Life, Death and Tragedy

The one sure thing we all face is death. During this last week, it became all the more apparent, as the possibility of death once again made an appearance in the lives of people we know. Firstly, it is an emotionally draining and sad experience for everyone involved, and we pray for those affected, their families and those who care for them.

There is a vivid contrast though. Two of the people affected are from our church, and there has been a massive upwelling of prayer, praise, community and support for and from these families, amidst the sorrow and concern. Two of the other people are from an atheist family. The reaction there, in the face of two people with terminal cancer, has been one of despair, hopelessness, feeling lost and resigned to the inevitable termination of all that is, even though there is support for the family.

Everyone grieves for lost family members, believer and non-believer alike. But for the believer, they grieve differently, because they are sad for their own loss, they also have hope for the dead, as they have hope for themselves. The non-believer is quick to define death and the way in which people die, as evil, and therefore proof  that God does not exist, for a loving God would not allow such a thing.

For me, this has always been a peculiar argument. This much is clear, Christians expect suffering, the result of the evil and broken world we live in, and Christians view death as a blessed relief from that, and the gateway to eternal life in the presence of God. Does it make it any less sad when a loved one passes? Of course not, but it is most assuredly not an evil event either.

In fact, Paul writes the following in Phillipians, where he is imprisoned for preaching the Gospel:

Php 1:18  What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,
Php 1:19  for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance,
Php 1:20  as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
Php 1:21  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Php 1:22  If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell.
Php 1:23  I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
Php 1:24  But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.

It is notable that he considers death not as something lost for himself, but as something that he desires, because that will put him in the presense of Christ. Yet he also recognizes that he is needed in the physical realm, for the sake of others. The bottom line though, is that live or die, he brings honor to Christ. As long as Christ is proclaimed, then Paul is happy to live or die.

We all need to be reminded from time to time that it is Christ that must be honored, not ourselves. If that means that we die, then so be it. If that means that the way in which God decreed we die is not a simple, clean and sudden process, then we realize all the more how precious and valuable the life after this one is, where we will never die nor suffer again. That is our hope, and that of our fellow Christians.

We grieve for our own loss, yet we are glad for our deceased fellow Christians. For the non-believer though, there is nothing but regret and emptiness, and a reinforced belief in the evil of death. All of the evidence and arguments don't matter in the face of death.
 

Hope In the New Year

As we enter the new year, we all hope to put the past year behind us, and hope that the new year will be better. I can honestly say that this was another tough year, the fourth such year in a row for me and my family. Yet we are also blessed, and we continue to have hope. On what basis can we even have hope?

Hope is pretty empty if it is not accompanied by trust. Because to hope is to trust. Many people hope to lose weight, for example, and trust in a diet and workout program to do so, along with their own ability to stick with it. From personal experience, I can say that to hope in such an ability is rather optimistic, even if we trust ourselves.

For our hope to be worth something then, we should trust in something greater than ourselves. Some people trust in community, some in their wealth, or fame. But for Christians, we can only put our hope in God. We trust God, and that is where our hope is.

Psa 71:5  For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth.

Our trust and hope in God is not arbitrary, for we read:

Psa 33:22  Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

Rom 15:13  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

We see that we should hope because God loves us. The hope in God fills us with all joy, and all peace, as we believe in that hope. The Holy Spirit of God gives us the power to hope. There can be no greater in which to place our hope. There can be nothing more to hope for than what God may grant us through His grace.

No matter what lies behind us, we trust God, and in that trust is our hope for joy and peace. We believe, trust and hope through the Spirit, so that we may know that our hope is not in vain, and that God's love will be manifest in our lives, even when it is tough.

May your hopes in the new year for joy and peace be fulfilled through God's great love.

1 John 2:2 – Is Everyone Saved?

We have been told repeatedly that this passage, 1 John 2:2 proves universal atonement.

1Jn 2:2  He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (ESV)

You may or may not agree with my exegesis below, and accuse me of misreading, or making it too complicated. So be it. We cannot just make assertions about Scripture, we have to study and meditate and pray on it, and try to understand the full meaning of it in the context of the whole counsel of Scripture. If that means going past a superficial reading, then we must do so, since we are to handle the Word of God with care and reverence, and not as some newspaper comic strip.

There are a few things at work here, and Arminians want to continuously appeal to a "simple reading" of the text. We believe we are rendering a simple reading of the text, and we should also agree that it cannot say something different or contradictory to what is mentioned in the direct context, the context of NT soteriology, the work and offices of Christ and what John says elsewhere.

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Why Is There Evil and Condemnation?

So often do we hear this…why is there evil in the world? Why does God condemn people if He is love? Why is there hate, and darkness, and  bad people and sin? we then see manipulations and mental gymnastics to try and explain things away. All too complicated, if you ask me.

The answer is right there, staring us in the face, right at the beginning of the Bible.

How do we know love, except in the context of love versus hate? Or salvation, except if it is contrasted with damnation? Or how about goodness, if not set against the bad? If the negative does not exist, we have no possible way of grasping the positive, and vice versa.

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Thankful for the Gospel

Around this time of the year, there is a lot of talk about thankfulness. We hear how people are thankful for many things, like family, abundance, good friends, prosperity and many other blessings. We should rightfully live a life of thanks for our earthly blessings.

But the biggest thankfulness should be reserved for the Gospel. In the letter to the Colossians, we get both a succinct description of the Gospel, and the effect of the Gospel which results in thankfulness.

First, the apostle summarizes the gospel:

Col 2:13  And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
Col 2:14  by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Sinners, who are dead in their sins and unchanged in their hearts as a result of it, are changed by God. The debt owed to the righteousness of the just God is canceled. The trespasses we knowingly and unknowingly commit before God, which create a debt that can only be negated by judgment and punishment is forgiven, written off and set aside. Those debts, all of them, past, present and future, were nailed to the cross with the atonement and sacrifice of Christ, so that we may stand before God, innocent upon the appeal to the cross.

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Join the Thanksgiving Parade – Micheal Horton

"We need not wallow in our unworthiness, but join the thanksgiving parade that is already in progress, until one day we join our voices with the rest of redeemed creation. The vision of the heavenly kingdom in Revelation is a restored liturgy, with every part of creation performing its ordained role. It is a universal city without man-made walls or a man-made temple, for the Lord surrounds it in safety and the Lamb is its temple. At last, the symphony resounds throughout the empire: “Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!…Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the Lord” (Ps 148:3, 12-13)."

Read here: Join the Thanksgiving Parade

Is Ignorance an Excuse?

Any time schools of theological thought come up, there is a lot of back and forth. Iron sharpens iron, and we all learn from each other, so discussion is a good thing. However, what normally happens is that each side accuses the other of misrepresenting the others position, definitions get mixed up and then insults and going in circles commence.

As a reformed believer, a so-called "Calvinist", I have seen that a lot. I want to be clear, it surely happens with Roman Catholicism, Arminianism, Wesleyanism, molinism etc too, and I will be the first to admit that I am sometimes guilty of misunderstanding or misrepresenting other schools of thought. However, I am often on the receiving end of some really aggressive and outright degrading attacks against reformed beliefs. And again, I have also seen that against other schools of theology, and to be frank, it all annoys the heck out of me.

There is simply no excuse for dong that. Calling Calvinism "from Satan", "an insult to God" etc demonstrates a profound ignorance of what reformed theology is. While all schools claim to want to glorify God, none of them can rationally and honestly argue for the complete and outright sovereignty of God in salvation. They all add something to grace. Whether the reformed position is necessarily correct is not the question, but the outrageous insults leveled at a theology that starts with the sovereignty of God from theologies that don't should point to the lack of discernment in these types of discussions.

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How Great Is Our God: Louie Giglio

How Great Is Our God (Video)

The Origin of Unbelief

What underlies unbelief? Some will tell you that they have examined the evidence, and found it wanting. Of course, that is a tenuous assertion, as the inductive methodology applied there can never lead to absolute truth. But even that doesn't account for the underlying presuppositions  that press one into scouting for evidence.

It is quite simple, and we find the explanation in the Psalms:

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Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Since this keeps coming up in debates and discussions, I am always looking for elegant and articulate treatments of the topic. Paul Manata delivers one of the best here:

Free Will and Moral Responsibility