Wednesday 21 October 2009

Out of nothing God created everything

Introduction
Out of nothing God created everything; God who is completely separate from creation, space and time, transcendent, became immanent in creation, creating and entering into space and time.


From the beginning God is transcendent and in creating he becomes immanent. God speaks, the Spirit hovers over the void at the beginning and He walks in the garden on its completion, revealing to us, in the light of the Gospel, God as Trinity; three Persons, One God. This is an essential mystery of God and a foundation of our understanding of God as he has revealed himself in the scriptures and through nature.


God is immanent and God is transcendent, One God in being, majesty and power. To our minds there appears a discontinuity in how we need to understand God, to make sense of our experience of God, who God is to us and how he responds to us, and God’s transcendent being. And yet there is One God undivided, continuous in all his attributes.


The concept of continuity and discontinuity is one I want to explore, how it helps us understand the involvement of a transcendent God in creation, how it works its way out in creation and in our lives and how it helps us understand scripture and engage with science.


The initial spur for writing is, having read Robert John Russell’s paper, Reflections on Eschatology and Scientific Cosmology: from Conflict to Interaction. I found myself excited by the opening out of the idea, from a physicists point of view, that the fact of Jesus’ return might have an observable impact on creation and how it works.
(http://www.ctinquiry.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_John_Russell ).


At the end of his reflections Russell says, “…nature might have a “multiple temporality” with the eschatological “future” woven into and between the ordinary “future””. Eschatology is the study of end times and temporality refers to the passage of time. He describes the return of Christ as being “proleptically present”, meaning anticipated as if already present.


So he is saying that not only is the physical process involved in the end times anticipated in the physical facts of Jesus resurrection but also in the whole of the history of life. He is seeking to explore if the physical nature of the new creation is anticipated in its existing structure and what laws will continue to operate in the new creation.


What struck me was the repeating of an idea I first heard from my son that: wouldn’t every involvement of a transcendent God in creation resound throughout every moment in time and be woven into its fabric, so that just as the salvation offered by the cross is effective throughout time, would this not also be true of the judgement of Adam and as Russell also suggests, the return of Jesus.


Russell spends some time discussing the idea of the continuity and discontinuity of Christ in his Kenosis, his self limiting and emptying of himself in the incarnation, so that he is fully man and fully God and the same person in heaven as he was on Earth yet different in form. The Word becomes flesh without division in substance.


He argues that the continuity and discontinuity in the physical body of Christ at his resurrection gives us a basis for considering the continuities and discontinuities at the renewal of creation when Christ returns. The old is rolled up in the new in the same way as the incarnate Christ is the eternal Word and the risen Christ; one in the same person, but different within an immutable Godhead. Philippians 2:5-7 .


He is also suggesting that just as Christ took upon himself the sins of the world, the new creation will redeem nature from the evil in this present creation. This can be supported in scripture which describes creation as groaning in anticipation of Christ’s return. Romans 8:18-25 (ESV)
Russell states of the end times
...the bodily resurrection of Jesus directs us towards a much more fundamental view: the radical transformation of the background conditions of space, time, matter and causality, and with this, a permanent change in at least most of the present laws of nature.


For Russell, the resurrection is not a myth but the Fall from grace of man and the creation is. He does not look for a radical transformation at the Fall.


For Russell his position is that nature is evil and predisposed to sin as is evidenced in the wasteful and destructive processes of evolution and cosmology and so he rejects the Fall as an event. He sees it as a property of creation.


I think he is wrong, and would extend his concept of an eschatological discontinuity to include a discontinuity at the Fall which I believe is as radical an event within creation as the return of Christ.


Continuity and discontinuity
The idea of discontinuity and continuity in created life can be traced to Aristotle who in De Anima II 3 states “… that plants possess a vegetative soul, responsible for reproduction and growth, animals a vegetative and a sensitive soul, responsible for mobility and sensation, and humans a vegetative, a sensitive, and a rational soul, capable of thought and reflection.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle#cite_note-30)



The idea is that although there is continuity in the created order, in creation there are discontinuities. These ideas lead to the scientific discipline of Taxonomy, challenged by modern genetics which emphasises continuity more than discontinuity as part of the dogma of evolution.
Aristotle voices a deep held human conviction that discontinuities are absolute so that a stone cannot be alive and that all states of life are bound. We might be made of inert chemicals but we possess life and this life force is common to all life, nevertheless plant life is not animal life. All animals are complex but there is a scale of sensitivity and sentience ultimately is expressed in the otherness of humanity. Aristotle’s ideas are rejected in modern science, believing that in time all is resolved into evolutionary paths from subatomic particles, to life, to man.


Russell brings the language of continuity and discontinuity into an engagement with future cosmology and theories about thermodynamics but not looking at living entities other than as properties of the fabric of space and time and the processes that happened within creation. He also believes in evolution which I hope to show is legitimate, but not necessarily right. I do this without accepting Russell’s omission of the Fall as an event.


My primary source of evidence is scripture. I am not well read in Aristotle or Philosophy and am not very schooled in Theology, Evolution or Cosmology. I hope I have a voice though.
I believe the moment of creation anticipates all that is to come but it is to be expected that the facts of creation can be legitimately interpreted otherwise.


Hebrews 11:1-3 (ESV) 1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.


The bible makes it clear that it is faith that reads the evidence and it has to be true that looking at the same facts, it is consistent but not necessarily acceptable to conclude that what we see is not the work of a creator.


I think that each word spoken by God at creation represented a speaking of a discontinuity in the continuity of creation as do the events of the Fall, incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, and that in creation each anticipates what is to come until the final judgement and coming of the new creation.


Man’s current best effort at explaining the cosmos is that what we see is the result of blind chance. It has to be acknowledged that this is a legitimate conclusion something that Russell points out.


As a digression, Russell intimates that amongst scientists deep questions are being asked about the nature of time. An example of this is that some of the eminent scientists engaged in work on the Hadron Collider seriously suggest that the bosons formed in the future by the collider are hindering their discovery by sabotaging the science.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html


And so even in science we can see how time is a matter for discussion.


Time
The bible does not give us the mandate to try to prove God through science or scripture. However having the faith that what God says in the bible is indeed true then we have the opportunity to have our eyes opened more as what God says informs what we see. We can view the Bible as God’s revelation over time and in our reading we read each passage in the knowledge of what has happened in Christ and what it says is to come. But those who wrote the Bible were not so apprised.


Beginning with Genesis, we read that God speaks out creation, first forming it then filling it. It is a picture seen from God’s perspective and tells us that God prepared a place that he might rest in communion with mankind. There is no reason given in the Genesis narrative why a transcendent God creates, communing with man and sustaining and providing for what he has made.


In God’s days we see that God speaks out distinctiveness within the creation and we can see how the origins of the discontinuities in creation, commented on by Aristotle, could have their origin in the days of creation. We also see the continuities as it is the soil that brings forth life and Adam is formed from dust.


It has to be true that God continues to sustain and provide for his creation with the words he spoke at the beginning but Genesis gives us no hint of processes nor a necessity for over interpretation and pseudo science; arguments about days seem fruitless and inappropriate when what we are discussing is clearly not a scientific document.


There is no reason not to see here a form of divinely ordained evolution. There is also no reason not to accept a plain six days of creation, nor for that matter to see the bible as a load of nonsense and that there is no Creator.


The bible requires us to have faith that God created and that he spoke out creation and his words form, sustain and provide for what is spoken.


Indeed in the quote from Romans 8 we can see how in our own salvation we are justified by the word of God’s grace, redeemed and regenerated and through our lives, sanctified. Our salvation I believe is secured on the day we believe and through the Holy Spirit we are sanctified, perfect yet perfected by the lives we live.


I see the forming of creation by the power of God’s word as a foundation for my hope of salvation spoken by the same God on the day I believed. What he has begun he will surely complete and it is complete from eternity, spoken by a transcendent God who speaks all things into being.


This God is love. To make sense of why a transcendent loving God created and became involved in creation, we need to leap forward in time to the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ. It is in the cross that creation finds meaning because in the cross we have the revelation of the transcended glory of God, a God who died to reconcile sinful men to him because he loves them and will renew not destroy creation. So creation anticipates Christ and salvation in scripture.


Ephesians 1:3-7 (ESV) 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,


I believe that it is for this reason that after the creation of man


Genesis 1:31 (ESV) …God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.


It was very good because God transcends time and in creation, in its fabric, is the hope of Christ which makes it very good;


1 Corinthians 15:21-23 (ESV) 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
God rested on the seventh day. The seventh day has no end marked in the narrative of Genesis and I believe this is because God dwells now with man, entering into a relationship with humanity. I believe we live in that day in the experience and anticipation of rest as we have faith and dwell in God and that day will never end until time ends. The idea of rest here is one of completeness; now the transcendent God can dwell in his creation, echoing the language of the completion of the temple (ESV study Bible).Genesis 2:1-3


Casting man out of the Garden of Eden broke this intimate communion but it was ever God’s intention and purpose for God to dwell with man; that the Word would become flesh. God manifested this rest in his people Israel, through the work of Abraham and Moses and the temple worship.


God is present now with man in Christ who sends the Spirit to his church where Father and Son dwell. The Church becomes the body whose purpose is fulfilled in the last days,


Revelation 21:1-3 (ESV) 1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.


That day is appointed for those God has chosen; those who are obedient to him. Hebrews 4:4-6
From this we get an inkling of how from the beginning the “rest” of the seventh day for man is through obedience to God in Christ and how in Christ, grace is glorified. God always acts to bring glory to himself.


We also see that in creation there are those chosen in Christ for eternity. This sovereign choosing is part of the mystery of God transcendent. Our experience of God is that he responds to our obedience and gives us the awful freedom of will that allows us to do the things he forbids. Our freedom is limited by this choice but God’s is totally free and perfect since he alone is good.


The Fall
To sin is the choice Adam made. This was an event in history, the Fall, and I believe God’s response to it, judgement, marks a discontinuity in the created order; “the radical transformation of the background conditions of space, time, matter and causality” .


Russell seems to consign Adam to mythology and sin as an inevitable consequence of the natural order. He refers to natural evil as a property of creation which in his reasoning becomes good in that it is finally wrapped up through the cross in the new creation.


I do not see that the biblical evidence supports this theodicy: it is not a convincing defence of God’s goodness in the face of evil for me, as it discards the revelation of scripture that it was through Adam that sin came into the creation and in my opinion to believe otherwise makes nonsense of scripture.


For example the reading of Romans 8 becomes quite meaningless. We are told


Romans 8:20-22 (ESV) 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
I think evil is something that opposes the will of God and is a result of an event in time. When God spoke creation into being, the sin of Adam, Christ the new Adam and the new creation, resounded and it was very good as creation’s fullness brings glory to God through grace and love fills all in all in the fullness of time.



I think the Fall, the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ and his return making all things new, fill time and are events in time, since it is the transcendent God who acts in historical time. So what God said was good, was good.


This conclusion may be the same as Russell’s but I believe the difference in reasoning is important. The God who subjected the creation did this in hope and yet because he was God this was a certainty in Christ; even in these verses we see the interaction between God involved in time and God transcendent. The use of the word “hope” here is interesting as it indicates a degree of freedom in the response the creation will bring, displaying the self limiting nature of God even in the certainty of the cross.


When Adam sinned, all creation fell subject to death and decay, as a judgement from God and it was at this juncture that natural evil; suffering and purposelessness, entered creation. God pronounced a curse on creation for the praise of his glorious grace in the hope that it would turn back to him.


For this reason, by whatever process God brought creation into being, up to the time of Adam, it was not evil, as its working and character were within the perfect will of God. It was the eating of the fruit that brought the knowledge of good and evil and ended the freedom Adam and the woman knew. We see this when we read of creation from man’s perspective. The pains of childbirth, which could refer to the anguish of bringing up children not necessarily their birthing, were a result of this curse and Paul likens these to the pains creation suffers, which could refer to the suffering created as a result of sickness, greed and disease, and we suffer together with the Cosmos in anticipation of the end of the age. Man is now a slave to sin and spiritually dead choosing to disobey God and not trust him. Genesis 2:16-17


As the whole of creation fell because of the disobedience of Adam, I believe there was a discontinuity as evil perverted the course of creation in time. In the Genesis narrative, God no longer speaks of creation as being good. His first ten words of creation I believe reveal God’s view of the whole of creation, transcendent, but as he sees sin it is not good. Now, jealousy and murder reign, and angels rebel. Pride and lust rule the peoples and things go from bad to worse as men worship the created rather than the creator and learn to fear gods who are not gods.


Disease, decay and futility characterise the altered creation; what was once good and pure becomes perverted because of the disobedience of Adam as his dominion becomes as lawless as him, subject to sin and death because he is subject to sin and death. His dominion of creation, a good gift God gave him, becomes a curse for creation. Therefore there will be continuity in creation between the pre and post Fall universe but a discontinuity marked with violence, greed, disease, futility and suffering as we see now.


As the transcendent God spoke into being the whole of creation, his ordering and filling of it I believe anticipated the evil of the sin of Adam from the beginning. I think the process of creation equipped creation to survive disease and avoid danger for example. I feel that this event in space and time resounds through all space and time and it is woven into the fabric of creation for the praise of God’s glorious grace, just as, in the fullness of time, the incarnation and crucifixion does and the second coming will. Creation before the Fall will be similar to that after but different in one way; evil and the powers and the principalities of the air will be active in perverting the course of history on a microscopic and cosmic scale.


I think there is no reason to believe that violence and decay were not always part of creation, since God is seen to act through violence and decay in first cursing and judging the world and when God acts it is not evil. The curse is a good work of God! Decay is a vital process as are the predator-prey, symbiosis and carrion processes; our distaste for it does not make it evil; the evil is not in the unclean process but in its character, its heart as Jesus declares.


Mark 7:21-23 (ESV) 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”


We look at creation with post Fall eyes and minds. Basically I believe the processes of creation will look the same throughout time but spiritual powers allowed to work within creation, through the sin of man, changed the nature or character of the processes within it to being futile so that sin, fear and death now reign because of what Jesus speaks of and because of suffering.


Surely on the day of creation God spoke the natural cycles and created life anticipating the Fall and Christ and since the Fall creation has groaned in anticipation of its restoration and deliverance from the futility that now besets it.


Conclusions
I suggest that each moment of God’s involvement in the world as told by the scriptures and experienced in our lives is proleptically present or immanent in all time; creation anticipated each, weaving them into the fabric of the garment of creation.


God transcendent speaks into being creation. In fact, as Russell suggests, the eschaton, the end of the ages, is initiated in God speaking, “Let there be light” and out of nothing everything is made; the act of creation holds its end in its beginning, as I believe does every moment of God’s involvement.


Romans 8:28 (ESV) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.


I feel this position not only offers Christians hope in a world full of futility but a point of interaction with scientific truth, providing a confident position from which to present a credible scriptural theodicy that includes the truth of judgement and the glories of God’s grace.


I do not share Russell’s hope that it will provide avenues of scientific investigation. It is key that this way of seeing is a matter of faith in God and trusting in his goodness and grace and is not contingent on any scientific investigation. Without God there are no discontinuities, which is what scientists report. Our response still is to believe in Jesus and receive salvation by faith and by faith alone, safe in the knowledge that “all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”


Could it be that we see things otherwise because we are acting out the fulfilment of the curse of the tree of Eden and underestimating the need for the freedom offered by the tree of the crucifixion? Blinded by our pride in judging good and evil, we miss the revelation of faith. Freedom from the tyranny of evil brought by the death of the One, Christ, who died cursed on a tree, and rose from the dead so that all might have eternal life through him passes us by.


Convinced of our basic goodness and ability to judge everything by scientific observation and our moral sense, we fail to appreciate the depths of our sin, its offence to God, the wrath of a Holy God and the glories of his grace found in the gospel of salvation.


Centred on the cross and rightly discerning God, we are constantly brought to a fullness of the knowledge of God and we cry “Holy, Holy, Holy are you God!” In our whole being we can trust God and put our faith in him as Creator


Romans 5:17-18 (ESV) 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.


Praise the glories of his grace! This will not be a scientifically observable fact.


How does this help us today? In theology we need to be focused on the nature of God and a credible understanding of Him for people today; free will and Gods sovereignty need to be explained again for this present time. Suffering and the problems of evil, need to be addressed in modern contexts. In science; the Big Bang Cosmology, Quantum mechanics and Evolution are giant theories that seek to explain our present. Life. The Mind and Time are mysteries fought over by materialists and mystics; physics and metaphysics; and need to be talked about for everyman by those who have faith in God.


Contemplation of God, transcendent and immanent and engagement with the sciences I believe will be fruitful avenues of human thought in the coming years.


I don’t think believing in the God of the bible is intellectual suicide but the most likely foundation for the advancement of science and human understanding, as it has ever been. And just maybe, by recognising that there is continuity and discontinuity in life and cosmology, we will have dialog with mainstream science without recourse to wacky science.


This brings us back to an earlier point; we should not be put off by failing to see eye-to-eye. The bible says belief in creation is by faith and therefore there must be more than one credible explanation to the facts.


Because God is true, the truth is, God created everything seen and unseen for the praise of his glorious grace and all truth is subject to this truth. However, I can only know this by faith because the bible tells me so. This is not the place for arrogance because arrogance will not convince anyone especially if our only authority, the bible is made to look foolish by half baked ideas in fields we do not understand.


Daniel 1:20 (ESV) And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom.


It is important that Christians engage with science as if it is credible and give due honour to those whose craft it is. We are free to explore the wonders of creation as people of faith within science and must give those with talents liberty to become experts in their field and, like Daniel in Babylon, become enriched masters of science, as is Russell, true to the Creator and his revealed word.

Saturday 11 April 2009

Carping and Complaining

I am aware that in myself, my disposition is to be grumpy and critical. I am cursed with making judgements and often fall into the trap of voicing them. For me it appears that submission and meekness are counter cultural; nowhere in popular culture am I challenged in this or do I see theses attributes praised.
Submission and meekness are not portrayed as virtues. For the most part they are feared as the gateway to abuse and we are generally encouraged to be assertive and to stand up for our rights. And this is not wrong. Submission and meekness carry the colour of guilt; they are dark, dull and dusty. They are giving in, we feel.
We are taught this by experience but Christians are taught to obey, forgive trespasses and leave vengeance to God. We are to be meek and submissive in the way Christ was, not holding back in the face of hypocrisy to protect the poor and needy but being silent and restrained in his own defence.
We are to be counter cultural for meekness and submission are pure joy in Christ, the way of wisdom, the way of humility and they bring light into our lives. And if we do not live them, their absence brings death and darkness to our family and friends. We are called to live them for the glory of God.
You may ask why children walk away from their family faith or why their families avoid churches. I think the answer is close to home. It is the carping and complaining they associate with faith, expressed in overt and subtle ways. The back-hand slap of judgement they hear directed at the church and brothers and sisters in the faith spoken with the same mouth as God is worshipped is keenly observed. We gain a reputation for being harsh, steely eyed and self satisfied because of the way we speak of others, barely concealing our bitterness in the way we talk. And because we stand for Christ, Christ is rejected!
For Christ’s sake, be the first to bring down these walls of division. Let it start with me. What we see and observe may be true but we have no excuse to carp and complain; we need to be those who restrain themselves and close our mouths not saying what we are at liberty to say; be meek and submit to the authority of Christ who is the Lord of all.
Reading the psalms and proverbs as a discipline has helped me. You learn quickly about foolishness and the tongue and through the psalms, how to express your anxieties to God. A season of reading and praying five psalms and one proverb each day might help.

Sunday 22 March 2009

Body and spirit; one person

Not only am I flesh and blood; a body of unconscious responses with a determined mind, lodged in a complex interaction of matter with the environment, I am spirit. It is my spirit, the invisible me, that breathes life into this body and makes me alive, a person, the image of God.
And why spirit? You cannot touch it, measure it or weigh it but I believe in it; I am more than the sum of my parts; I am more than complex chemistry. With my spirit I know God; I worship him, praise him and delight in him. This eternal relationship is the fire in my heart that gives me a glimpse of true love and true freedom – I am alive.
The tragedy is that this relationship is broken and has to be mended. My experience of life is that something other than spirit seeks to drive my choices. And my spirit despairs at the hopeless choices I make and the painful thoughts I think as I struggle with the hurts of life and selfishness – I am dead.
The curse is my having to make choices based on my own needs and knowledge. My own knowledge of good and evil is fallible and crooked, drawing on death. Freedom comes from a restored relationship with God in Christ. Our choices are guided by endless rules and taboos, reactions and hurts, and we are driven to do what we think is right through guilt and the fear of punishment or we choose to make no conscious decision at all and ignore the issue, choosing to follow our urges, the path of least resistance and our fantasies.
Jesus cuts through this weight of law; the laws of nurture and nature, and says plainly, all is resolved in love; the love of God and our neighbour. The only free choice is moment by moment love of God and our neighbour.
And the light in everyman’s heart confirms this, driving back the darkness of our broken relationship with God calling us to choose life in Christ. Jesus not only speaks the word of truth he is the way of truth. In him we know God and Jesus provides the way to God, washing us clean from guilt and condemnation, taking on himself the pain and punishment of our death. And so in this world of guilt and shame we act with hope, made right with God through the righteousness of Jesus.
In Christ we are made right with God. Each day, each moment, each choice is made in Christ because we love God and we love our neighbour, the image of God. No longer are we enslaved to laws and driven by guilt, we live in the light of God’s grace, Jesus Christ, freed to love, living in the spirit.
Difficult choices and horrible hurts are now encountered through the spirit, perfecting our relationship with God. We might not look much and we may not appear much, but we are fired by a love for God and our neighbour which brings peace through God’s grace for each moment, painting a much larger canvas.

Monday 16 February 2009

Heaven and Hell


All the evil of the world is always before God; the violence, abuse, malicious thinking, the pain and hate. He sees everything, the wickedness of hearts and the violence of actions; he witnesses all the evil in all time. One day this will stop. He will bring it to an end, but the amazing thing is that God looks, and he gazes, in love, a love that sends his only son to the Earth to create a way back to holiness; and he waits in patience so that each of us might turn back to him and be received. His mercy knows no bounds.



The Prodigal Son painted by Rembrandt

http://www.wga.hu/art/r/rembran/painting/biblic3/prodig2.jpg

God created us for the richness of eternity; this was his blessing, that we would worship him and enjoy him for ever. This is life, the enjoyment and worship of God who lavishes his love on us. God is love and he created us in his image able to experience and give love. Love is love when it is freely given and freely accepted; a parent might love their child but that love has to be accepted for it to be complete.

We are God’s treasure and he lavishes his love on us and we choose to return that love. My condition is that I am dead to God; faith awakens in me the possibility of life. If I catch God’s heart and hear his call this faith is realised and I fall to my knees and grasp his all enfolding grace. I am made new in Christ. It is God who awakens this faith as he waits patiently for my response and faith brings me to life from death.


Until I die it is this faith that sustains me, it is spiritual food that keeps me on the way and spiritual drink that refreshes me keeping me alive.


If I choose to remain dead turning my back on the call of God, I am counted with the violent, the abusers and haters who loath life and cling to death encouraging others to join them. God looks on in love longing to extend his mercy but one day there will be an end. God is patient; he waits and endures all the violence so that all may be welcomed into life.


One day this violence will be ended and burned up. God will end it and renew the Earth. Those who chose death will continue with their choice, eternal death. Eternity is a blessing God will not take back and we choose how we experience it.


I grieve at this; it is not the heart of God that any would be lost. He is the God of love, but love is not complete if it is not accepted. Love does not force itself. For love to be glorified it has to be chosen. The story of the returning prodigal son echoes this. Because God is a God of love there has to be a hell or love would be meaningless. But my response is to do the work of the Father and have faith in him seeking out of my own poverty, brokenness and need those who are hurting, to bring them to faith. Eternity on a renewed Earth is the blessing we have been created for- God is true to this blessing and through Jesus we are saved from eternal death to eternal life.


Jesus has a lot to say about the misery of hell but he reserves his ire for the self righteous and self assured – religious bigots, absolutists and hypocrites who keep others from love. To everyman he has given the gift of the light of faith shining in their hearts so that everyman might be rescued from the darkness into the light. This is made possible in Jesus.


John 3:16-21 (ESV) 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Sunday 25 January 2009

Keep it Simple

There is a lot in the media that is good but most of it is rubbish. If you are caught up in the daily grind of a hand to mouth existence, it might be a release; a hope, or an irrelevance. The media can educate and inform and has the potential to do great good. But most of it is trivial twaddle.

Outwardly our attitude to the media is prayerful and critical. We campaign to protect the vulnerable and the abused and sound warnings when boundaries are breached: a prophetic voice understood within each culture. The shared values of our nation drives us to engage prophetically with our culture so that we can pray into it and bring healing in the name of Jesus.

As individuals our stand is important. Our priority is a deep relationship with God with no space for escapism from the moment by moment engagement of this relationship. Jesus is our Lord and our maker and no time is not his time. He knows and he searches us, purifying us as we turn to him through his grace. He loves us unconditionally.

Things aren't easy. We will have to make tough decisions. We might actually find ourselves outside where we would hope to be. The problem is we are super affluent and we live in a hugely rich culture saturated by the media. We barely have time to stop and think. Am I happy? We're often so tired and don't consider our own well-being. Our work places demands on us and makes us machines for the system. This is the curse we are under and wealth doesn't make it any easier. In fact Jesus warns us that being rich makes it harder.

Somehow in the midst of all this affluence we need to keep ourselves centred on God. Blessings are promised to the poor in spirit so it will help if we can simplify our lives. God has made the sacrifice so that in Jesus this is possible. Being in Jesus we are enabled to be part of the system but detached from it. In Jesus we can face the media with wisdom.

Sunday 18 January 2009

Fresh, Real Coffee

I breakfasted this morning thinking about the grace of God and living this life in a world he loves but is under his judgement. Thoughts of refining fire were in my head and perfecting through suffering.

However my attention was quickly drawn to the coffee I was about to make. There were enough grounds left for one brew. In the past this would have been a bad moment and making the coffee an act of frugality, because the grounds would have lost their savour. But we have been drinking more coffee recently and the grounds still had a pleasing aroma. I enjoyed my cup of coffee, made with the care of experience, familiarity with the process and understanding of the importance of warming the pot and the grounds and not pouring on boiling water.


The grace of God enables us to come to God and experience his refreshing touch in simple ways. Overindulgence often can bring dryness but in Christ there is always the anticipation of freshness as we are careful to seek and know a deeper revelation of our need and God's provision. The coffee reminded me of the importance of spending time with God regularly and the reassurance that this would not become a stale experience, in fact it will teach me to be who God wants me to be and give me the time to reflect on what he wants me to do.

With God there is the fire of judgement and refining but also the coolness of the garden where God expresses his special care and where, a friend reminded me this morning, God can tend to the planting which is his word in our hearts, so that we can be fitted for the very real hostilities of the world. Then we can carry the fresh winsome aroma of the garden that is the work of God in us to those in need of the refreshing forgiveness of God.

Sunday 11 January 2009

Darwin

I listened recently to Tim Keller's sermon on good, evil and suffering and was very taken by his clarity. His take on the violence of nature set me thinking.
Darwin is being remembered this year. He is the father of modern Biology and his synthesis of what he understood he was observing and the philosophy of those around him has come to be a truth of our time.
Natural Selection is a soulless mechanism, driving nature to persevere in, exploit and adapt to environments. Nature is violent, and the strong and fittest are able to exploit and master their environments often to the detriment of other organisms.
In effect, Darwinism provides an ugly truth, driving the natural and social order we see. God is taken out of the picture and so provision is replaced by competition and what should be opposed tolerated. The surface truth becomes the truth.
It is true that each of us and every organism is a miracle of survival and according to Darwinism our existence marks us out as being in the lineage of the strong; we owe our existence to the robustness of our genes and our posterity depends on us being able to pass on the information we have received. We are the successful.
Yet deep down we sense a purpose beyond this scenario. Intuition points us to this being a surface truth. Our awareness of ourselves and this inbuilt knowledge indicates a significance to our lives that is deeper than Darwinism describes. Indeed we behave and act as if every moment matters and is significant; we care.
It is a rare person who dispenses with our sense of humanity; justice, beauty and mercy, for the sake of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. But this humanity is of little purpose if nature is all there is and is actually dangerous if it impedes the progress of the strongest. It spells our doom. If our purpose is to adapt to survive and Darwinism is our root belief, it is folly to resist this and the individual must be sacrificed for the greater good, which is served best through the preservation of the freedoms of the strong. That is natural justice. But actually we hate those who appease evil and disdain those who acquiesce to wrong doing for the greater good. Nixon famously believed that as president he was above the law and we think him sick, deluded by paranoia.
Darwinism does not give us the answers to our intuition that we have significance. Without God, Darwinism has been used to legitimise the worst atrocities and philosophies the past 200 years have had to offer; Marxism, Nazi ism, racism and eugenics.
If my friend suffers I will not succumb to fatalism, I will fight for his life, and I will not abandon him or God because I reason I am more than flesh. To think otherwise I think is delusional.

Saturday 10 January 2009

Ripples

Hebrews 11:24-26 (ESV) 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

This New Testament quote sees the ripples of Christ's life and sacrifice moving through time, so that the choices Moses made were for Christ.

John, speaking of the beast says;

Revelation 13:8 (ESV) and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.

And we see again that the sacrifice of Jesus ripples back even before time. This revelation we have of Christ now, is an eternal reality revealed to us in the present. To take this in, we touch the limits of our ability to comprehend God.

In each of us is the Image of God and we live purposeful lives, glorifying God's glorious choice to give us life. God created Adam, and the consequences of his sin ripple into our lives and back into the very fabric of the creation. In Christ is our salvation; before time began a book of life contained our names! Christ's sacrifice ripples through all time and before time began.

Confronted with this mystery, words feel hollow and fall so far short of the Truth that is God.
Nothing can make this knowledge real other than experiencing God himself, knowing our need of a saviour and experiencing the forgiveness and healing in the Cross; Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

After Job's comforters spoke, God spoke and Job cried;

Job 42:1-6 (ESV) 1 Then Job answered the Lord and said: 2 "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.' 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Truly sorry for our sins, we believe in Christ and are saved by his blood, are made holy by his sacrifice and finally we receive the gift of eternal life in him.