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January 4, 2016

The Final Countdown – Promised in the Beginning

We have looked at how mankind fell from their first created state. The Bible tells us God had a plan based on a Promise made at the beginning of history.

The Bible – Really a Library

^{© Jorge Royan / www.royan.com.ar / CC BY-SA 3.0}

First, some facts about the Bible. The Bible is a collection of books, written by many authors. It took more than 1500 years to write all these these books from start to finish. This makes the Bible more like a library and sets it apart from other Great Books. If just one author, or a group that knew each other, wrote the books of the Bible its unity would not surprise us. But hundreds and even thousands of years separate the different authors of the Bible. These writers come from different countries, languages, and social positions. But their messages and predictions connect with each other and the facts of history recorded outside the Bible. The oldest copies of the Old Testament books (the books before Jesus) that still exist today are from 200 BC. Existing copies of the New Testament date from 125 CE and later.

The Gospel Promise in the Garden

We see at the very beginning of the Bible an example of how the Bible predicts into the future. Though it records the Beginning, it was written with the End in mind. Here we see a Promise when God confronts Satan (who was in the form of a serpent) with a riddle just after he brought about the Fall of mankind.

“… and I (God) will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”
Genesis 3:15

You can see that this is prophetic by “will” repeated in the future tense. The text specifically identifies five different characters. They are:

I = God
you = serpent or Satan
The woman
The offspring of the woman
The offspring of serpent or Satan

The Promise predicts how these characters will relate in the future. The diagram illustrates their future relationships.

Relationships between the characters depicted in the Promise — Relationships between the characters in the Promise

It does not say who ‘the woman’ is. But God will cause both Satan and the woman to each have an ‘offspring’. There will be ‘enmity’ or hatred between these offspring and between the woman and Satan. Satan will ‘strike the heel’ of the woman’s offspring. But the offspring of the woman will ‘crush the head’ of Satan.

**Who is the Offspring? – a ‘he’**

We have made some observations, now for some deductions. Because the ‘offspring’ of the woman is a ‘he’ we can discard some possibilities.

As a ‘he’ the offspring is not a ‘she’ and thus cannot be a woman.

As a ‘he’ the offspring is not a ‘they’. This rules out a group of people, or a race, or a team, or a nation. At various times and in various ways people have thought that a ‘they’ would solve the human situation. But the offspring, being a ‘he’, is not a group of people whether a nation or those of a certain religion as in Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, or Muslims.

As a ‘he’ the offspring is a person and not an ‘it’. The offspring is not a philosophy, teaching, political system, or a religion – since these are all ‘it’s. An ‘it’ like these would have been our preferred choice to fix the corruption since people are always thinking up new systems and religions. God had something else in mind – a ‘he’- a single male human. This ‘he’ would crush the head of Satan.

Notice what is not said. God does not say that this offspring will come from the woman and the man, but only from the woman. This is especially unusual since the Bible almost always records only the sons coming through fathers. Some see the Bible as sexist because it just records fathers of sons. But here it is different – there is no promise of an offspring (a ‘he’) coming from a man. It says only that there will be an offspring coming from the woman, without mentioning a man.

A much later Prophet builds on that Promise

Hundreds of years later, an Old Testament prophet added the following:

the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).
Isaiah 7:14, 750 BCE

More than 700 years after Isaiah, Jesus was born (the New Testament says) from a virgin – fulfilling Isaiah. But is this scripture foreseeing Jesus even this early – right at the beginning of human history? This fits with the offspring as a ‘he’, not a ‘she’, ‘they’ or ‘it’. With that perspective, if you read the riddle it makes sense.

Jesus born in Bethlehem of Judea
_{^{Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons}}

‘Strike his Heel’??

But what does it mean that the serpent would strike ‘his heel’? One year I worked in the jungles of Cameroon. We had to wear thick rubber boots in the humid heat because the snakes lay in the long grass and would strike your foot – your heel – and kill you. After that jungle experience it made sense to me. The ‘he’ would destroy Satan, the serpent. But ‘he’ would be killed in the process. That does foreshadow the victory gained through the sacrifice of Jesus.

‘The woman’ – a Double Meaning

So, if this Promise at the Beginning concerns Jesus, then the woman would be the virgin woman who gave birth to him – Mary. But there is a second meaning. Notice how another Old Testament prophet refers to Israel.

O Israel, … I will make you my wife forever, … I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord.
Hosea 2:17-20. 800 BCE

Israel, in the Bible, is referred to as the wife of the LORD – a woman. Then, the last book in the Bible, describes a conflict which this woman will go through with her enemy

I saw a woman clothed with … a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant, and she cried out because of her labor pains and the agony of giving birth.

Then …I saw a large red dragon … in front of the woman as she was about to give birth, ready to devour her baby as soon as it was born.

She gave birth to a son who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. …

This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels…

When the dragon realized that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child… And the dragon was angry at the woman and declared war against the rest of her children…
Revelation 12:1-17, 90 CE

Since Jesus was a Jew, he is at the same time the offspring of Mary, the woman, and Israel, the woman. The Promise came true both ways. The ancient serpent is in enmity with Israel, ‘the woman’, and has declared war on her. This explains the unique troubles that Jews have suffered through their long history, and it was predicted in the very beginning.

The offspring of the Serpent?

But who is this offspring of Satan? In the last book of the Bible, many pages and thousands of years after the Promise in Genesis, predicts a coming person. Note the description:

⁸The beast you saw was once alive, but now it is not. However, it will come up out of the bottomless pit and go away to be destroyed. The people who live on the earth will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was once alive, is no longer living, but will come again. These are the people whose names have never been written in the book of life since the beginning of the world.

“You need wisdom to understand this.
Revelation 17:8-9, written by John ca 90 CE

This describes a fight between the offspring of the woman and Satan’s offspring. But it is first revealed in the Promise of Genesis, at the very beginning of the Bible, with the details filled in later. The countdown to a final contest between Satan and God started long ago in the Garden. It could almost make you think that history is really His-Story.

The Biblical Account continues

The drama of that day does not end with this Promise. God next moves to clothe them, a move full of symbolic meaning.

The Biblical account then relates the cataclysmic flood which destroyed almost all of mankind, followed by the origin of different languages and races. After these events God took His first step to complete this Promise above. He did so by calling a man to go on a long journey.

January 3, 2016

Corrupted (part 2) … and Missing the Target

_{^{Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons}}

The Bible describes us as corrupted from the image God made us in. How did this happen? The book of Genesis in the Bible records it. Shortly after being made ‘in the image of God’ the first humans (Adam and Eve) were tested with a choice. The Bible describes their conversation with a ‘serpent’. The serpent has always been understood to be Satan – an spirit enemy to God. In the Bible, Satan usually speaks through someone. In this case he spoke through a serpent:

Temptation in the Garden

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”

“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”

“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”

The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.
Genesis 3:1-7

The Choice

Their choice (and temptation), was that they could ‘be like God’. Up to this point they had trusted God for everything, but now they had the choice to become ‘like God’, to trust in themselves and be their own god.

In their choice to be autonomous they were changed. They felt shame and tried to cover up. When God confronted Adam, he blamed Eve (and God who made her). She blamed the serpent. No one accepted responsibility.

_{^{Levi Wells Prentice, PD-US-expired, via Wikimedia Commons}}

Consequences of that Choice

What started that day has continued because we have inherited that same independent nature. Some misunderstand the Bible and think it blames us for Adam’s bad choice. The only one blamed is Adam but we live in the consequences of his decision. We have now inherited this independent nature of Adam. We may not want to be god of the universe, but we want to be gods in our settings, separate from God.

This explains so much of human life: we lock our doors, we need police, and we have computer passwords– because otherwise we will steal from each other. This is why societies eventually collapse – because cultures have a tendency to decay. This is why all forms of government and economic systems, though some work better than others, they all eventually breakdown. Something about the way we are makes us miss the way things should be.

Sin – to Miss

That word ‘miss’ sums up our situation. A verse from the Bible gives a picture to understand this better. It says:

Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred select troops who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. (Judges 20:16)

This describes soldiers who were experts at using slingshots and would never miss. The word in Hebrew translated ‘miss’ above is יַחֲטִֽא . It is also translated sin through the Old Testament.

^{^{National Archives and Records Administration, PD-USGov-Military, via Wikimedia Commons}}

The soldier takes a stone and shoots it to hit the target. If he misses he has failed his purpose. In the same way, God made us in His image to hit the target in how we relate to Him and treat others. To ‘sin’ is to miss this purpose, or target, that God intended for us.

This missed-the-target picture is not happy or optimistic. People sometimes react strongly against the Bible’s teaching on sin. A university student once said to me, “I don’t believe because I do not like what this is saying”. But what does ‘liking’ something have to do with truth? I do not like taxes, wars, or earthquakes – no one does – but that does not make them untrue. We can’t ignore any of them. All the systems of law, police, locks, and security that we have built into society to protect us from each other suggest that something is wrong. At least we should consider this Biblical teaching on our sin in an open-minded way.

God Declares His Help

We have a problem. We are corrupted from the image we were first made in. So now we miss the target when it comes to our moral actions. But God did not leave us in our helplessness. He had a plan to rescue us, and this is why Gospel literally means ‘good news’ – because this plan is the good news that He saves us. God did not wait until Abraham to announce this news; he first announced it in that same conversation with Adam and Eve. We look at this first Good News announcement next.

January 2, 2016

But corrupted … like orcs of Middle-earth

Previously we looked at what the Bible means when it says that God created people ‘in the image of God’. This explains why human life is precious. However, the Bible continues on from creation to explain a serious problem. We can see the problem from this Psalm (song) in the Bible.

The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:2-3)

This says that ‘all’ of us have ‘become corrupt’. Though God made us ‘in the image of God’ something has wrecked this image in all of us. We reveal corruption in a chosen independence from God (‘all have turned aside’ from ‘seeking God’) and also in not doing ‘good’.

Thinking Elves and Orcs

To understand this, compare orcs and elves from the movie Lord of the Rings. Orcs are ugly and evil. Elves are beautiful and peaceful (see Legolas). But orcs had once been elves that Sauron had corrupted in the past. The original elf image in the orcs had been wrecked. In a similar way the Bible says that people have become corrupted. God had made elves but we have become orcs.

For example, we know ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behaviour. But we do not unfailingly live by what we know. It is like a computer virus that damages the proper workings of a computer. Our moral code is there – but a virus has infected it. The Bible starts with people as good and moral, but then also corrupted. This fits with what we observe about ourselves. But it also brings a question: why did God make us this way? (Knowing right and wrong but corrupted from it). As the atheist Christopher Hitchens complains:

Legolos — The elves, like Legalos, were noble and majestic

“… If god really wanted people to be free of such thoughts [i.e., corrupt ones], he should have taken more care to invent a different species.” Christopher Hitchens. 2007. God is not great: How religion spoils everything. p. 100

But he misses something very important, the Bible does not say that God made us this way, but that something terrible happened after God made us. The first humans revolted against God and in their rebellion they changed and became corrupted.

The Fall of Mankind

This is often called The Fall. God created Adam, the first man. There was an agreement between God and Adam, like a marriage contract of faithfulness, and Adam broke it. The Bible records that Adam ate from the ‘Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’ even though they had agreed that he would not eat from that tree. The agreement and the tree itself, gave Adam a free choice to remain faithful to God or not. Adam had been created in the image of God, and placed into friendship with Him. But Adam had no choice regarding his creation, so God allowed him to choose about his friendship with God.

Just like the choice to stand is not real if sitting is impossible, the friendship and trust of Adam to God had to be a choice. This choice centered on the command not to eat from that one tree. And Adam chose to rebel. What Adam started with his rebellion has gone non-stop through all generations and continues with us today. We look next at what this means.

January 1, 2016

Made in the Image of God

Can the Bible help us understand where we came from? Many say ‘no’, but there is much about us that makes sense in light of what the Bible says. For example, consider what the Bible teaches about our beginnings. In the first chapter it says:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Genesis 1:26-27

“In the Image of God”

_{^{Huỳnh Kim Chí, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}}

What does it mean that God created mankind ‘in the image of God’? It does not mean that God has two arms and a head. Rather it is saying that our basic characteristics come from God. In the Bible, God can be sad, hurt, angry or joyful – the same emotions that we have. We make choices and decisions every day. God also makes choices and decisions. We can reason and God also reasons. We have the capacities of intellect, emotion and will because God has them and He made us in His image. He is the source of what we are.

We are self-aware and conscious of ‘I’ and ‘you’. We are not impersonal ‘its’. You are like this because God is this way. The God of the Bible is not a non-personality like the ‘Force’ in the movie series Star Wars. Because God made us in His image neither are we.

Why Do we like Beauty?

^{Johann Georg Platzer, PD-US-expired, via Wikimedia Commons}

We also value art, drama and beauty. We need beauty in our surroundings. Music enriches our lives and makes us dance. We love good stories because stories have heroes, villains, and drama. Great stories put these heroes, villains and drama into our imaginations. We use art in its many forms to entertain, relax and refresh ourselves because God is an artist and we are in his image. It is a question worth asking: Why do we look for beauty in art, drama, music, dance, nature or literature? Daniel Dennett, an outspoken atheist and an expert on understanding the brain, answers from a non-Bible perspective:

“Why does music exist? There is a short answer, and it is true, so far as it goes: it exists because we love it and hence we keep bringing more of it into existence. But why do we love it? Because we find that it is beautiful. But why is it beautiful to us? This is a perfectly good biological question, but it does not yet have a good answer.”
Daniel Dennett. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. p. 43

Apart from God there is no clear answer to why all the forms of art are so important to us. From the Bible’s point-of-view it is because God made things beautiful and enjoys beauty. We, made in His image, are the same. This Biblical teaching makes sense of our love of art.

The Beauty in Mathematics

Closely linked to aesthetic beauty is mathematics. Patterns from geometric ratios give rise to fractals and other shapes that we find beautiful and mathematically elegant. Watch this video explain the elegance of the Mandelbrot Set and ask why abstract concepts such as numbers seem to govern the behaviour of the universe. And why we appreciate its beauty.

Why we are Moral

Being ‘made in God’s image’ explains our morals. We understand what ‘wrong’ behaviour is and what ‘good’ behaviour is – even though our languages and cultures are very different. Moral reasoning is ‘in’ us. As the famous atheist Richard Dawkins puts it:

“Driving our moral judgments is a universal moral grammar … As with language, the principles that make up our moral grammar fly beneath the radar of our awareness”
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. p. 223

Dawkins explains that right and wrong is built into us like our ability to have language, but it is difficult for him to explain why we are like this. Misunderstandings happen when we do not acknowledge God as giving us our moral compass. Take for example this objection from another famous atheist, Sam Harris.

“If you are right to believe that religious faith offers the only real basis for morality, then atheists should be less moral than believers.”
Sam Harris. 2005. Letter to a Christian Nation p.38-39

Harris misunderstands. Biblically speaking, our sense of morality comes from being made in God’s image, not from being religious. And that is why atheists, like all the rest of us, have this moral sense and can act morally. Atheists do not understand why we are like this.

Why are we so Relational?

The starting point to understand yourself is to recognize that you are made in God’s image. It is not hard to notice the importance people place on relationships. It is OK to see a good movie, but it is much better to see it with a friend. We naturally seek out friends and family to share experiences with and to improve our well-being.

On the other hand, loneliness and broken family relationships or friendships stress us.

God is Love

If we are in God’s image, then we would expect to find this same emphasis with God – and we do. The Bible says that

“God is Love…”
1 John 4:8

The Bible writes much about the importance that God places on our love for him and for others. Jesus taught that the two most important commands in the Bible are about love.

So we should think of God as a lover. If we only think of Him as the ‘Benevolent Being’ we are not thinking of the Biblical God – rather we have made up a god in our imagination. Though He is that, He is also passionate in relationship. He does not ‘have’ love. He ‘is’ love. The two most prominent Biblical pictures of God are that of a father to his children and a husband to his wife. Those are not distant relationships but are the deepest and most intimate of human relationships. The Bible says that God is like that.

So let us summarize. People are made in God’s image, meaning mind, emotions and will. We are aware of self and others. We know the difference between right and wrong. People need beauty, drama, art and story in all its forms. We naturally seek out relationships and friendships with others. You are like this because God is like this and you have been made in God’s image.

You – An Image of Value

Now reflect a bit more about images. We only place important images on objects of value. For example, currencies in almost all countries carry an image of a founding father or revered figure of that country’s history. So the US $5 dollar bill has an image of Abraham Lincoln on its front. You will never see a currency with an image of a common object like an orange. The intrinsic value of an image derives from what it is an image of. An image of Abraham Lincoln is valuable to Americans so they place that image on important objects, like their money.

In the same way, because you are in God’s image (and not in some other image) you are immensely valuable. You carry worth and dignity regardless of your wealth, age, education, social status, language, and gender simply because you are ‘in the image of God’. God knows this and He wants you to realize this as well.

But if this is so, why is the world, yours and mine, full of endless cycles of suffering and death? The Biblical story continues on to explain how this arose.