For many of us, the Coronavirus has become a source for fear and anxiety. In addition to the countless large events and meetings that have been canceled across the world and in the U.S., many churches have felt the need to cancel services and small group meetings, including my own.
Even for those who aren’t experiencing all-out panic at the current crisis, there is a growing undercurrent of uncertainty and bewilderment about how to proceed with life. Since I work at a hospital, I’ve seen firsthand the level of frustration and panic that has arisen in response to the spread of this disease. I’ve also spoken to many Christians who have said, to one degree or another, they don’t understand why God would allow such a terrible disease like the Coronavirus to spread.
The first thing I would want to say to my fellow Christians is that God really is in control of every circumstance we face in life. Even if all the public health and safety officials, human leaders and government officials seem incapable of stopping the spread of the Coronavirus, God is just as sovereign over His world today as He always has been. The Coronavirus does not pose a threat to God and His reign.
“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all” (1 Chronicles 29:11-12a).
There is a part of us that actually despises the truth of God’s sovereign reign over all. We love the thought of having control over our own lives and to admit God’s sovereignty is to cede ultimate control to someone else. People may say things like, “God didn’t have anything to do with this disease” or “God is trying His best to stop it,” as if to defend God in the matter. These statements may come from good intentions, but to deny God’s absolute sovereignty is to deny the plain teaching of Scripture.
Consider just a handful of passages that plainly affirm God’s limitless reign over all:
“The Lord kills and brings to life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and He exalts.” (1 Samuel 2:6-7)
“Our God is in the heavens, and He does as He wishes.” (Psalm 115:3, NLT)
“The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all.” (Psalm 103:19, NASB)
“But you, Belshazzar… have not humbled yourself… Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven… But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways.” (Daniel 5:22-23, my emphasis)
It’s also important to affirm from Scripture (rather than just assume) God’s goodness and love. The psalmist tells God, “You are good, and You do what is good” (Psalm 119:68, HCSB). Similarly, we read, “For Yahweh is good, and His love is eternal; His faithfulness endures through all generations” (Psalm 100:5, HCSB).
So, we come back to the question: Why has God allowed the Coronavirus to spread? While I don’t pretend to have all the answers, Scripture does offer us a place to begin when considering this important question.
In the story of Scripture, we find that the human race first fell into ruin because we flouted God’s right to rule over us as His creatures. The original temptation was “to be like god” and reject His lordship over our lives (Genesis 3:5). When we cut ourselves off from the One who is the Source of life, the inevitable result is death. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). In fact, suffering of all kinds — including viral diseases — is the result of the fall.
Because “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,” we also know that God must have a good purpose in allowing the Coronavirus to spread (Romans 8:28, NASB). While we tend to see things only in terms of their short-term consequences, God is able to take the long view and see the good that can come out of pain and loss. That’s why it’s so important to affirm God’s sovereign rule in the midst of crises, because that is the only thing that can give meaning and purpose to what we’re going through. Knowing that our loving God is working all things for our good offers us tremendous hope in the midst of so much uncertainty.
When some Jews told Jesus about certain Galileans that the Roman governor Pilate slaughtered, they wondered if this indicated they died because they were a bad lot that especially deserved it. Jesus replied, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:2-5, NIV).
Jesus is saying that when you see terrible suffering around you, don’t merely assume that suffering only happens to the worst of us. See it as another reason to be aware of your own need to get right with God. We tend to push away all thought of death and eternity in the everyday grind of life. So when a fast-spreading viral disease affects our loved ones and us, we feel especially vulnerable and aware of our own mortality. But the reality of suffering and death has always been there, even when we don’t allow it space in our consciousness.
C. S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”[1] That is precisely Jesus’ point. God allows pain and suffering and diseases to get our attention, to alert us of our desperate need for Him. Suffering is a call to repentance. We should recognize times of health and peace as undeserved gifts of God’s common grace.
D. A. Carson writes, “It is a mark of our lostness that we invert these two. We think we deserve the times of blessing and prosperity, and that the times of war and disaster are not only unfair but come perilously close to calling into question God’s goodness or his power — even, perhaps, his very existence. Jesus simply did not see it that way.”[2]
What a comfort it is to know that God did not abandon us to this disease-ridden world. He actually entered into this mess and experienced the worst kind of suffering when He went to the cross on Golgotha Hill. On that hill, the real hammer of sin’s judgment came down on Him, so that we — through faith — might be spared. Through His death and resurrection, Christ provides a way for us to live forever one day in a place that is free of all suffering and disease. On that day, God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4, NIV).
In the end, we should see the Coronavirus as a summons to seek refuge in the God who made us and in the Savior who suffered in our place.
[1] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), 93.
[2] D.A. Carson, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 67.
Fear is a poison that paralyzes us. It locks us in a prison of our own making. It holds us back from walking forward in love. Fear stifles our courage and whispers the lie that we don’t have what it takes to walk in obedience to the Lord.
We’ve all had times where we are plagued by self-doubt. We can sense God calling us into something that terrifies us, and our gut-level response is to shrink back in horror. We think, “What? Little old me? I can’t possibly do that.” Or maybe it’s more like, “Big fat sinner me? I’m not worthy of doing that.” Nevertheless, God wants us to realize His plan for our lives is bigger than we ever dared to dream.
Too often — I can see this in myself — we know God wants us to follow through on something, and the reason we haven’t yet is actually very simple: fear. Fear of failure. Fear of exposure. Fear of losing a friendship. Fear of looking foolish. Fear of falling on our face and never wanting to take a risk again.
Here’s what I think can happen sometimes. We tell ourselves we have good reasons not to walk forward in obedience. We rationalize. We experience the sudden onset of analysis paralysis, thinking, There must be some mistake. With all my faults, flaws, and foibles, I don’t see this working out. I’m notthe right person for the job. As if, somehow, the almighty, all-wise, and all-sufficient God of creation might be mistaken when He calls us to do something. All the stars and galaxies in the night sky follow their orbital path with precision, seamlessly bending to their Maker’s will. But, strangely, His own children won’t budge. We might even label it humility. But in reality, it’s doubting — or, perhaps, ignoring — God’s promises.
Get this picture in your mind. An 80-year-old Middle Eastern shepherd wanders through the craggy rocks of the Sinai Wilderness. After spending decades out in this wasteland, the blazing hot sun has left His face creased with deep wrinkles. He raises a rough brown hand to shade his eyes as he peers up at the towering mountain before him. He notices a strange orange glow emitting near the top. His brow furrows, and he scratches his wiry gray beard. What is that, a fire?
The desert wind howls as he nears the mysterious orange glow. Then he sees it: a desert brush fire is just taking off… or so he thinks. On further examination, he sees the flames are engulfing only one shrub, and, strangely, that shrub is not burning up. His body tremors as his eyes lock on the eerie spectacle.
What happened next? “When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush” (Exodus 3:3). At this point, the old shepherd is just showing curiosity, but that’s all God needed. Sometimes we just need to do some investigating. We need to show an openness to what God might have for us. As we do that, there’s no telling how our lives might be transformed.
To the shepherd’s astonishment, a voice bellowed from the shrubbery: “Moses, Moses!” You know God is trying to get your attention when He calls your name twice. I imagine Moses’s voice cracking: “Here I am.” His next thought was probably: Wait… I’m talking to a bush! How long have I been out in this heat?
After telling Moses to remove his sandals in His presence, the deep, thunderous yet mellifluous voice continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (v. 6). On hearing this, Moses shielded his eyes, as if the radiating spectacle might burn through his retinas. He was actually speaking to the everlasting God. The terror-stricken Moses didn’t know if he would survive this encounter.
Then God spoke in a surprisingly soothing way of assurance: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians” (vv. 7-8a). Did you catch what God said? “I know their sufferings.”
We desperately need to be reminded that the living God, our personal Creator, Yahweh, is intimately concerned with us. He knows your deepest fears. He knows everything about you. He put you together in your mother’s womb. He knows the struggles you face. But He doesn’t just know about these struggles; He acts as our Rearguard, our Fortress, and our Deliverer. He responds to our cries for help.
As if Moses wasn’t shocked enough, God then tells this quaking old man: “Oh, and by the way, Moses, I’m going to send you to be my right hand man. Yes, you heard me rightly. You, Moses, are going to be the man I use to deliver my people” (v. 10, my paraphrase).
Moses’s jaw hit the ground. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (v. 11). Do you ever hear yourself ask that question: “Who am I? Who am I, Lord, that You would want to use little old me?” Moses had lived eight long decades by this point. At one time, he was a prince of Egypt, but his glory days were over. Now, Moses was little more than a washed up sheepherder who spent long hours under the desert sun.
Moses rattles off several excuses: “What if they don’t listen?” (4:1). “God, don’t You know I’m not all that eloquent?” (v. 10). He’s saying, “God, you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m past my prime. I’ve got so little to offer. Aren’t there thousands of stronger, fitter, and younger fellas that would better serve your purposes?”
Can you hear yourself asking the same kind of questions? God, I’m really not the natural-leader type. God, I’m not so good with my… um… words. God, I’ve got this great person in mind for you — anybody but me!
Remember Moses’s first response? “Here I am.” That’s the right response when God calls our name. God has a way of rerouting paths we thought were certain and remaking plans we thought were set in stone. We often feel off-kilter when God does this, but it’s the way He’s always worked with people like you and me.
God isn’t like the guy who grabs a megaphone and shouts at a crowd, “Okay, I need a couple volunteers! Any takers?”
No, God’s way is much more direct and forthright than that. He prefers to call us by name. We may try to plug our ears, put Him on mute, and drown Him out with white noise, but He keeps calling. God does not settle for the busy signal. Sometimes, He even has to grab us by the scruff of our neck, square us up, and, like a gentle father, say, “Hey, I’m talking to you.”
Our response should not be “Who am I?” but “Here I am.”[1] God is looking for a willing and submissive heart. He has something specific in mind for you and you alone. Do you know what it is yet? Are you still making excuses or turning up the white noise?
When you sense fear rising up, remember the promise that God gave Moses: “I will be with you” (3:12). That’s the only promise we really need. If you’re afraid of what is coming next, get your eyes up. Look at His sufficiency, not your list of excuses. So the next time God calls you to do something outside your comfort zone, turn your “Who am I?” into a “Here I am.” You won’t regret it.
[1] There are, of course, times when “Who am I?” can just be a humble response to God’s grace, as in 2 Samuel 7:18, when David is overwhelmed with God’s favor. My point is that we shouldn’t look to ourselves for our confidence, but to God.
I remember like it was yesterday the drive back from the coast with two of my long-time buddies, Andy and Daniel. We were seniors in high school, and we had just completed our annual trip to Lincoln City, Oregon. As we rounded the bend of the highway, the Toyota Camry I was driving suddenly lurched and sputtered. Very quickly, I realized the gas pedal was no longer responding and we rolled to an undignified stop on the highway’s shoulder.
Gulp! I told the guys I didn’t know what went wrong, but very quickly the truth began to dawn on me. The fact is, I had been putting off an oil change for several weeks now. And, as it turns out, car engines really do need oil to run well. In fact, as any mechanic will tell you, it’s a simple matter of physics: without lubrication, the metal parts of your engine are bound to overheat. And when they overheat, they begin to warp and wear down.
Because of my automotive negligence, not only did I have a hearty portion of embarrassment to swallow, but I also needed to come up with the cash for a new car.
Simply put, some things are bound to self-destruct if you don’t operate them according to their intended use. If you doubt this, just try using your smartphone as a wheel chock. This is not just true of the physical realm but the spiritual realm, too. God designed your soul for a relationship with Him. Just as cars cannot run without gasoline, human beings are dependent on the life that comes from God.
When we try to do life apart from God, we are bound to self-destruct. And yet, according to the Bible, many people don’t live as if this were true.
In Galatians 6:7-8, the Apostle Paul warns, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”
Paul says, “Don’t be fooled about this,” because, honestly, a lot of us are. In fact, on our own, we all tend to fall for this lie. What lie? That God can be mocked without repercussions. Every single one of us has, at one time or another, believed that we can actually outsmart God. Don’t believe me?
Every time we knowingly disobey God, we are essentially saying to God, “I would make a better god than you.” The essence of sin is making a bid for the throne of the universe. To disregard God’s law is to choose self-sovereignty rather than live under His perfect rule.
Here’s the problem: Going down this road of self-rule never ends well. There is an unalterable law of reality that you will reap what you sow. And God created us to live under His rule, not our own. Paul says, “Don’t be deceived about this one, guys.” You can be wrong about the weather, who will win American Idol, or most of the questions on Jeopardy! But don’t be wrong about this.
One of the most popular falsehoods of our time is this idea that I can do whatever I want without ever being held accountable for my actions. But Scripture everywhere denies this.
“God will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” (Romans 2:6-8, NIV).
God is immeasurably merciful and patient, but this remains God’s universe. Not ours.
“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31, NIV).
Notice: God will judge the world, but He will do so with perfect “justice.” No one will be able to say on that day, “But I didn’t know” or “This isn’t fair.” We will all know God to be the perfectly just Judge that He is.
Let this truth be emblazoned across your heart: God cannot be mocked. If you think you can fool God, you’re only fooling yourself.
The mighty Goliath tried to test this truth when he taunted the armies of the living God (1 Samuel 17). How did that work out for him? He’s forever remembered for being slain by a young shepherd boy without any real military training. Herod encouraged people to worship him as a god. How did he fare? “Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died” (Acts 12:23). Yikes! I don’t care who you are, that’s got to be one of the worst ways to go! Throughout Scripture, this same truth is repeated: You and I will reap what we sow.
What does it mean to “sow to please your flesh” (v. 8)?
John Stott writes: “Every time we allow our mind to harbor a grudge, nurse a grievance, entertain an impure fantasy, or wallow in self-pity, we are sowing to the flesh. Every time we linger in bad company whose insidious influence we know we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up and praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a risk which strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to the flesh. Some Christians sow to the flesh every day and wonder why they do not reap holiness. Holiness is a harvest; whether we reap it or not depends almost entirely on what and where we sow.”[1]
We may think all our sowing to the flesh won’t have consequences. We may rationalize and downplay the seriousness of the secret sins we harbor. Eventually, however, what we have sown will come to full bloom. If you take the elephant across the old wooden footbridge too many times, eventually it will collapse.
Thankfully, the Bible doesn’t just leave us with this hard truth. If it did, karma, not the gospel, would be the final rule of the universe. We would forever see God in heaven, frowning down on us with arms crossed, saying, “Well, you had it coming.”
But the gospel of Jesus Christ points us the way to find a new life and a new beginning. We don’t need to stay locked up by the shame of our past. The point of this warning about mocking God is to lead us to the foot of the cross at Calvary, where God’s love poured out for rebels like you and me. When Christ shed His blood on the cross, He was in fact reaping what we have sown. This was only possible because of grace. He died in our place and suffered the consequences we justly deserved.
Hear this promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8). To confess means to get honest before God, humbly prepared to live in a new direction.
Because of Christ’s cross, God does not rule as some kind of karmic dictator. Instead, He reigns in grace, inviting everyone who has arrogantly tried to take His throne to kneel humbly before His throne (Hebrews 4:16).
[1] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians: Only One Way, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1968), 170.
“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)
Perhaps you’ve heard the oft-quoted line that “men are from Mars, and women are from Venus.” This statement highlights the noteworthy differences between men and women.
For many couples, these differences truly surface after the wedding bells ring. The story is told of a boy who asked his father, “Dad, what’s the difference between love and marriage?” The father replied, “Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener!”
Many a young couple could relate to this sentiment. In the days anticipating their wedding, the bride and groom both imagined the blissful life they are about to begin together. Of course, no one told them that their idealistic pictures are likely very different from one another. Perhaps, no one told them how much of marriage involves sacrifice. Perhaps, no one told them how many surprises there would be.
She didn’t know how much he liked working long hours on his car. He didn’t know how much she liked discussing paint colors. One woman was overheard at a garden-club meeting saying, “I never knew what compost was until I met my husband.”
I wonder how her husband interpreted that remark.
Whitney and I are in our seventh year of marriage, and although we know each other so well, I expect we will continue learning new things about one another for the rest of our lives. I think most married couples would agree. Just when you think you’ve solved the puzzle that is your spouse, you discover there’s a lot more pieces you didn’t even know about.
And yet, despite the incredible differences between men and women, marriage really is a beautiful thing.
How do I know? Because it was God’s idea. If You’re the infinite, all-wise, sovereign Creator of the universe, one thing a puny-brained human can’t legitimately accuse You of is a bad idea. Now, one thing we could legitimately say to Him is “God, this is a mystery.” In fact, the apostle Paul used that precise word. Speaking of marriage, he said, “This mystery is profound” (Ephesians 5:32).
So, as we navigate the wonderfully mysterious world of marriage, what wisdom can we glean from Scripture? Here, it is worth looking at the very first marriage. After all, God used Adam and Eve’s nuptials as something of a blueprint for how marriage is supposed to work.
Right after creating the man out of the dust of the earth and breathing life into His nostrils, God made a vast and paradisiacal garden in which he could dwell. Then we read this:
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die’” (Genesis 2:15-17).
God tells him to take his fill of all he wants from the garden. He can sink his teeth into any of the delicious, tantalizing fruits he finds — except, of course, for that one that’ll kill him. Best to leave that one alone.
But aside from this curious prohibition, notice what the text says about man’s job. He has a calling to “work” and “take care of” the lush garden. In other words, God placed Adam there to cultivate the garden. A lot could be said about how this relates to humanity’s purpose in ruling over creation as God’s image-bearing vice-regents — spoken about in the chapter before this (see Genesis 1:26-28). But for now, it’s important to see that God planned for the man to work before sin ever entered the world.
Now, notice what God says next: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). In a perfectly good world created by a perfectly good God, this “not good” is a bit jarring. The man has God. He has all the furry animals. He has a beautiful and sumptuous garden full of delicious fruits. Nevertheless, something is “not good.” Adam is one solitary dude. He needs a companion. He needs another human with whom he can relate and do life.
So what did God do? He created woman to be “a helper fit for him.” Don’t be put off by the language of “helper.” It’s actually a term of great honor. In fact, the Bible even calls God “helper” many times (see Psalm 54:4; 118:7). The big takeaway is this: Adam needs help. He cannot do the garden work God called him to all on his own.
Far too many men today are passive about the responsibilities God has given them. They don’t see themselves as having a purpose. They just kind of drift along without any real and clear direction. That’s a tragic thing. God calls us to take initiative in working hard for the good of others. He calls us to be diligent and passionate about improving the world around us.
At the same time, God did not intend for man to go it alone. Although the concept of rugged individualism appeals to many men, it really doesn’t fit with how God wired us. Genesis 2:18 forever stands as a witness to the fact that human beings were made for relationship with one another. And chief among those human relationships is marriage. In marriage, intimacy between two souls reaches its zenith.
But note something else. God said, “I will make a helper fit for him.” That is, God fashioned the woman with the man in mind. In the words of Goldilocks, the man and woman are “just right” for each other. God specially designed the man and the woman foreach other. What makes marriage so powerful is that it taps into God’s genius for how two of his image bearers bond together for life.
In the words of Jesus, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matthew 19:6). To a world that has embraced no-fault divorce, the Son of God says, “Don’t try to split what God has spliced.” Marriage is not like an old watch that you can discard when it stops working for us. It is more like a precious jewel that you would never even dangle over the edge of a dock. Granted, everyone comes to this text with their unique set of challenges and circumstances. Nevertheless, it remains true that marriage is by nature a binding covenant before God. He never said marriage wouldn’t take some work. He never said it would always be a cakewalk. He did say it was designed for permanence.
Tim Keller wisely said, “Wedding vows are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love.”[1]
When it was clear that none of Adam’s furry friends quite fit the bill, God performed the first surgery to craft the first female.
“So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” (Genesis 2:21-22)
Why did God form the woman from one of the man’s ribs? Consider this for a moment. God could have fashioned the woman any way He saw fit. He didn’t take a portion of the man’s brain (think of the endless jokes there would have been!). He didn’t take a portion of his feet (think of the trouble this could have led to). She came from his rib — from his side. Doesn’t God’s choice to use the man’s rib indicate that the woman was intended to be neither his superior nor his inferior, but instead, his equal? Men and women are distinct, but equal in their intrinsic dignity. Both are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).
But they are also made of the same “stuff,” the same flesh. God took from Adam’s body so that Eve’s DNA was inevitably connected to his. They are biologically related. As it turns out, men and women are not from Mars and Venus respectively. But more than merely creating a genetic link between the two, God did it this way so that they could see from the very beginning that He created them for a one-flesh union that they alone can share.
Upon first laying eyes on the feminine beauty before him, Adam impulsively broke into song.
“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” (Genesis 2:23)
Okay, so maybe the lyrics aren’t your idea of romantic. Nevertheless, it set a pattern, and love songs like Pat Benatar’s “We Belong” and Bruno Mars’ “Marry You” have been a hit ever since.
Then God Himself summarizes, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (vv. 24-25). The “therefore” seems to be saying, “The man and woman can unite as one flesh, because woman is made from man’s flesh.” In other words, the man and woman really were made for each other. Nothing and no one should ever come between the husband and his wife, and the union they share.
This one-flesh union of marriage goes beyond sexual intimacy. It is a whole-life covenant that unites the man and woman as a permanent and unique couple who live together, eat together, sleep together, and go through all of life together. To men and women alike, marriage is a mystery. However, in Ephesians 5, Paul goes on to say it is a mystery pointing to the union of Christ and His church. If we needed one more reason to treat marriage as a weighty thing, here it is. It is a powerful, flesh-and-blood picture of the gospel. Thus, we ought to treasure marriage for the incredible gift that it is.
“Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:23-24)
Oprah Winfrey tells the story of a time when she first began to question the teaching of Scripture. She was sitting in a church, hearing the preacher talk about God’s attributes, such as His omnipotence and omnipresence. She continues,
“Then he said, ‘The Lord thy God is a jealous God.’ I was caught up in the rapture of that moment until he said ‘jealous,’ and something struck me. I was like 27 or 28 and I’m thinking, ‘God is all. God is omnipresent. And God is also jealous?’ God is jealous of me? And something about that didn’t feel right in my spirit because I believe that God is love, and that God is in all things… And that is where the search for something more than doctrine started to stir within me.”
The passage the preacher quoted is indeed in the Bible (Deuteronomy 5:9). In fact, there are many references to God’s jealousy in Scripture. “You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14). God even grows angry when we spurn Him and go after worthless pursuits. “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24).
On the one hand, I want to sympathize with Oprah. Our God? Jealous? Never! That’s because in our current cultural climate, “jealousy” usually carries a negative connotation. In many cases, it describes someone who has an unwarranted suspicion of anything and anyone that could threaten a cherished relationship. At the same time, we need to consider that this is the supreme God we are talking about. However we construe this word “jealousy” as it relates to God, we need to remember that He is the all-sufficient God who doesn’t need anything from us. After all, He is the Maker of everything. “If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it” (Psalm 50:12).
Our tendency is to say, “My God is not like that… He’s like this…” The problem is that whenever we do that before carefully consulting Scripture, we are actually creating a god in our own image. Rather than listening to what God says of Himself, we place our own opinions above the authority of the Bible. Instead, we need to humbly come to God’s Word, expecting there to be many cases where our own thoughts and opinions will be challenged. Rather than assert that something can’t be true simply because it doesn’t sit right with us, we need to consider why God is described as “jealous.”
In order to understand what is meant by passages like these that speak of God’s jealousy, we have to first see that there are in fact both good and bad kinds of jealousy. For example, there is a petty jealousy a self-centered young man may feel when a slightly older man offers to carry a heavy suitcase for his girlfriend. The older man’s offer may be a simple, courteous response to seeing the young woman struggling with the heavy load. In this case, the young man is not thinking of his girlfriend’s needs. He is threatened by the courteous gentleman because he cares more about his status as the girl’s boyfriend than the girl herself.
This young man is persistently suspicious and insecure. He doesn’t want any other man to even show common courtesy to his girlfriend. His jealousy is like the unhealthy possessiveness of a terrier that growls and snaps at anyone coming near his bone, despite the fact that no one actually wants to steal the bone. Rather than protecting her, his unhealthy jealousy actually smothers the young girl. From the outsider’s perspective, it’s plain to see that the young man is consumed with self-love, rather than genuine love for the girl.
Now, what is an example of a good kind of jealousy? Think of a husband and wife at an office party. The husband notices that a good-looking young man, who is constantly bragging about his sexual exploits, has approached his wife. The young man is clearly hitting on his wife and even tenderly takes hold of her hand. Now, ask yourself, in this situation, is it wrong for the husband to feel a kind of jealousy? After all, he is passionately devoted to his wife, wanting nothing to come between them. His wife might even be quite pleased to see her husband tell off such a womanizer for trying to threaten their marriage.
If you’re still struggling with whether jealousy can ever be a good thing, imagine now that this same husband sees the young man make advances on his wife, then shrugs and passively walks away. What would you conclude? Clearly, such a husband doesn’t really love his wife!
When you think of God being jealous, think of a devoted husband who is passionately in love with his wife. God wants nothing to come between you and Him. As our Creator, He alone has the right to be the Lord of our lives. God is jealous for our affection, not because He is needy or insecure, but because He is passionate about our flourishing, which comes from being in a right relationship with Him.
False gods — such as fame, power, lust, or money — are persistently trying to steal our hearts away. Not only do these counterfeit gods threaten our relationship with the one true God, they only hurt us in the long run. In such cases, God indeed grows angry, but the heat of His anger displays the vibrancy of His love for us. Whenever we give something else our ultimate devotion, we are falling prey to idolatry. God made us for Himself, so nothing else will truly satisfy our longings like He will. “Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3). As the all-glorious, all-satisfying God, He and He alone has every right to command our allegiance to Him.
I would want Oprah to understand that, yes, God is a “jealous God” (Exodus 20:5), but He’s jealous for us in all the right ways. We ought to thank God that He is the kind of God who is incredibly passionate about His relationship with us.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
Have you ever found yourself venting to God? I know I have. For some, it’s like a knee-jerk reaction: “Why God?” For others, it can take the form of a long, tear-filled prayer. Although I typically think of myself as a positive person, I can feel discouraged for a number of reasons. I can vent to God when those I have been praying for haven’t been healed or when something I’ve eagerly anticipated doesn’t happen as expected.
Perhaps you know that sinking feeling I’m talking about. We’ve all had those days where everything seems to go sideways. I remember one day last year where a series of unfortunate events piled up on one day. It started with me opening up an unexpected bill in the morning. On the way to work, I spilled coffee on my shirt. Later, a client got angry with me for a mistake I made. While at work, my wife Whitney called to say that our son Weston’s fever was spiking. After grabbing medicine, I had to move my car, but then discovered a parking ticket on my windshield. On top of all that, when I got home I stubbed my toe so badly it turned a nasty shade of purple. Needless to say, I earned a few gray hairs that day.
To borrow the title of a famous children’s book, it was just a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” But, of course, in retrospect, it wasn’t really that terrible. I’m sure there were a lot of good things that happened to me that day, too, but I let the not-so-good things overshadow them. It’s crazy how quickly a day of sunshine can flip into a day of downpours, isn’t it?
Just flipping on the news for five minutes can dishearten us. Pointless violence, disease, and hatred run rampant across our world every day. Evil often appears to be winning the day. However … that’s not the whole story. When the tide of discouragement rolls in, what we most need is a fresh word from the “God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
How Long, O Lord?
A man named Habakkuk knew what discouragement felt like. Habakkuk was a prophet of God roughly 2,600 years ago. He looked around at the horrendous evil and injustice in his culture with great dismay. “Why aren’t you doing anything, God?” Habakkuk wailed. “Why don’t you care about what’s happening down here?” Maybe you can relate to Habakkuk. He begins his book in the Bible by trotting out a list of complaints.
“How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:2-4)
The same objections ring down through the centuries to today. “How long, O Lord?” Do those words ever find a place on your lips or in your mind? For many of us, those words can surface instinctively. It can happen when your friend with cancer doesn’t heal. It can happen when you get the rejection letter. It can happen when a man you looked up to has a moral failure.
Why does God seem so absent during these dark times? Many have called this dilemma “the problem of evil” or “the problem of pain.” The more we squarely face the reality of evil, the more we need a solid hope to hang on to before the wave of despair sweeps us away.
Here’s the incredible thing: God responded to Habakkuk’s complaint with a word of hope. God didn’t chastise Habakkuk for voicing his discouragement. Instead, God agreed with Habakkuk that the injustice was intolerable. In fact, God hates injustice! Here’s how God responded:
“Look at the nations and watch — and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told” (Habakkuk 1:5). The Lord goes on to say that He is about to use the Babylonians to bring swift judgment on the treacherous people of Judah.
This is essentially the same response He gives to us today. If you are disheartened by the violence taking place in the world today — take heart! Aslan is on the move. God hasn’t abandoned us. He is still among His people. “If you passionately long to see justice restored,” God says, “know that I care about it even more.”
Interestingly, Habakkuk is still upset. After all, God plans to use an even more wicked nation — Babylon — to accomplish His good judgment of Judah. “Aren’t You the eternally holy God?” Habakkuk asks. “So how can You have anything do with wicked Babylon” (see 1:12-2:1).
Justice Will Surely Come
Remarkably, this turns out to be even more reason for Habakkuk to take heart. Why? Because God’s use of evil Babylon to accomplish His judgment demonstrates God’s sovereign power over evil. This is good news, God says, because evil is not in fact the ultimate power in the universe, even though it may seem that way at times. Babylon is like a tool in His hand. Not only that, but Babylon will have to answer for her crimes, too.
We, like Habakkuk, may feel like God is moving too slowly. But God replies, “If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (2:3).
Then God reminds Habakkuk of something else. He doesn’t just deal with evil by using the sledgehammer of justice. He also uses the healing balm of grace. That’s good news for us who are discouraged not only by the evil “out there” in the world, but also by the evil residing in our own hearts.
In the wise words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”[1]
The good news is that through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, God found a way to deal with that evil without destroying us. The judgment for our sin landed, not on us, but on our King. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). Through trusting in that sacrifice, we are “healed.” Our moral crimes and misdemeanors are expunged from our record and totally removed from us. God tells Habakkuk justice is surely coming, “but the righteous shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). Through faith in Jesus, God renders us righteous and clean — all by sheer grace.
Whether by justice or by grace, God will deal with every trace of evil that exists in the world today. Keeping this truth close to our hearts will give us hope-filled confidence to face another day.
[1] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (New York: Collins, 1974), 17.
“A person’s days are determined; you have
decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” (Job 14:5, NIV)
What are you waiting for? I frequently find myself wishing things were
happening faster. Maybe it’s because I’m naturally an impatient person, or
maybe it’s because I love the thrill of seeing things get done. Either way, I
often feel that one of the greatest struggles in life is living in the tension
of waiting.
So what are you waiting for? A new job? A new house? A new relationship? A
call from your doctor? Take inventory of your heart for a moment. Have you ever
noticed how the other highway lane or the other grocery line always seems to be
moving faster than the one you’re in? What tends to happen to you when you feel
like something you’re waiting for is taking too long? Do you grow agitated by
your circumstances? Do people start to rub you the wrong way?
It’s very easy to be short with others when life seems to be stuck at a red light. It gets worse when others seem to be finding or achieving the very things for which you are most longing. It’s as if you’ve been stuck in the back of the line for a ride at Disneyland, and you keep watching one person after another jump ahead of you with their fast pass. You begin to wonder, Where’s my fast pass in life?
It can be discouraging to the point of debilitating when you live in a
fast-paced world, yet seem to be stuck in slow motion. We think, Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to have a
fast-forward button for life? We all know what it’s like to experience the
unwelcome tension of waiting. Millennials like myself probably struggle with
this even more than former generations. After all, we are enmeshed in the world
of fast food, next-day delivery, and real-time news alerts. Every bit of
information we need is merely a click away. Our culture has programmed us to view
waiting as an unpleasant part of life. When we do have to wait for something,
we see it as nothing but an inconvenient obstacle to our life plans.
But what if waiting is part of
the plan? What if God intends to do something in us while we wait that could
not otherwise happen? This is where a healthy view of God’s sovereignty can be
indescribably freeing. “My times are in Your hand” (Psalm 31:15).
Scripture offers this promise to our restless hearts: “And we know that for
those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called
according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Read that promise again, only slower. The
first thing we need to see is that God is working out “all things” for the good
of His beloved children. “All things” has to include even the tiniest details
in life. How we choose to respond to waiting reflects our confidence in God’s
sovereign goodness and wisdom in that moment. I intentionally say we choose how we respond, because while we
cannot always change our circumstances, we can
always change our attitude (Philippians 2:14).
Over a dozen passages in the Bible talk about waiting on or for the Lord. To wait for the Lord is “to put your hope
in the Lord with great anticipation.”
“Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for
the LORD!” (Psalm 27:14)
“For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall
inherit the land.” (Psalm 37:9)
“Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the LORD, and He will deliver
you.” (Proverbs 20:22)
“…but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall
mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk
and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
The oft-repeated cliché “Good things come to those who wait” could be
amended to “Great things come to those who wait on the Lord.” But let’s be
careful not to reduce waiting on the Lord
to some version of hyper spiritualized laziness. It is an act of faith, whereby
we live in the present in full reliance on the One who holds the future. It’s
not an excuse for passivity. Followers of Christ are to be passionately
involved in loving service in the midst of the waiting (Romans 12:6-13). “Never
be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically” (Romans 12:11,
NLT).
While the late Tom Petty was talking about his romantic relationship, the
chorus from his song “The Waiting is the Hardest Part” can well apply to our
situation: “You take it on faith, you take it to the heart/ The waiting is the
hardest part.”
We see many examples in Scripture of those who had to wait a long time for
their prayers to be answered. The woman with a bleeding problem had to wait
twelve long years for healing (Luke 8:43-48). Despite their faithfulness and
courage, Joshua and Caleb had to wait 40 years to enter the Promised Land (Deuteronomy
2:7; Joshua 5:6). Abraham and Sarah had to wait until they were 100 and 90 to
have children (Genesis 21:5-7). The lame man at the Pool of Bethesda waited 38
years before God healed him (John 5:5-9).
In each of these cases, God was doing something in those who were waiting
while they waited. Think of it. The man of John 9 who had been blind from birth
had the unspeakable privilege of not only being healed by Christ but coming to
know Jesus as Messiah and Savior (John 9:35-39). In the words of Jesus, all
those years of blindness “happened so the power of God could be seen in him”
(John 9:3).
Treasure this truth: God is never idle. He is doing something in and through you today to reveal His power in you tomorrow. He is always at work in the waiting.
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so
that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him,
because He cares for you.” (1 Peter
5:6-7)
Not long ago, I was teaching a small group on the importance of seeing God as supremely glorious. I pulled out a “fun size” Snickers bar. I said, “This represents how many of us are tempted to view God. He’s handy when we are in a pinch, makes us feel good, and always strives to bless us — when he can. The problem with this ‘fun size’ view of God is that, because this god is small, he’s also incapable of handling all the problems of this world. You see, this ‘fun size’ god would like to do something about suffering and your personal struggles, but ultimately he can’t. He’s trying his best, but it’s a challenge to keep all the plates spinning.”
I then pulled out a “king size” Snickers bar. “This represents the true God,” I said, “who is King over all His creation. Nothing is too difficult for this God, because He truly is in control. This sovereign and unlimited God is on the throne, and He alone can be trusted with everything we are going through. This is the right view of God that we need to get.” After a few people nodded their heads, someone pointed at the king size bar. “You going to eat that?”
According
to the Bible, much of our anxiety and other stress-related feelings are rooted
in a small view of God. Only a great and awesome God can truly calm our fears. “Do
not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your
God. I will strengthen you; surely, I will help you. Surely I will uphold you
with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). Such a statement is comforting,
but only if spoken by a God who reigns.
Here
is what Peter says: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God
so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him,
because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). Peter tells us what to do with our
anxieties — throw them all on God! But he doesn’t just tell us what to do with our anxiety, but also
both how and why.
This
is too important to miss when we read this passage. God is bigger than your circumstances. He is bigger than your
worries. He is bigger than all of your struggles in life, no matter how massive
they may seem right now. God is more powerful, more glorious, and more fearsome
than anything that could possibly scare you right now. Let that truth soak into
your heart: God is immense.
All of heaven is flooded with the majesty of His greatness. That is why Peter tells us to submit to the “mighty hand of God” (1 Peter 5:6). The most massive, blazing hot star out there in the night sky does not even come close to approximating the awesome power of God’s hand. According to astronomers, the largest known star in the universe goes by the name “UY Scuti,” a hypergiant boasting a radius 1,700 times the size of our own sun.[1] It is hard for us to comprehend how much light and energy must emit from such a massive star like UY Scuti. Yet even the ginormous Scuti cannot hold a candle to the power of God’s little finger. Consider what God Himself says about His “mighty hand”: “It was My hand that laid the foundations of the earth, My right hand that spread out the heavens above. When I call out the stars, they all appear in order” (Isaiah 48:13). That is the first point Peter wants us to get.
Photo Courtesy of Our Planet
So much of our worries, anxieties, and stress-induced thoughts about what we are going through stems from having a diminished view of God. You might be thinking, Really? That tightness in my chest and high blood pressure I get can have something to do with the way I view God? Yes, it can. Here’s why.
When you have a “fun size” view of God, you will inevitably convince yourself that He cannot handle the biggest, most heart-pounding things in your life. You know the things I am referring to: financial concerns, family struggles, that long battle to find a good job, kids that won’t stop throwing fits, health issues, difficult people, and that lurking temptation that won’t leave you alone. These struggles are real.
We
often adopt a “fun size” view of God, because on the surface a small God makes
sense to us. Although we don’t verbalize it, we can think, Isn’t God just like me, only a little bigger, smarter and more
powerful? That kind of God is manageable, understandable, and still
available to help us out when we are in a pinch. So, we could say he is useful. But such a deity does not
command our worship. As Evelyn Underhill wrote, “A god small enough to be
understood is not big enough to be worshipped.” A god who is wringing his hands
and constantly struggling to get a handle on a world spinning out of his
control cannot calm our fears. Such a god is just as anxious as we are — if
not, more so because there is more for him to worry about! More importantly,
such a deity is not the God of
Scripture.
It may be that you do not actively think about God as small and weak. But the question is: Do your responses to difficulties reflect a belief in a small god or God Almighty?
For the Israelites to catch a small glimpse of “the glory of the LORD” was like looking into “a devouring fire” on top of a great mountain (Exodus 24:17). This was no small brush fire. When this glorious God merely touched the mountain with the tip of His finger, smoke completely enveloped Mount Sinai. “The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln, and the whole mountain shook violently” (Exodus 19:18, NLT).
Knowing we are accountable to such a God deflates our arrogance and cuts us down to size. When you catch a vision of who God truly is in all His glory, you are less inclined to boast of your accomplishments. You are less likely to see yourself as a spiritual giant, but instead you will recognize how you have dishonored such a God in countless ways. In those moments, His grace and forgiveness will never taste so sweet. It is only when you see and confess the depths of your sin that you can see and experience the heights of His love. Only the humble can praise Him as the “God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10). Your heart will sing, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). In other words, if your sin and God’s grace were to go toe-to-toe, God’s grace would win with a triumphant knockout every time.
That is why Peter says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:6). Humility is a big deal in this passage. Right before this statement, Peter writes, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (v. 5).
All through Scripture, we see that God utterly hates the foolish, self-exalting
pride of humanity. “And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty
pride of men shall be brought low, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that
day” (Isaiah 2:17). Those who refuse to acknowledge they owe everything to God
— including their very lives — will one day be humbled.
J. D. Greear writes, “The real God is not a god who simply completes us and
makes us feel sentimental during worship; he is a God who humbles us and
transforms us from the inside out. When you really see him, you’ll either love
him or hate him. The one thing you will not be is bored.”[2]
You may be thinking, What does all this have to do with anxiety? Wouldn’t a more immense view of God only give me more anxiety? No, and here is why: “God… gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). We need this glorious vision of God to humble us, because it is only from our knees that we will be able to give Him all our anxious thoughts. Peter makes this connection clear: “Humble yourselves… casting all your anxieties on Him” (v. 7).
Only when you fear God more than your circumstances are you able to look to Him as your only hope. It is in handing over all those anxious thoughts that plague your mind at night to this immense God of all grace that you experience relief. Hold nothing back. Cast “all your anxieties on Him.” Lastly, Peter says to throw all your anxieties into His hands, “because He cares for you” (v. 7b). Don’t miss the great importance of this little statement.
If you are a follower of the risen Lord, then you not only have a Savior but also a Father. This Father has laid claim to you. You are his beloved child. In the darkest hour, He will not let you go. Just as an earthly father longs to calm and comfort his children when they awake from a nightmare in the darkness of night, so our heavenly Father loves to relieve His children of anxious, worrisome, and fearful thoughts. All He asks is that you bring them to Him. All of them. Whatever is weighing heavily on your mind, tell Him about it and admit they are too big for you. Don’t give in to pride and tell yourself you can handle them on your own. Hurl them into your Father’s strong hands, because only He can bear them.
So, here’s a question I leave with you: What is something you are struggling to give over to God? And lastly: Knowing that God is a loving Father who can handle everything you could possibly throw at Him, what is keeping you from handing it over?
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 5:10-11).
“When I consider your
heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set
in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you
care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned
them with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:3-5, NIV)
Have you ever reflected on the purpose of your existence?
Have you ever sensed deep within your bones that this short life cannot
possibly be all there is — that there must be something more?
Where did we come from? Are humans merely biological
machines, or is there something more to us? Why is there something rather than
nothing?
Throughout the centuries, humanity has asked these perennial
questions related to our origins. We are persistently curious about where we
came from. What got this whole thing
going anyway? It is for this reason that inquisitive children ask their
parents, “Where do babies come from?” Atheists and theists alike agree that our
meaning is rooted in our origins. Our past is the key to our future.
Having said that, I fear that our culture often discourages honest reflection on the deeper purpose of life. The vast majority of Hollywood scripts and commercial advertisements suggest that true happiness and pleasure is found in the here and now. It is not just our culture, however. Something in us prefers immediate gratification to thoughtful reflection. We seem hesitant to consider what may lie beyond the horizon of our material world. Nevertheless, despite our endless pursuits, there remains the nagging sense that we were made for something transcendent.
In the words of A. W. Tozer, “The yearning to know what
cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the
Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth
unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster
theologians call the fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to
its Source.”[1]
Cosmically
Irrelevant?
Consider the alternative: “Man is the result of a
purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.”[2]
Now really, can anyone actually believe this? Can anyone truly live as if they
are the result of a mindless, purposeless, and accidental process? Harvard
professor James Wood writes of an atheist friend who at times awakes in the
middle of the night with a piercing anxiety:
“How can it be that this world is the result of an
accidental big bang? How could there be no design, no metaphysical purpose? Can
it be that every life — beginning with my own, my husband’s, my child’s, and
spreading outward — is cosmically irrelevant?”[3]
Even for the atheist, this bleak picture of existence is a tough
pill to swallow. For life to be utterly devoid of meaning seems impossible. I’m
reminded of a line from the film On the Waterfront,
spoken by Marlon Brando’s character, Terry Malloy. Terry longs to be a prizefighter,
but one obstacle after another prevents him from achieving his dream. He tells
his brother, “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody,
instead of a bum, which is what I am.” We all want to be somebody in this world.
We want to matter. Yet, the atheistic worldview mocks the whole human race for being
caught in some grand delusion.
When nearing his death, Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs said, “I’m about fifty-fifty on believing in God… For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye… It’s strange to think that you accumulate all this experience, and maybe a little wisdom, and it just goes away. So I really want to believe that something survives, that maybe your consciousness endures.”[4]
Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia
Most of my friends know that I am an avid Seattle Seahawks fan. My friends and I have joked about how the four preseason games that precede the regular NFL season are a waste of time to watch. After all, many of the stars play for only a small portion of each preseason game and the wins and losses have no bearing on the regular season and postseason. Even when aired on national television, the fact that these games are merely preseason seems to suck all of the magic and drama right out of the stadium.
Now think about this: if you really are the accidental byproduct of nature and you are ultimately headed for non-existence, then it is not just NFL preseason games that are meaningless. Everything is ultimately meaningless. Whenever we push the transcendent out of our thinking, life becomes, in the words of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” If there is no God, we have no basis for ultimate meaning in life, and we are compelled to agree with Shakespeare’s Macbeth that life “is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Without God,
we have no explanation for how the universe came to be, and we have no reason
to think our lives have more value than the bug squished against your
windshield.
On the other hand, what if the Bible got it right, and we
are the creation of an all-wise and beneficent Creator who molded us and
designed us with a purpose, namely, to know Him?
How you answer the question of origins has profound
implications for what it means to be human and for understanding our ultimate destiny.
Ancient Wisdom for
Today
To solve this perplexing enigma, we need to return to the ancient wisdom of Genesis, the biblical book of beginnings. However, before we consider the sacred text, I think it is important to consider some of the biases that inevitably effect the way we read Genesis.
Despite the oft-repeated motif that science and religion are
forever at war, this view is misguided for several reasons. Everyone comes to
the evidence of nature with certain presuppositions, and these presuppositions
color our interpretation. Science is based on observations of natural processes
today, but this does not explain the origin
of those natural processes.
Metaphysical naturalism is the worldview that nature is all
there is. Carl Sagan articulated this view when he famously began his
television series Cosmos with the
line, “The cosmos is all there is, or has been, or will be.”
In contrast to this
nature-is-all-there-is perspective, Scripture begins with the radical claim “In
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).
In response to all false worldviews
which would have nature be eternal or be god itself, the Bible claims that the
cosmos had an absolute beginning and that God created it, and therefore stands
outside and over it. Therefore, God — not nature — is the eternally
self-existent ultimate reality.
“Before the
mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are
God.” (Psalm 90:2, my emphasis)
“To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing.” (Isaiah 40:25-26)
M31 Spiral Galaxy. Photo Courtesy of Jason Ware, NASA
Imago Dei
Genesis not only tells us how God created the universe in
general, but also how He created the first human beings. After creating all the
other creatures, great and small, God speaks within His own Trinitarian
council, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may
rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and
all the wild animals, and over all creatures that move along the ground”
(Genesis 1:26). The Bible is very clear that the first humans did not descend
from apelike creatures. [5]
Instead, God directly fashioned them and breathed life into their nostrils (see
Genesis 2:7, 21-22).
In creating human beings, God’s purpose was to have a creature uniquely designed to image — or reflect — His character and nature in a way no other creature could. Unlike all the animals, we alone have the ability to reason and reflect on our own existence. All it takes is one visit to the zoo to witness the striking differences between a human being and every other creature. You will never find a chimpanzee writing a sonnet, a dolphin studying algebra, or an orangutan making laws by which his fellow apes should live. Human beings alone are morally accountable to God. We all know this intuitively. After all, no one ever charges the lion who preys on a zebra with murder.
Bearing God’s image has many implications. Because God is
personal, we are personal. Thus, we can relate to one another with language.
And, I would argue, we experience the fullness of our humanity when we have
learned to love as God loves.
Ostensibly, we are but specks in a vast and uncharted universe, and yet the Bible everywhere affirms humanity’s sacred value. There is even a strange dignity to us because God created us to “rule” (Hebrew, radah רָדָה, v. 26). As God’s image bearers, we are called to represent God’s good and loving rule over His world. Lastly, the Imago Dei (image of God) means that we all have a profound sense of morality deeply embedded in our soul. Intuitively, we know that it is evil to violate another human being, and that we all possess intrinsic worth.
This is why the Deist Thomas Jefferson could pen the
following words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be
self-evident, that all Men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” All
of this makes sense in light of the fact that we have been “crowned… with glory
and honor” (Psalm 8:5).
Some time ago, my friend Matt and I were in conversation with a university student who identified herself as an atheist. We’ll call her Madison. [6] We discussed with Madison the evidence for and against God.[7] “If there is no God, then you and I have no more intrinsic worth than a bug, since we are all here by accident,” I pointed out. She shrugged. “I’m okay with being a bug.” Later on, in a moment of transparency, Madison gave one reason for doubting the existence of a good God: such a God had apparently allowed men in her life to mistreat her. I expressed sincere sorrow over what they had done and affirmed her intuition that what these men had done really was evil. I also told her that their sinful actions grieved the heart of God, too (see Genesis 6:5-6; Isaiah 63:10). “Madison, I don’t think you are just a bug. You were made by a God who loves you more than you know. And no one should ever treat you as if you were a bug.”
Modern atheists find themselves in a conundrum. They want to
deny God, but they are also innately aware their lives have value — something only
possible with a sovereign Creator.
The Inner Clue of
Meaning
Genesis also explains why God is our authority: He authored us. We belong to God by His
divine Creator’s rights. When an author writes a book, she owns that book and
thus it bears her name. In the same way, a musician has rights over the song he
composed. We have laws about trademarks, copyrights, and patents because
we recognize that the maker has ownership over what he has made. Because we
belong to God, we are accountable to Him.
When the religious leaders questioned Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar, He asked to see an imperial coin. “Whose image and inscription are on it?” Jesus asked. The men, who were really just seeking grounds to accuse Jesus of insurrection, replied, “Caesar’s.” With a twinkle in His eye, Jesus responded, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:15-22). What was Jesus’ point? That which bears the image of the Creator — a human being — belongs to the Creator.
This is the foundation for what makes you valuable. It is what gives your life infinite purpose. You were made by God… for God. The gospel of Jesus Christ unlocks the mystery of your existence, because it explains you to yourself. Our yearning for something more comes down to this: Having a relationship with God is what life is all about. The ultimate potential you crave for is bound up in knowing Him.
According to the Bible, when our first parents, Adam and Eve, chose to go their own way and defied His authority over them, this broke that priceless intimacy with the God of infinite love. Jesus Christ, the God who came to earth and clothed Himself with human flesh, makes reconciliation possible. Death is the penalty for sin, but God wanted to save us from what we justly deserved (Romans 6:23). Therefore, God resolved to send His own Son to die in our place. In order to do that, the Son of God needed to become human. In coming to save those who bear the image of God, Jesus came as the supreme “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).
The Bible says that Jesus, the God-man, “bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” because they separated us from our Creator (1 Peter 2:24). “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). When we repent of our sin and trust in Christ’s saving death and death-conquering resurrection, God restores us to the fellowship with Him we were originally created for. Meaning, as it turns out, is not some trick of the mind or useless fiction. It is the inner clue pointing you back to the Source from which you came.
[1] A.
W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (Indo-European
Publishing, 2018), 9.
[2] George
Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution,
revised edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 345.
[3]
James Wood, “Is That All There Is? Secularism and Its Discontents,” New Yorker, August 14, 2011.
[4]
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 571.
[5]
More and more fossil and DNA evidence supports this divergence between the
great apes and human beings. See Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1992, rev. ed.,
2007); Jon Cohen, “Relative Differences: The Myth of 1%,” Science 316:1836, 2007.; Jeffrey Tomkins and Jerry Bergman,
“Genomic monkey business — estimates of nearly identical human-chimp DNA
similarly re-evaluated using omitted data,” Journal
of Creation 26(1):94-100, 2012, or online at https://creation.com/human-chimp-dna-similarity-re-evaluated.
Astronomer Copernicus depicted in Conversations with God, 1873, by Matejko, Wikipedia
Many atheist philosophers and scientists will declare reason and faith are forever locked in a battle for the minds of men. In his book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Faith Are Incompatible, Jerry Coyne asserts that there is no evidence “for anything divine.”[1] Therefore, he contends, genuine science must be naturalistic and exclude any appeals to a theistic explanation. This is ironic because Coyne is open to the multiverse theory,[2] an idea that is supported by absolutely no evidence. He also believes that matter arose from non-matter and life arose from non-life. These are counter-intuitive ideas, considering every form of life we see today came from preexisting forms of life. Besides all this, it is simply unreasonable to pit science and reason against religion and faith when the founders of modern science believed in God’s existence.
In fact, many prominent scientists in the 16th and 17th centuries were unabashedly Christian by conviction and firmly committed to biblical authority. These include Robert Hooke (1635-1703), William Harvey (1578-1657), who discovered the way blood circulates throughout the body, Christian Huygens (1629-1695), Tycho Brahe (1545-1601), and Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543). It’s a little known fact that Copernicus not only proposed the heliocentric solar system but also wrote a commentary on the book of Genesis.[3] And what about Isaac Newton (1643-1727), the so-called “father of modern science”? He wrote, “I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.”[4] Somehow I don’t think Newton would agree that faith is the archenemy of fact. Many more names could be added to this list. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), who discovered the laws of planetary motion, wrote, “The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics.”[5]
Even
Galileo, whom many have tried to pit against Christianity, was in fact a
Bible-believing Christian. His conflict with the Church was more a result of
the Church’s irresponsible adherence to Aristotle’s view of the universe. It
had nothing to do with the truthfulness of Christianity or even whether the
Bible was the Word of God. Henry Morris writes, “Even though Galileo
(1564-1642), for example, was officially censured for his heliocentric
teachings by the Church, he himself believed the Bible and that it supported
his views.”[6]
John
Lennox argues that “there is strong evidence that the biblical worldview was
intimately involved in the meteoric rise of science in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.”[7] As
C. S. Lewis wrote, “Men became scientific because they expected law in nature
and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.”[8]
Historians unanimously agree that modern science chiefly arose in the Christian culture of Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. But why did it emerge in that specific context and nowhere else? Rodney Stark argues that it has everything to do with Christianity’s inherent rationality and recognition that a rational God has created an orderly universe, upheld through various natural laws. The universe is not eternal, but the remarkable creation of God. Contrary to what many pagan cultures have believed, nature is not too holy to analyze and investigate. Contrary to what many Eastern religions hold, nature is not an illusion but has an objective reality that we can discover. Furthermore, nature is subject to rational inquiry and scientific investigation because it is the result of a divine Mind. Many have bought into the whole idea that prior to the irreligious Renaissance, everyone lived in the so-called “Dark Ages” of medieval religion. Stark vehemently disagrees: “… the Dark Ages is a hoax originated by antireligious, eighteenth-century intellectuals who were determined to assert the cultural superiority of their own time.”[9] In other words, the whole notion of there ever being “the Dark Ages” has more to do with the imagination and hubris of intellectual elitists in the 18th century than a true description of Europe during that era in history.
Many historians
have similarly argued that modern science required certain basic assumptions
that only a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world could provide. For
example, according to the Bible, God in Christ “upholds the universe by the
word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). Therefore, the universe exhibits regularity
and structure, so that observations made today still apply tomorrow. Only an
orderly universe can be subject to experimentation and documentation.
The fact that nature also fits so perfectly with mathematical description is a feature easily overlooked, but points to it being the result of a Mind, not random chaos. Allan Sandage, known as the father of modern astronomy and discoverer of quasars does not mask the wonder he feels as a scientist: “I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence — why is there something rather than nothing.”[10]
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Even Albert Einstein, whom many atheists incorrectly claim as their own, confessed that a godless universe could not account for the universe’s astonishing order and complexity. When asked if he believed in God, Einstein responded:
“I’m not an atheist. The problem
involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little
child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child
knows someone must have written these books. It does not know how. It does not
understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a
mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is.
That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being
toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws
but only dimly understand these laws.”[11]
The very fact that we human beings can study and grasp something of nature’s order and complexity cries out for an explanation, too. If we are merely the result of Darwinian evolution, then our brains are the product of chance collisions of atoms. The most we could say is that our brains have evolved according to our species need for survival. But this in no way means that our brains are reliable for getting at the truth. In fact, if our brains really have been fashioned by unguided natural processes, we have every reason to doubt our rational faculties! In the words of atheist John Gray, “Modern humanism is the faith that through science humankind can know the truth and so be free. But if Darwin’s theory of natural selection is true this is impossible. The human mind serves evolutionary success, not truth.”[12] In the end, atheism undercuts itself. The consistent Darwinist must saw off the very branch he is sitting on.
On
the other hand, if there is a God and He designed us to be rational creatures who reflect His rational nature, we have every
reason to think we can know truth.
Furthermore,
Genesis states, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”
(Genesis 1:1). Since God created nature, it is good, but nature is not God, as pantheistic religions teach.
Therefore, it is not too sacred to study and explore. In fact, many scientists
have been creationists who have been inspired in their research by a literal
interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis.[13]
Despite how often we hear it repeated that science and faith are locked in mortal combat, the truth is that the modern scientific enterprise could not have even got off the ground were it not for the firm conviction in a God of reason and order. The history behind the origins of modern science is just one more testimony to the astonishing worldwide impact of that one solitary figure from Nazareth.
[1] Jerry Coyne, Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible (New
York: Viking Press, 2015), xiii.
[2] The multiverse theory suggests
that the best explanation for the incredible fine-tuning and life-sustaining
properties of our universe is that there are a vast number of universes, and
ours just happened to win the lottery when it comes to having the necessary
physical constants.
[3] Henry M. Morris, Men of Science, Men of God (Green
Forest, AR: Master Books, 1982, 1988, 2012), 21, 22.
[4] J. H. Tiner, Isaac Newton—Inventor, Scientist and Teacher (Milford, MI: Mott
Media, 1975).
[5] Johannes Kepler, Defundamentals Astrologiae Certioribus,
Thesis 20 (1601).
[8] C.
S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (London:
Fontana, 1947), 110.
[9] Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason (New York: Random House, 2005), 35.
[10] Allan Sandage, “Sizing up the
Cosmos: An Astronomer’s Quest,” (New York
Times, 12 March 1991), B9.
[11] Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 386.
[12] John Gray, Straw Dogs
(London: Granta Books, 2002), 26.
[13] For example, Carolus Linnaeus
(1707-1778), the “father of taxonomy,” drew his inspiration to classify the
various animal species from the account of Genesis 2 where Adam names the
animals God brings him. His contemporaries even dubbed him a “Second Adam.” See
Heather Malone, “The Second Adam: Linnaeus and His Systema Naturae” (Philosophy
of Reason, 13 May 2014) or http://philosophyofreason.com/authors/the-second-adam-linnaeus-and-his-systema-naturae
Lamp and Light 