Context series for about a month, dealing with misunderstood, misinterpreted or misapplied passages of Scripture that people take out of context all the time and may not even know it.

More and more I’ve learned that many passages I’ve had up in my head that I subconsciously thought said one thing actually say nothing of the sort. And in some cases, the out-of-context idea may be Biblical — just not what the verse is talking about there.


Reading random letters

For instance, take Matthew 18, actually verses 15-20.

The whole passage is about what steps to follow if you’re offended by a fellow Christ-follower, right? But somehow or other, folks tend to see this passage (along with other Biblical texts) as sort of a child’s summer-camp letter, as Dr. Haddon Robinson so aptly phrased it: jumping from thought to thought to thought like a kid who says, “Hi Mom. It’s hot here at camp. I captured a frog. Yesterday I went swimming. Please send money for snacks. ‘Bye.”

So instead of finding that all of what Jesus said in this passage is about reconciliation between believers, and in the Church, Christians think Jesus suddenly changes his mind and starts talking instead about prayer meetings, or “binding Satan,” or the power of faith to get stuff.

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Pretty cool so far, right? Most readers would track right along with this if they began reading the chapter — or the book of Matthew altogether — from the beginning. Jesus started talking about personal reconciliation, which may or may not require church leaders to be intermediaries, and He hasn’t left that topic.

So when why — I ask myself this too, with a silly grin on my face! — do we sometimes while reading verses like this suddenly assume Jesus had some kind of ADD and then got distracted by spiritual warfare and how God is always there at prayer meetings?

That’s the way many Christians have traditionally understood the following verses, at least when they’re quoted by themselves like “sound bytes,” without context.So here’s exhibit A. The “Discover the Word” folks spent a whole week probing through the true meanings of these verses, apart from their misreading. And the time they took in 12-minute daily radio broadcast sessions wasn’t because it’s hard to understand the meanings, but because sometimes it’s hard to get past those ingrained misinterpretations!


Binding meanings

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

For many of us, what’s the instinctual understanding? We think of spiritual warfare and the idea that we can “bind” Satan or his henchdemons, forbidding them to interfere with God’s work. That may or may not be true, but my point — and Dr. Haddon Robinson’s and the others’ point too — is this: it’s not what Jesus is talking about here.

Instead, He’s still talking about reconciliation. It’s even the same paragraph. What He means here is that the church leaders have authority to “bind” and “loose” people from the church similar to how Jewish rabbis used to “bind” and “loose” the meanings of the Law. And actually, being “bound” then would be a good thing, because “loosing” means you’ve been sent away from the Church because of unrepentance.

Exhibit B:

“Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.”

The “Word-Faith” folks abuse the daylights out of this one, and when read all by itself it looks similar to the idea of “ask what you want with another believer and God will grant your request because of your Great Faith.” But nope — still the same subject. Jesus is talking about believers who are dealing with a reconciliation situation.

And finally, exhibit C, the verse whose true meaning simply wasn’t on my radar screen:

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

Again, what might be your instinctive thought about what this means? Mine once was the same as yours likely is now: well, this must be about Christians getting together for prayer, church or fellowship and knowing God is among them even if they can’t see Him, and so on.

Now, we know from other Scripture that of course that is very true. But again, it’s not what Jesus is talking about in this passage. He’s still on the reconciliation subject. So He’s still talking about church leaders getting together to decide God’s will in how to deal with an unrepentant person. Before, Jesus said they had the authority to “bind” and “loose” the church standards, and now He keeps going in the next sentence, saying they have the authority to agree on standards according to God’s will.


More misquotes

It would be great to discuss more verses that Christians take out of context — Christians including us, who hear the wrong view just spread around out there and we haven’t yet looked into the matter to see if that’s what Scripture actually says!

I maintain the absolute Kingpin of all misquoted verses is Matthew 7:1:

[Jesus speaking] “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

This one is so comically — yet dangerously — abused, often by non-Christians and sometimes even by Christians who want to shut each other up. They even go so far, or so low, as to quote just the first two words of the phrase: “Judge not.” Very few people would treat any other writer’s book or even sentence like that, so why treat the Bible like it? (Reading just the next few verses of Matthew 7 refutes the “never ever judge anyone ever” idea instantly.)

But one other verse that’s often misquoted is Revelation 3:20. It would be interesting to read it here, and hear if anyone else had the same reactions I did when the radio folks brought it to my attention yesterday morning and with a continuation this morning. They talked about how people often read it, then briefly outlined its true context and meaning:

[Jesus speaking] “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.”

So I’ll ask the same questions they did:

Question 1: What is your instinctive (likely lifelong ingrained) understanding of that verse?

Question 2: After reading the chapter, or even just the past several sentences, what is the real meaning?]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=570 Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:41:30 -0400 <![CDATA[Breaking the silence: an update from the author]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=568
But unfortunately, a few things are still limiting my schedule:

1) Some months ago, a bug got into my site (perhaps from a flawed or old Wordpress installation) and inserted that obnoxious random-word trash into several of my pages. My theory is that this still preventing me from accessing any of my site, or even personal email accounts, from my previous commonly used internet source. Further research and repairs may be necessary …

2) I got married on May 30, and suddenly writing blogs and such seems lower-priority. Evidently that hasn’t stopped me from several interactions about Deep Doctrinal Magic on NarniaWeb, though (such as this one, posted very early Sunday morning). And recently I even posted a Speculative Faith column about Christian fiction’s bizarre obsessions with two seemingly opposite genres: Strange story spectrum — from barn-raisers to bloodsuckers.

So surely I can recover even time to post small items on this site — and longer columns on occasion.

3) For the past several months, I’ve been working at least one, sometimes two (it’s complicated) part-time jobs, in addition to my full-time employment as a reporter/photographer with a small community weekly newspaper. This additional work is often fun, but even better, profitable, and it takes more time.

4) Finally I’ve re-begun novel writing, on a work in progress I haven’t much discussed here. Sometime a site revision — or even a completely new site — will pay more attention to that project. …]]> General http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=568 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:40:47 -0400 <![CDATA[The game has only just begun ...]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=561 restart long-dormant discussion in the NarniaWeb forum's “Wuv, Twue Wuv” thread, which is the fifth in an incidental series of interactions about courtship, dating, romance and all the territory in between.

What I posted was the result of my thoughts yesterday — I was thinking again about one of my all-time least favorite t-shirts, which is a symptom of pop culture's devaluing of marriage and elevation of immaturity. Yes, it's meant to be a Joke, ha-ha-ha. But not only is it cliche, all of these jokes add up and, I content, collectively devalue the sacredness and wonder — though imbued with struggles and work, to be sure — that marriage is.

Has anyone ever seen this t-shirt emblem/slogan?



Nyuk-nyuk. Ha, ha, ha.



What a way, even subtly, to encourage immaturity and quiet dread of God's sacred institution. ...

Here is my rebuttal version. And yes, I just might have it printed on a t-shirt myself!



A side-by-side version, which I may supplement later with a Scripture reference is here.]]> Deep Doctrine Magic http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=561 Mon, 18 May 2009 18:20:51 -0400 <![CDATA[Modeling misjudgments: Clothing, contradictions and Miss California]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=557 (Adapted from responses, this one and this one, posted today to the Boundless Line blog.)

Perhaps the Miss California furor is finally fizzling out, after spending most of the month in national headlines. Yesterday none other than multimillionaire Donald Trump defended infamous Miss U.S.A. pageant contestant Carrie Prejean, and even got in a great zinger against Barack Obama™. Trump noted that Prejean, after being asked a rather loaded question from a homosexual activist about marriage, had given the same answer as the president of the United States — that is, it should be between a man and woman.

I grinned at the rhetoric, which was so shrewdly and perfectly balanced between justifying Prejean’s honest answer yet not directly agreeing with it. And I wished so much that I could also fully rally to this young woman’s cause.

Yet it seems that during conservatives’ and Christians’ haste to defend Carrie Prejean — rightfully! — from the rabid liberal factions’ intolerance of her brave stance on real marriage, folks have been just sort-of skipping past the whole Immodesty issue. And this isn’t just incidental immodesty, this is making a living from being intentionally immodest.

First, though, a disclaimer: All of this would ordinarily not apply if Ms. Prejean did these kind of things in the past, and has now turned away from them. For that, Christians — like the Christ they follow — should be lavish in their Grace and unilateral in their defense of one of their own.

However, from what I have read, Ms. Prejean has responded to the release of provocative and even naked photos of her, and said “I’m not perfect” while also defending her showing her body in provocative ways in the present tense. “I am a Christian, and I am a model,” she said. “Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos.” (Summary: It’s my job.)

Unfortunately that job is not something Christians can support Biblically. However, this does not mean we leave one of “our own” to suffer at the hands of secularists. What is needed here is neither full-fledged support nor repulsed rejection — but rather, careful discernment (especially on the part of men like me who’d like to write about the issue and be informed about it, though, ahem, without actually seeing the photos).

A mere ‘malfunction’?

In a recent Boundless blog item, Focus on the Family PR handler and “Boundless Show” host Lisa Anderson questioned whether at least one photo — apparently of the young lady on a cliff — was not intended to be released, with the wind having blown about her skimpy garments. “A girl on a cliff in the wind wearing next to nothing is going to have a hard time keeping herself covered up the entire time,” Lisa noted.

But the question about a “wardrobe malfunction” seems irrelevant. Long before whatever it was started blowin’ in the wind (and I’m not talking about the answer, my friend) the “malfunction” was well under way, and intended to be. After all, there is that whole “wearing next to nothing” part — in public, for public view. How can a sincere Christian defend this? Moreover, how can sincere Christians — such as even the Christ-following hero Dr. James Dobson — host Ms. Prejean on the “Focus on the Family” program, applaud her for defending marriage, and not even acknowledge that with an it’s-just-my-job justification, she is equally offending marriage?

I’m well aware of, and have often reminded others of, Romans 14 and other Scripture passages about how Christ-followers can disagree on some matters of conscience. However, in terms of dress this is not a matter of whether a knee is showing, or even the barest bit of cleavage or whatever. This is in effect public nudity, with only strategically placed thin strips of fabric or elastic (underwear) that only render someone not naked by way of technicality.

If this were truly about modeling the underwear, swimsuits, sexy attire, whatever, then get the stuff and put them on a table with a blue cloth. But that’s never the way it works, is it? Instead retailers constantly put nearly naked women inside this stuff. What is really being modeled, then? It’s the woman’s body, of course.

Scripturally, of course, nothing is wrong with nudity or sexily “modeling” one’s body — within marriage. But if someone claims to defend the honor of marriage, why exploit this gift, meant only for one’s special partner within that God-ordained institution, with the rest of the world?

This is not honoring to marriage, or to the God Who created it and Who clothed the first humans after they sinned (Genesis 3). Thus, to defend marriage while treating one’s own body as if it were not sacred, acting and dressing provocative for anyone to see, is far beyond inconsistent. Another Boundless contributor phrased it perfectly: “If the body is a temple (which it is), dressing like that is like putting a screen door on the Holy of Holies.”



Marriage defense initiative

However, it is absolutely true that intolerant Liberals, who cannot stand to have anyone popular and articulate opposing their doctrines, have gone full-force to oppose Ms. Prejean and attack everything she stands for. They don’t object to her modeling nearly naked; they only pretend they do to try to make their usual “hypocrisy” charges stick. It has been appalling.

Unfortunately, Prejean’s Christian testimony has been truly tarnished and marked by profound inconsistency. Both believers and non-believers (though the latter can be more mean and hypocritical about it) do see the double standard.

Similarly, it is a truth universally acknowledged the professing Christians also divorce in droves almost as much as professing non-Christians.

But someone famous will always be flawed (as we have seen). Then Christians are wont to do two things: ignore the flaws, or turn against their own once the facade has collapsed. With Ms. Prejean, or any other “celebrity Christian,” we should do neither. We should love them, yet — especially for their friends in the body of Christ — point them toward Scriptural standards.

And again, this is why Christians should neither react with ungracious attitudes against Prejean, nor fully support everything she does just because someone the world views as “beautiful” or famous has defended traditional marriage.

What does that do to the supposedly “ugly” people who also defend real marriage? And how does this give credence to the whole outward-beauty focus of “beauty pageants” anyway — which are already problematic even without the provocative attire? What does Scripture say about how women ought truly to be beautiful? What examples does this set for other young women, especially Christians, who are already confused about how to dress and be attractive, yet not immodest and provocative?

Marriage as God created it is valid because God says it is — again, not because someone famous or seen as “beautiful” supports it.

And if we are to defend Christianity, or defend marriage, let us defend all the aspects of these. For Christianity, let us uphold not just the “marriage is one man and one woman” part, but the “provocative nudity is only meant for marriage” part. And let us uphold all of marriage’s splendorous wonders including the sacredness of the human body, meant only to be seen in its fullness, appreciated and loved within the context of marriage.



Revealing disagreements

To be sure, sincere Christians can, will, and do disagree on immodesty issues. (For example, I am still surprised that many Christian girls, who would not be caught dead in public in their undergarments, think the “fabric” of standards — or the way men’s eyes or minds instinctively operate — suddenly changes when it’s time to go swimming at a pool or beach.)

But — I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular — only one “side” will be closer to being Biblically correct — the side that recognizes provocative dress and behavior are only glorifying to God and honoring to one’s husband (or wife) within that traditional institution of marriage.

In case you haven’t noticed, this sort of thing outside of marriage is really rough on men who seek to honor Christ, His gifts of marriage and feminine beauty, and their wives. But it’s also rough for other reasons few people talk about. Too often I catch myself thinking — trying to “cope,” as it were, something like:

Well, maybe shouldn’t be such a big deal. Maybe I am the one who is hypersensitive. Maybe I’m the one who’s acting perverted and I should just take the sight of a nearly naked — or provocatively dressed — woman “in stride” or something. I think this line of thoughts first began when I had to close a Facebook photo album, in 2005 I believe, that showed girls from my college Christian group on the beach in hideously immodest attire. Argh, if I could change the way this affects me, I would; it would make things so much easier, I would think.

But then I re-think that. No. I wouldn’t. If I could flip a switch, take a drug, undergo some kind of mental conditioning to de-sensitize me to this kind of beauty that is only meant for marriage, I would not do it.

God made men this way — for marriage and His gift of intimate relations within marriage. Sin in the world notwithstanding, He wants a husband to appreciate his wife’s beauty, including physical beauty. That’s what it’s about. That’s why these reactions are there! They just misfire sometimes. And garbage like soft-core porn pageants does not help.

What we need is not a “less Puritanical” attitude toward such things, but a more-Puritanical attitude. I am referring to the Puritan idea (skewed by some, of course) that some pleasures and beauties are so sacred that they should be safeguarded. They should not be cast about for all to see and leer at. They should not be made a mockery of, despite lip service given to honor marriage.

And here I am speaking in general terms. Christians who devalue marriage even in such things as too-easily given affections, and more with their own conflicts and divorces, do just as much damage to the cause of this Christ/Church symbolism (Ephesians 5: 22-33) than any ill-informed young “model” who doesn’t understand that her public nudity dishonors marriage just as much as all those homosexuals.

What will best help Christianity, defense of traditional marriage, and Ms. Prejean personally, is not hordes of grateful, unquestioning Christians who are glad for a “celebrity” to support their cause, yet will ignore the celebrity’s inconsistencies in behavior (again, I am talking about present flaws, not past mistakes that one can turn from as one grows in Christ).

For a situation like this, it would also not be right for Christians to shun one of their own, becoming outraged and abandoning her because of either past or present devaluing of her own body or of marriage’s sacred act between a loving husband and wife.

Instead, what Ms. Prejean needs more than anything is a saintly old lady, perhaps at her church, with multiple grandchildren, sparse gray hair, a friendly gaze and a personality tempered by the Spirit’s Biblical balance over the years. Someone like this should take Mr. Prejean (or any other Christian woman wearing provocative attire) aside, smile, and say graciously and gently: “Oh honey. Put some clothes on. I know it can be tempting to think it’s nothing and show yourself off — why, you are a lovely girl, after all, aren’t you! — but what would Jesus say if He were here? What would your husband think?”

That’s what truly sincere, Christ-following women who want to honor the Lord, the opposite gender, and their future husbands, need most of all. And Bible-believing pastors and their wives would do well to step up their efforts to remind women what the Bible truly says about modesty — not that a woman’s body is somehow inherently disgusting, but that it is so special and sacred that it should be covered in public, and revealed only in the blessed, pleasurable contexts of God-established marriage.]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=557 Thu, 14 May 2009 17:25:55 -0400 <![CDATA[Exploring The Last Battle’s Emeth element]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=555 The Chronicles of Narnia or their author, C.S. Lewis. Such notions as these come not from any logical basis, but a rather reflexive attitude toward something like the Chronicles or Lewis’s other works, including Mere Christianity and The Great Divorce, that have proven to be so awesome yet so popular:

How could anything be so awesome and yet so popular at the same time? There must be Something Wrong with it. Something about Narnia or Lewis’s nonfiction is actually un-Biblical and that’s why people like it so much. After all, Biblical things aren’t supposed to be popular.

I think that subconscious suspicion may be behind how many people react to a certain controversial portion of Lewis’s last Chronicle of Narnia, The Last Battle. This has often come up in the Narnia and Christianity section of the NarniaWeb forum (where I’m a moderator). People worry about it: Lewis’s portrayal of a young and “pagan” Calormene man who somehow finds his way into Aslan’s (the Chronicles’ Christ-figure’s) country and the heavenly New Narnia.

Just this weekend, “Rilian” (NarniaWeb’s “podcasting prince”) and I recorded an hour-long session for the site in which we discussed what I’ve come to call The Emeth Element. It was an excellent interchange; I learned a lot, and I look forward to listeners’ responses!

We began with reading excerpts from The Last Battle itself, in which the character Emeth, a young man who had earlier been showed as being fully devoted to the false god — though very real and evil entity — Tash. Calling the bluff of a deception coordinated by Narnia’s false prophet Shift, and the evil Calormene, Rishda Tarkaan, Emeth enters the mysterious Stable, slays an enemy, and finds himself not in a small dirty wooden hut, but a wondrous paradise that (somehow) Aslan has set up and which can be entered by passing through the Stable door.

Later, Emeth tells other humans — the Seven Friends of Narnia — how he encountered Aslan.

“Then I fell at [Aslan’s] 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 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. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. 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. Dost thou understand, Child?’ I said, ‘Lord, thou knowest how much I understand.’ But I said also (for the truth constrained me), ‘Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.’ ‘Beloved,’ said the Glorious One, ‘unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.’

“Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that, he said not much, but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in. Then he turned him about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone suddenly.”


Is universalism underlying?

For many people — including myself in the past — this jumps out. How could a non-Narnian, a follower of a false religion, find himself in Heaven and accepted by Aslan? It seems readers can have, and have had, three different reactions in response to this:

  • C.S. Lewis wasn’t all that orthodox and Biblical, and this is one of those portions of his writings that shows we ought not trust him to uphold Scriptural truth. Throw them out.

  • The author, who was not a trained theologian, messed up in this instance. We ought to read the Chronicles with discernment and look past the portions that might be in error.

  • Lewis in this portion of the story did not promote Universalism, and is in fact trying to say something else that doesn’t specifically relate to salvation or even Emeth’s “faith.”

Some people — among them some very poorly designed and –argued websites that yell about Lewis not having a specific prayed-the-prayer “salvation experience” or the resemblance of Mr. Tumnus to imagined physical features of the Devil — take the first option. But they number very few, and are certainly — and rightfully — in Christendom’s minority today.

And as for the second option, yes, Lewis might have been error, though not because of belief in Universalism (as I’ll explain below). NarniaWeb member The Black Glove pointed out in a September post that some questionable medieval theology did inform Lewis’s worldview. Apparently that mindset includes the concept of a “noble pagan” who isn't so terrible, so he doesn't necessarily go to Hell, but not to Heaven either — such as in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which shows Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates in some kind of in-between place. If Lewis meant that, we can politely disagree, and enjoy the rest of the story.

Yet I take the third option for the Emeth Element listed above — Lewis was not in error here.

Yes, it’s very true that Lewis was not a trained theologian, and he would be have been the first to say so (it’s safe to assume that by now he is surely a trained theologian!). For example, in The Problem of Pain, Lewis not only misunderstood the concept of “total depravity,” but made up a creation story for our world, trying to guess how “early man” would have become aware of God yet somehow sinned and paying no attention to the Garden of Eden story. (Lewis has more respect for the Creation account in The Space Trilogy than he did in this “nonfiction”!) And one might venture to say that even the story of Aslan sacrificing himself to save Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe must be carefully read, for the sacrifice is almost to appease the Witch’s “wrath”, not the wrath of the Narnian Emperor-over-the-Sea (God).

Yet overall Lewis imbued the Narnia stories with such a sense of the “awful yet beautiful” nature of Christ, the magic and wonder of life in Him and the redemption He gives us, that other errors are minor and not sufficient to ignore the Chronicles, or even this part of the story.

Also, we need not count Universalism among those errors — the idea that God will save all people, or most people, regardless of whether they believed in Christ in this world. Lewis’s rejection of this idea can be clearly seen just from the rest of The Last Battle itself. Before Aslan has ended the first Narnia and forever closed the Stable door on a world that is now dark and cold, a horde of creatures comes running to the door, in a picture of the Judgment Seat of Christ. Two different reactions, fear and love, take place in the good creatures. But others look at him with loathing, then turn aside into darkness. The narrator explains their fate is unknown. Yet one can safely surmise that the evil false god Tash, Rishda, Ginger the cat, Shift the Ape and thousands of other creatures clearly went to Some Other Place.

In The Great Divorce, another work of fiction, Lewis may have been less certain about the fate of those who have never heard of Jesus, and so translated his uncertainties into the medium of fiction. But we can see that he did not buy into Universalism. In an imagined conversation with George MacDonald in The Great Divorce, Lewis asks the “writer” if he believes all people will be saved; and at least this fictitious MacDonald answers no, not at all. And throughout the story, Lewis, upholds the idea of Hell — though Lewis casts it metaphorically as a completely small, insignificant, dull sort of place that more resembles a ghetto than a burning lake of fire.

In his nonfiction works, too, Lewis argues against the idea that all people — or most people, without Christ — will be saved. Even in the sometimes-problematic Problem of Pain, he specifically upholds the doctrine of Hell and God’s punishment for rebellious sinners.

“[Hell] has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason,” Lewis wrote. “If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it.”



Further up and further in


So if Lewis isn’t making a statement about how supposedly nonbelievers in Aslan can get into Heaven anyway, what is he talking about? And how are we to reconcile the seemingly clear idea that the “pagan” Emeth, who has served a false god all his life, winds up in “Heaven”?

In our podcast, Rilian related something I had not thought of before: that Aslan is not talking nearly as much about whether Emeth is “saved” as he is the concept of using Emeth’s good deeds, even if performed in the name of a false god, for the Lion’s glory. Thus, anything evil done in Aslan’s name is “credited” to Tash, and anything good done in the evil Tash’s name is credited to Aslan. And Aslan works all things for good, similar to Christ (Romans 8: 38-39). He receives glory in all things — even good deeds practiced by pagans because of common grace (Matthew 5:45).

Meanwhile, I reiterated that just as salvation works differently for Narnians — at first, Edmund didn’t even know Aslan died for him, and Aslan did not die to save other creatures — Heaven works differently. Emeth has not quite reached Heaven; rather, he is in a limbo state, a sort of “reverse purgatory” in which he is on the way to knowing Aslan, but not quite there yet.

Later, in the joyous stampede of humans and animals alike “further up and further in,” Emeth is still not there — at least not yet. In his “limbo state” nearer the Stable Door, the young man is still “searching.”

Someday we can ask Lewis himself what he meant with the whole Emeth element. In the story, Lewis doesn’t tell us what became of him. His story ends a bit quickly, and like with the agnostic, humanistic Dwarves and the evil Rishda Tarkaan whom Tash himself abducts and then disappears, readers are left to wonder. Instead we focus on Aslan, who encourages his people to go “further up and further in.”

But I have my guess: my interpretation is that Aslan will continue to work with the noble Calormene, and show him further truths that will lead to his final “salvation” and joyous journey into Aslan’s Country, further up and further in!]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=555 Mon, 11 May 2009 17:38:27 -0400 <![CDATA[Last week in brief]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=530
So instead I added my own mini-feed to the right side of this site, for tracking my other comments and activities around the web. It was called “What's up, 'Doc'?” but I'm considering changing it to “Quotes and notes.” Any thoughts?

Coming soon: improvements to the blog's comment system and especially the too-small and -limited form.

For now, here is an overview of my in-brief updates last week:


Apr 16, 2009, 10:08 AM —

Earlier this morning I reminded a NarniaWeb newbie of C.S. Lewis's famed “trilemma”: Christ cannot be “just a good man” ...


Apr 16, 2009, 10:20 AM —

(Sigh ...) The head-in-the-clouds liberalism (not the true Heaven's “clouds”) of some Boundless blog commentators following political posts like this one is continually wearying ...


Apr 16, 2009, 12:17 PM —

— Folks, think about what the conservatives' reaction would have been if the Obama posse had not covered up the university building's Christ symbolism as has been reported. Would they not then claim B.O. was trying to equate himself with Jesus? Let's critique and defeat the man's radical anti-American Socialism, not stupid things like this.


Apr 16, 2009, 07:29 PM —

My last Speculative Faith column was about C.S. Lewis and the forbidden fruits of fiction. Now, just two weeks later (that's a record, ahem) I've also assembled Following the Marcher Lord, about three new Christian-oriented spec-fiction titles. One of these, Hero, Second Class, is a novel I'm reading now ...


Apr 17, 2009, 10:07 AM —

For those of you recently accessing the site with Firefox who received scary-looking error messages — everything is now repaired and in working order.


Apr 17, 2009, 12:00 PM —

Author/pastor John MacArthur finished his blog series on “The Rape of Solomon's Song” this week — a rape committed by some pastors, no less. I wrote about part 1 on Monday; now I'm catching up on part 2, part 3 and part 4.


Apr 17, 2009, 05:51 PM —

First there was the Star Trek breakfast cereal I saw in the store the other day. Then this morning, while I was sorting through district-court lawsuits for my day job, I saw that none other than James T. Kirk was getting divorced. (This one is an apparently unemployed horse manager.) Quite a stretch for the film's promotion!]]> Deep Doctrine Magic http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=530 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:07:30 -0400 <![CDATA[MacArthur on sex and the sacredness of the Song]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=509 Tim Challies), the pastor/author is ready to address both the Song of Solomon and those evangelical leader who, he says with the only “explicit” term used in his introduction, “rape” its beauty.
Apparently the shortest route to relevance in church ministry right now is for the pastor to talk about sex in garishly explicit terms during the Sunday morning service. If he can shock parishioners with crude words and sophomoric humor, so much the better.

[. . .]

Sermons about sex have suddenly become a bigger fad in the evangelical world than the prayer of Jabez ever was.

[. . .]

I would be the last to suggest that preachers should totally avoid the topic of sex. Scripture has quite a lot to say about the subject [. . .]

But the language Scripture employs when dealing with the physical relationship between husband and wife is always careful—often plain, sometimes poetic, usually delicate, frequently muted by euphemisms, and never fully explicit.

[. . .]

That includes the Song of Solomon.

In fact, Solomon’s love-poem epitomizes the exact opposite approach. It is, of course, a lengthy poem about courtship and marital love. It is filled with euphemisms and word pictures. Its whole point is gently, subtly, and elegantly to express the emotional and physical intimacy of marital love—in language suitable for any audience.

But it has become popular in certain circles to employ extremely graphic descriptions of physical intimacy as a way of expounding on the euphemisms in Solomon’s poem. As this trend develops, each new speaker seems to find something more shocking in the metaphors than any of his predecessors ever imagined.

[. . .]

Such pronouncements are usually made amid raucous laughter, but evidently we are expected to take them seriously.

[. . .]

That approach is not exegesis; it is exploitation. It is contrary to the literary style of the book itself. It is spiritually tantamount to an act of rape. It tears the beautiful poetic dress off Song of Solomon, strips that portion of Scripture of its dignity, and holds it up to be laughed at and leered at in a carnal way.

I am grateful to Pastor MacArthur for addressing this issue and I look forward to reading more from him. And I am also grateful that he is not falling into the tempting trap of presenting Big Bad Examples of the sin so we can all see how bad it is, which kind of defeats the whole point.

In recent years, it seems this whole outdo-in-lewd-and-crude approach has been based on immaturity and a rather gleeful attitude of libertarian antinomianism as well. (I am not as familiar with Mark Driscoll, yet unlike some others at least for him the attitude is contrary to his professed strong Reformed stance.) Why can Christ-followers not adopt a more Puritan (not less!) attitude toward intimate relations in marriage — with a balance of guarding their sacredness yet also not being ashamed? Why must church leaders jolt from one extreme to the other?

Men such as MacArthur, John Piper and CJ Mahaney have done well addressing the subject of sex with the appropriate blend of restraint and yet clarity. Intimacy in marriage is a beautiful thing, but now too many churches are falling all over themselves to talk about it as if they’ve been muzzled for far too long and by golly now is the time to Show All the World That We Are Just as Crazy About Sex, too.

“Hee hee hee, look what Iiiii’m doinnnng, I’m talking about se-exxx! Oh, I am such a ‘bad boy,’ I am quite the naughty evangelical, aren’t I?”

Come on. Big deal. It won’t take long before the gimmick of this has worn off and all those “naughty evangelicals” will look around and see that it’s not so supposedly naughty anymore because everybody is doing it. Rumors of all these imaginary-enemy Puritan Legalists glaring in the general directions of married couples’ bedrooms have been greatly exaggerated. Furthermore, what is the deal with pretending like it’s all naughty in order to enjoy it? That’s just strange and twisted — and perhaps it demonstrates that they haven’t gotten rid of their hangups nearly as much as they say.

While mindful of Christ and propriety that honors Him and His institution of marriage, can we not be simply “too cool” to fall for all this dumb cackling about it? From what I have read so far, the Puritans did not frown upon pleasure, they safeguarded it from this kind of insipidity. So if you’re making a big pretense about rebelling against “Puritanical” attitudes, sorry, you’ve got the wrong straw man.

Such haw-haw nudge-nudge crude locker-room-speak about the subject is absolutely against the restrained-yet-passionate nature of Song of Solomon, and also transparently eye-rollingly absurd to those with a more Biblical balance. But worse, as Phil Johnson pointed out in his excellent March 6 sermon, it dishonors Christ, ignores the clear instructions of Titus 2 to forbid profane talk and crude joking, and fails to uphold the wonderful sacredness of intimacy in marriage.
]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=509 Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:20:01 -0400 <![CDATA[Heaven and Earth, part 1 — Fixing our eyes away from the lies]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=507
And then we ought also to dance with joy on the graves of such myths!

My thoughts came from yesterday, when I was told that a family I knew was saying goodbye to visiting relatives. Some voiced wishes that they could have more time to talk and visit. Well, at least we’ll have time in Heaven, one family member said.

But then another responded with something like, Oh well, we may not remember, you know.

Hearing about this expression of such a belief made me feel almost as grieved and disappointed as those who hold such ideas would feel, if they truly allowed themselves to consider. What a hopeless notion — Heaven, a world of perpetual “spiritoid” Alzheimer’s patients?

Some months ago, as part of an online discussion about the true nature of Heaven — the New Heavens and New Earth that God promises to create — a friend of mine said (slightly edited):

I was watching a movie the other night, with my dad, and the main character was sitting in a lovely grove of tree, and it looked so beautiful, and I looked to my dad and asked him, “Dad, do you think they’ll be places like that in heaven?”

He replied, “Hmm, I think so.”

It worries me that he didn’t say with certainty, “YES!”

I remember picking peaches one time, and it was so beautiful in that grove of trees, eating fruit from the trees. I was enjoying myself so much, that I thought, “I hope heaven is like this.”

When I mentioned it to my grandma, she replied. “Like what?”

“Just like this, with the sun and the trees, and the birds singing.”

“Don’t be silly,” was her response.

Why is this thought of as wrong, or at least silly? Why do so many Christians believe such things about Heaven, or their resurrection bodies? Where are such notions found in Scripture? How could such a strange environment, in which it is assumed God’s people will be even less knowledgeable than they are now, be properly classified as Heaven? And how could such an existence be better without such simple gifts from God as His creation of nature?

Unlike other false views contrary to Scripture, myths about Heaven are far more harmful both to how we view our own resurrection and how we view God’s glory and Christ’s resurrection. Is God truly glorified by rescuing His bride from a universe beyond repair, and turning His people into “spiritoids” floating in some kind of ethereal world? Does Scripture really tell us this?

And unlike how many Christians handle some false views, I approach this with far more earnestness and heartfelt passion to show what Scripture says so clearly and in contrast. This isn’t to be right, or even to Stand on the Word just to look cool. And this is not about proving some peripheral point or “accessory” belief, either, such as end-times events or even political positions. This is vital — so vital to our hope for God’s after-world, and for our rejoicing in how He will make all things new!

Paradise lost — or ignored?


These are not some kind of “secret” teachings, either. Instead, they’re what was so clearly in the Bible all along: that God wants people to desire Himself, and His gifts of new and glorified material bodies because they give Him glory. We will not lose our bodies, or ourselves; we will not be dumber in Heaven than we are here on Old Earth. And the New Earth will be a literal, physical world that will last forever and ever!

People don’t seem to get that, though. And I’m not just talking about non-Christians. It seems the ideas of Heaven as a mystical, floating-out-there, “spiritual” dimension of weirdness where things may get really boring and you might even lose your personhood — those ideas are floating out there, just as much, and they’re just as vague and impossible to define:

Have you ever heard “time shall be no more”? Ah, but where does Scripture tell us this?

Or “we will never work, we’ll just praise Jesus”? Again, which verse? And why wouldn’t we also praise Him by working — just as we will by playing, fellowshipping, eating, learning, exploring?

Or “we don’t know much about Heaven”? Rather, we just don’t read what God’s word does say!

So, in the coming days and weeks I hope to write this series about many different aspects of Heaven and Earth. Lord willing, I’ll touch on the lies about how we are to think about Heaven (if we permit ourselves to think that way at all!), the nature of the world to come, and (especially) the nature of Christians’ resurrected bodies. And a lot of this, though I have read and studied it myself, has been so wonderfully revealed to me in Randy Alcorn’s excellent book Heaven.

I’m certain very few mistaken Christians really intend to hold such wrong ideas about our existence in the afterlife. They just don’t think about it, for various reasons. And before I myself got into really studying and taking delight in the truth that God will recreate the universe, I would have bought into many of these myths myself.

Why — was I some kind of heretic? No. At first I just didn’t see how it mattered. It was a completely blind spot to me, and God had to use others over time to get through my dense head. (I wonder what other blind spots I still have that God will help me look into later!)

I daresay this is not something that too many people would debate, either. If faithful Christ-followers were really asked not only to consider the plain meaning of so many texts, but to think about the topic of Heaven altogether, they would laugh instead at the silliness of the myths that have infiltrated Christianity from dualism, Gnosticism and pagan afterlife ideas.



Objection 1: Heaven irrelevant?


Heaven doesn’t seem to have much bearing on our lives now. And you don’t want to be “so heavenly minded that you’re of no earthly good,” right?

The Apostle Paul would disagree. He devoted much time in his writing to explaining the resurrection, and eagerly anticipated his afterlife and the world to come. 1 Corinthians 15 is a fantastic exposition on what our real resurrection bodies will be like. And in Colossians 3:

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. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3: 1-4 (ESV)




Objection 2: ‘No eye has seen’?


God never told us all that much about Heaven. After all, doesn’t the 1 Corinthians 2:9 passage (“no eye has seen, no hear has heard …”) say that we should not try to figure out “what God has prepared [in Heaven?] for those who love Him”?

Yet that is not what the passage is saying at all (more here)! Read the rest of the verse, which is rendered even more clearly in the English Standard Version as part of a whole thought:

[A]s it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2: 9-10 (ESV)

The verse is not talking about Heaven at all, but the spiritual truths of God that have been hidden from His people until now.



Objection 3: A wrong antimatter ratio?


It’s just not “spiritual” to talk about Heaven in anything other than “spiritual” terms. That’s why it’s silly for people to think of Heaven as natural, or material, or “earthly.”

Someday I hope someone will do a case study — perhaps in New Heaven/New Earth itself! — about how this mythology got started. We can trace it back to Gnosticism and other dualism-based philosophies. Those hold that somehow matter is automatically evil and thus escaping our bodies and world, not desiring new and resurrected ones, is highly Spiritual.

But God created the first humans to be both physical and with souls, and every indication throughout Scripture is that separation of body and soul is not to be desired:

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 (ESV)

Here we gain so many glorious truths — I wish I could hear a whole sermon series about them!

  • Verse 1: If the “tent that is our earthly home” — our body — “is destroyed,” God will provide a new body that He personally stitched together with the fabrics of Heaven.

  • Verse 2: We are meant to long for a new body, even “groaning” for it. Paul expanded this point in Romans 8: 22-23, in which he noted that “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now,” and “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, [also] groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

  • Verses 3 through 4: Without a body, it is as if a person were naked. Will God leave His children naked for eternity? Paul says we long “not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed.” Further clothed could not mean unclothed, without a body, but that we would have more body than we ever had in Old Earth!

  • Verse 5 and further: This is how Christians should be encouraged. It is not that God will free us forever from the constraints of a body, as anti-matter views would hold. Rather, God’s Spirit is our guarantee that He will recreate our bodies, more amazing than ever.

Furthermore, the myth-conception of people being spirits forever, in some kind of nonmaterial realm, bypasses passages such as 1 Corinthians 15. There, Paul shows clearly that we will have resurrection bodies just like Christ did. Our risen Savior was as physical and material as we are now — only more so, clearly with new abilities that we may or may not share.

That passage is where I hope to begin in my next installment of this Heaven and Earth series. Both this and the realization that God is sovereign over humans’ salvation has brought so much joy to my life, and has made God even “bigger” and more glorious to me.

Again, my purpose is not to nitpick, or quibble over trivial matters. Our eternal destination is not trivial at all, and neither is the myth about God’s redemption of the universe. This is the world His people were made for, and it is beyond worth considering and proclaiming as we seek to fix our eyes on things above — New Earth — not the myths of below — Old Earth. Soli deo Gloria!]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=507 Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:37:25 -0400 <![CDATA[Fighting on broader battlefields of Biblical spiritual warfare]]> http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=506 (Originally posted today for the NarniaWeb forum’s continuing “Christianity, Religion and Philosophy” discussion; edited slightly for this site)



Well, this should be the first of a very long post — or perhaps I will actually tackle one theme at a time, so as to preserve both my own labor and others’ labor in reading through. I do hope folks will read, especially [NarniaWeb member] Fencer for Jesus, to whom this is mostly addressed.

I don’t think I’ve ever done a point-by-point rebuttal to you before, Fencer. But this won’t really be a rebuttal anyway. It’s more like a clarification. You see, while reading through your post of a couple days ago, I think I’ve figured out why you’ve been bothered about others being bothered about giving demons undue attention.

I see what you and a few others have been saying wisewoman. But there is a great danger to that, even if you aren’t seeing it that way or intending it. Yes, the Great War has been won. But even you must know that it is not over yet. You have given me the impression (and I hope I am wrong on this) that we only need to worry about spiritual warfare when battle come.

This seems to be because you are oversimplifying the battle that indeed, Scripture says we will fight lifelong.

Yes, Satan and his powers were defeated and disarmed on the Cross.

[Christ] disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Colossians 2:15 (ESV)

But this is one of those “already and not yet” paradoxes of Biblical truth.

Absolutely we are commanded to oppose Satan and his evil spiritual forces. That’s because we are part of the victory that has already been won, just as the truth that Christians are declared righteous, but we’re still not perfect yet in this life.

But, when I say it seems you are oversimplifying the spiritual battle, I am referring to an either/or equation I think you may have — incidentally — in your mind:

Spiritual warfare = directly opposing and/or casting out demons.

Whereas the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, gives a much more broad emphasis in spiritual warfare:

Spiritual warfare =
  • Studying the Scriptures,

  • Opposing the false teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1),

  • Seeking to become more like Christ,

  • And sometimes, opposing demons directly and/or casting them out,

  • All for the sake of working out our faith and seeking to let God work through us as part of His plan to save the lost.
In your response of April 9, mostly regarding WiseWoman’s post, it seems you think that others, because they point out one of the other three battlefields of spiritual-warfare battle, are ignoring the whole war. Again, perhaps you are defining the war too narrowly?

This line of thinking will only draw the enemy in.

What line of thinking do you mean? If you are referring to the kind of nicety-nice, let’s-just-love-everybody Churchianity, then I daresay most people here would be in full agreement with you. But that’s not what WiseWoman or others have been saying.

It seems you have read into what she’s said is her opposition to focusing on demons overmuch the meaning that she also opposes spiritual warfare altogether.

Do you see the false dichotomy here? “If you oppose too much focus on demons, then you’re ignoring the battle.” No, I read that she was merely giving a reminder that fighting demons directly is just one battle of the much-broader war. The other three “battlefields” are listed above in bold and they all have solid Scriptural basis, even more so than direct fighting of demons (more on this in a moment).

Think of it this way. Let’s say I’m one of those genuine wishy-washy let’s-just-love-everyone Christians who really does ignore not only direct fighting of demons, but all the other battlefields of spiritual warfare (including doctrine discernment and evangelism). What if I were to confront you and say, “You’re so focused on fighting spiritual warfare that you are neglecting love? You need to wuvvvv people more. Christianity isn’t about war, it’s about relationships.” You would rightfully see the flawed reasoning here. Spiritual warfare is not unloving. Doctrine discernment and fighting demons are not the same as being hateful and mean. This is one of the ways Christians do love — by standing up for truth.

You seem to get that in your response below, but then again, you seem still to have that false-dichotomy view of spiritual warfare as almost always about fighting demons directly.

You are right in that we do not fight 24/7. The soldiers we have in Iraq are not fighting 24/7. But they are in a war, and they have to keep their guard up 24/7. If not, the guerillas will strike and they will be dead. The same is true for us. Satan’s war with God and man has been decided, but it is not over yet. And that is the reason for the importance of my last post on being ‘on guard’.

And that is the reason I agree with you, as do others, yet with the qualifier I have already mentioned. Let us not focus so much on demons that we either

  1. give them unwanted attention or too much credit;

  2. bypass the truth that many temptations come from our flesh, not just demons;

  3. neglect God’s role in having disarmed Satan on the Cross, and that the battle is His; and

  4. forget that other fields of battle, such as false teachings (of demons or men), substance abuse, poverty, man-centered substitutes for the Gospel, violence and lazy-Churchianity are all equally if not more important in our warfare against the flesh and against Satan.

Below I hope to remind you that these other spiritual battlefields get even more “press time” in Scripture than direct battles with demons.

There is also a misunderstanding about spiritual warfare’s presence in the Bible. It is not limited to Ephesians 6:10-18, even though this is the first reference that someone will go to in such situations.

Amen and amen. If Christians were not meant to engage in spiritual struggles lifelong on this Earth, we would be without nearly all the epistles.

If fact you will find more subtle references throught [sic] the Gospels and Paul’s letters. Paul has at least two references to the Armor of God in his letters: Ephesians 6 and 1 Thessalonians 5. I know there is another besides that, but I can’t find it yet. You will also find that Paul frequently describes the Christian walk with battle terminology. His letters were to a persecuted church. They were under both physical and spiritual attack. What did he tell them to do? Stand your ground. They enemy sought to squelch the expanding of the Kingdom of Heaven, and Paul told the churches to keep fighting the spiritual battle.

But ask yourself, what were Paul’s and other writers’ main reasons to write his letters to the churches? Was it to oppose demons and encourage them to fight spiritual battles mostly against them? The answer is yes and no.

What I mean is that yes, they wrote letters to fight spiritual battles, but rarely directly against demons. Instead, they wrote to oppose false doctrine and focus on the Gospel — Christ’s death for His Church and the way we should live in light of that. Think big-picture here — a good commentary with introductions to the New Testament epistles may help — and recall the reasons for several of Paul’s and others’ epistles (inspired by the Holy Spirit):

  • Romans — Paul seeks to outline the systematic story of God’s sovereignty in saving His people, and later explain how this affects both Jews and Gentiles.

  • 1 Corinthians — Paul writes to encourage unity in the church, to discourage following after specific human leaders, graciously rebuke church members for tolerating sin and for going ga-ga over other teachers just because they gave fine-sounding religious rhetoric, and to exhort them to fight their own fleshly desires and live lives worthy of the Gospel in their church and family relationships.

  • 2 Corinthians — Paul hopes to reassure the church after his previous letter, to remind the church of his role as their shepherd, and to continue encouraging them to life grace-saturated lives and fight temptations, along with “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5).

  • Galatians — Paul comes on strong against Legalism and the appalling notions that God’s people, having been saved through Christ’s sacrifice alone, can impress Him even more or be more Spiritual through old-covenant and man-made rules.

  • Ephesians — Paul starts off with a powerful outline of how God through the death of His Son on the Cross saved His own people, and how that truth affects our love for each other in the church and in families, and how it should motivate us to oppose evil for when “the evil day” comes (clearly meaning now; Ephesians 6:13).

Those are just a few for starters.

I have to say, here in America, we have gotten complacent and don’t want to deal with the spiritual battle, and unfortunately, this is something I have seen here on NWeb too. I have tried to bring up spiritual warfare several times here, and the common response is ‘we don’t want to talk about it because we don’t want to put to much emphasis on it.’

Again I return to the false dichotomy: equating spiritual warfare with fighting demons directly.

Fencer, I know you fight more than one battle, and I can say personally that I so appreciate your contributions about many different topics — creation, false doctrines, even predestination-and-free-will. Yet it seems you are grouping these other topics as somehow outside of spiritual warfare. Why is this? These battles are just as much a part of spiritual warfare as the notion of casting out demons.

Again, that is what others and I have been saying. We have not been saying:

“Let’s not talk about spiritual warfare so much because we don’t want to overemphasize it.”

Rather, what we have been saying is:

“Let’s not talk about demons so much, and so exclusively, because we don’t want to overemphasize them, giving them attention or even ‘glory’ at the incidental expense of focusing on Christ and His grace and victory, or neglecting the very real life-and-death nature of other battles in our spiritual war.”

Remember, we not only struggle directly against specific entities known as fallen angels or demons, but against the fleshly temptations, against pretension and false opinions that are raised against Christ and His Truth and grace.

Remember the words of the Apostle Paul, from the 2 Corinthians passage I have already partially quoted. He is not talking about battling demons here. He is talking about standing against false ideas and arguments and the strongholds raised up against the knowledge of God. This “different” (if you could even call it that) battlefield of the spiritual war is of the mind and heart.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

2 Corinthians 10: 3-5 (ESV)

And from 1 Timothy 4:

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, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

1 Timothy 4: 1-10 (ESV)

You ought to love this passage along with me, for it leaves Christians no option but to fight. But is it a fight against specific spiritual entities? No; rather, it is strong exhortation to oppose multiple other things set up against God and His people:
  • Deceitful spirits

  • Teachings of demons (false doctrines)

  • Insincere liars with little to no consciences

  • People who forbid marriage (perhaps thinking it’s more Spiritual to be single on purpose)

  • Legalistic “food critics” (who very likely misuse the Old Testament Law and decided their personal preferences are more Spiritual than others)

  • “Irreverent, silly myths”

  • Ungodliness

Different Christ-followers have different spiritual gifts and different emphases in the body of the Church (1 Corinthians 12). For example, yours may be reminding Christians of the very real nature of Satan and demons and their work. My and others’ gifts may be to fight more of that demolishing-strongholds side of things, in a different sort of battlefield. But we are all in the same war.

If I remind you not to focus on demon-fighting overmuch, you cannot Biblically claim that I am similar to those Christians who ignore the whole war.

Similarly, if I claim that the only “real” spiritual warfare is debunking false doctrine, I would be very wrong (and arrogant) in neglecting that Satan and his threats are very real.

We all need each other. As the sort of person who enjoys gifts of standing up for deep doctrines and sharing them with others, I need to be reminded that our battle is not just of the human mind or heart. And as the sort of person who (it seems) prefers a more Frank-Peretti kind of spiritual-warfare outlook, you also need to be reminded that spiritual warfare is fought not against the Devil or demons, but against human fleshly desires, false doctrines, and mistaken views of God that (often accidentally) are contrary to Scripture.

Soli deo Gloria!

And He is risen!]]> Columns http://www.faithfusion.net/index.php?itemid=506 Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:08:10 -0400