The Great Divorce

"No, there is no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it - no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or in our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather."

George MacDonald

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One of the books on my 2010 reading list was C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. I finished it yesterday, and all I can say is... WOW.

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Being a mere 146 pages, one might assume that The Great Divorce is one of those quick-reads one can sit down and finish in an hour or so. Right? Wrong. If there were an award for being able to skillfully pack 300 pages worth of information into 150, Lewis would get it. Think of an energy bar - it's small, but after you've eaten it, you feel like you just ingested a three course meal.

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That said, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Lewis' novella about Heaven and Hell. His talent for fable and allegory is formidable to say the least. The premise is brilliant and original, and you're not likely to find another one like it.  In the story, the writer finds himself in Hell boarding a bus bound for Heaven. The amazing thing is this - anyone who wants to stay in Heaven, can. Thus begins a thought-provoking meditation on good and evil, grace and judgment. And the idea behind it all is that the gates of hell are locked from the inside.

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As usual, Lewis' writing is lucid, convincing, and eminently readable in The Great Divorce. I don't pretend to understand everything he wrote (one reason why I'll be reading it again). And there were things I did understand which I didn't necessarily agree with. Nevertheless, Lewis made some very profound points about human nature, heaven, and hell which I had never fully considered. Here are a few of my favorites:

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"I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself."

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"Don't you remember on earth - there were things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them alright? Shame is like that. If you will accept it - if you will drink the cip to the bottom - you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds."

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"The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words 'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.' There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery."

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"I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll accept no salvation which leaves one creature in the dark outside. But watch that sophistry or ye'll make a Dog in the Manger the tyrant of the universe.'

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"...a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessently as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouths for food, or their eyes to see."

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I read recently that Mpower Pictures and Beloved Pictures are teaming up to co-produce a film version of The Great Divorce. Nate Wilson (Leepike Ridge, 100 Cupboards) is supposedly attached to write. Hmmm. This is gonna be interesting. I honestly can't imagine a more difficult book to make into a movie.

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In conclusion, I simply give this warning: The Great Divorce is a masterpiece, but do not try to read it quickly. Seriously. You won't understand things well, and... your brain might combust.

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Persevero,

   

The Impossiblity of Neutrality

"A field studied as it "ought" to be studied is with Godly and consistent presuppositions. A field as it should not be studied is in ideologically-attempted neutrality. There is no such thing as religious neutrality, especially in academic fields. Religious ideas exist everywhere; they exist in the mathematics and physics department just as much as the sociology or theology department. When scholars attempt to study under the false premise of religious neutrality, error is bound to occur.

Religious neutrality is impossible for two reasons.

• First, there are no facts that exist without reference to other facts.
• Second, even the scientist depends on non-material, untestable laws to arrive at scientific (daresay, "objective") conclusions.

No field of knowledge or science is capable of demonstrating coherence outside a framework of basic assumptions (worldview), let alone accounting for its own conclusions. Therefore, no field of study will produce objective claims without operating within the worldview that the Creator upholds - the same Creator which created those fields of science to begin with. If God is who He says He is, knowledge itself only exists because he has decreed that it would exist. Jesus is actually Lord over everything, including all fields of academics and science and the realm of knowledge itself. Our knowledge is derivative of God's primary and ultimate exhaustive knowledge. It thus follows that a person studying any academic discipline who claims to "know" something inevitably has to do one of three things:

1. Admit that no knowledge (justified, true belief) is possible (relativism),
2. Admit that knowledge is possible, but only on the basis of undefined, unverified, and unobservable and therefore religious assumptions,
3. Or inconsistently hold that knowledge is mysteriously possible and there's no reason, justification, or purpose for it.

So, supposedly "religiously neutral" or "unbiased" scholars who do successfully gain facts and knowledge (justified, true belief) of the observable world only do so because they unintentionally - but do by necessity - borrow the epistemological machinery necessary to obtain that knowledge in the first place. It is fascinating then, to observe the atheist try and argue against Christianity, for argument itself supposes an ideological framework (like Christianity) that makes arguments even possible."

~ from Light Up the Darkness

by Jamin Hubner

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Persevero,

An Unholy Man in Heaven

While perusing the Monergism website, I came across this essay by J.C. Ryle, one of my favorite authors. It's superb, and I thought I'd share it. For those familiar with Ryle, it won't be a disappointment, and for newcomers, it will serve as an excellent introduction to the work of this great man. Enjoy!

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  Suppose An Unholy Man Went To Heaven

by J.C. Ryle

Suppose for a moment that you were allowed to enter heaven without holiness. What would you do? What possible enjoyment could you feel there? To which of all the saints would you join yourself and by whose side would you sit? Their pleasures are not your pleasures, their tastes are not your tastes, their character not your character. How could you possibly be happy, if you had not been holy on earth?

Now perhaps you love the company of the light and careless, the worldly-minded and the covetous, the reveler and the pleasure-seeker, the ungodly and the profane. There will be none such in heaven.

Now perhaps you think the saints of God too strict and particular and serious. You rather avoid them. You have no delight in their society. There will be no other company in heaven.

Now perhaps you think praying and Scripture reading, and hymn singing, dull and melancholy and stupid work, a thing to be tolerated now and then, but not enjoyed. You reckon the Sabbath a burden and a weariness; you could not possibly spend more than a small part of it in worshipping God. But remember, heaven is a never-ending Sabbath. The inhabitants thereof rest not day and night, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," and singing the praise of the Lamb. How could an unholy man find pleasure in occupation such as this?

Think you that such an one would delight to meet David and Paul and John, after a life spent in doing the very things they spoke against? Would he take sweet counsel with them and find that he and they had much in common? Think you, above all, that he would rejoice to meet Jesus, the crucified One, face to face, after cleaving to the sins for which He died, after loving His enemies and despising His friends? Would he stand before Him with confidence and join in the cry, "This is our God... we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation" (Isaiah 25:9)? Think you not rather that the tongue of an unholy man would cleave to the roof of his mouth with shame, and his only desire would be to be cast out? He would feel a stranger in a land he knew not, a black sheep amid Christ's holy flock. The voice of cherubim and seraphim, the song of angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven, would be a language he could not understand. The very air would seem an air he could not breathe.

I know not what others may think, but to me it does seem clear that heaven would be a miserable place to an unholy man. It cannot be otherwise. People may say, in a vague way, they "hope to go to heaven", but they do not consider what they say... We must be heavenly-minded, and have heavenly tastes, in the life that now is, or else we shall never find ourselves in heaven, in the life to come.

And now, before I go any further, let me say a few words, by way of application. For one thing, let me ask everyone who may read these pages, are you holy? Listen, I pray you, to the question I put to you this day. Do you know anything of the holiness of which I have been speaking?

I do not ask whether you attend your church regularly, whether you have been baptized, and received the Lord's Supper, whether you have the name of Christian. I ask something more than all this: are you holy, or are you not?

I do not ask whether you approve of holiness in others, whether you like to read the lives of holy people and to talk of holy things, and to have on your table holy books, whether you mean to be holy, and hope you will be holy some day. I ask something further: are you yourself holy this very day, or are you not?

And why do I ask so straightly, and press the question so strongly? I do it because the Scripture says, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." It is written, it is not my fancy; it is the Bible, not my private opinion; it is the word of God, not of man: "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).

Alas, what searching, sifting words are these! What thoughts come across my mind, as I write them down! I look at the world and see the greater part of it lying in wickedness. I look at professing Christians and see the vast majority having nothing of Christianity but the name. I turn to the Bible and I hear the Spirit saying, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

Surely it is a text that ought to make us consider our ways and search our heart. Surely it should raise within us solemn thoughts and send us to prayer. You may try to put me off by saying you feel much, and think much about these things, far more than many suppose: I answer, "This is not the point. The poor lost souls in hell do as much as this. The great question is not what you think, and what you feel, but what you do."

You may say, it was never meant that all Christians should be holy and that holiness, such as I have described, is only for great saints, and people of uncommon gifts. I answer, "I cannot see that in Scripture. I read that every man who hath this hope in Christ purifies himself' (I John 3:3). "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

You may say, it is impossible to be so holy and to do our duty in this life at the same time: the thing cannot be done. I answer, "You are mistaken." It can be done. With Christ on your side nothing is impossible. It has been done by many. David and Obadiah and Daniel and the servants of Nero's household are all examples that go to prove it.

You may say, if you were so holy you would be unlike other people. I answer, "I know it well. It is just what you ought to be. Christ's true servants were always unlike the world around them-a separate nation, a peculiar people, and you must be so too, if you would be saved!"

You may say, at this rate very few will be saved. I answer, "I know it. It is precisely what we are told in the sermon on the mount." The Lord Jesus said so eighteen hundred years ago. "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matt. 7:14). Few will be saved because few will take the trouble to seek salvation. Men will not deny themselves the pleasures of sin and their own way for a little season...

You may say, these are hard sayings; the way is very narrow. I answer, "I know it. So says the sermon on the mount." The Lord Jesus said so eighteen hundred years ago. He always said that men must take up the cross daily, and that they must be ready to cut off hand or foot, if they would be His disciples. It is in religion as it is in other things, there are no gains without pains. That which costs nothing is worth nothing.

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Persevero,

From C.S. Lewis...

"Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable 'either-or'; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye might be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision...

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"I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot develop into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' - or else not. It is still 'either-or'. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell...

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"But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself."

~ from the Preface to The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

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Persevero,

  

"On the Babel-Builders"

Sure, if those Babel-builders had thought good

To raise their heaven-high tower before the flood,

The wiser sort of people might deride

Their folly, and that folly had salved their pride;

Or had their faiths but enterprised that plot,

Their hearts had finished what their hands could not;

'Twas not for love of heaven: nor did they aim

So much to raise a building as a name:

They that by works shall seek to make intrusion

To heaven, find nothing but their own confusion.

~ Francis Quarles

wHaT's wRoNG wITH tHe WoRLd?

That's a serious question that deserves a serious answer.

Unfortunately, it often doesn't get one.

~

My family and I recently listened to an excellent sermon by Dr. George Grant, pastor of Parish Presbyterian Church in Tenessee. The text was Matthew 9:1-35. The topic was - you guessed it - "What's Wrong With The World?". Here's an excerpt...

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"In 1910, the Times of London asked a number of the most prominent authors of the day to write essays answering the question 'What's wrong with the world?'. So, all of these erudite men began to trot out their long essays detailing the woes of this poor, fallen world, and outlining their answers to the dilemma, what men and nations and governments must do in order to solve all of these woes. "What's wrong with the world?" G.K. Chesterton's answer was witty, profound, and deeply insightful:

                Dear Sirs,
                      
                       I am.

                          Sincerely Yours,
                          G.K. Chesterton

That's a grasp of the gospel and of the truth of the fallen nature of man that most of us fail to fully encounter in ourselves or in others."

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Had you been confronted with this question, what would your answer have been?

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As depraved sinners, we have a propensity to reach for the magnifying glass instead of the mirror. We don't want to look at our own ugliness. We'd rather point out ugliness in someone else. And in the process of focusing on everbody else's cess pool, we lose all sense of our own.

~

So, the next time someone asks you, "What's wrong with the world?", you can smile and respond with,

 "I am. You are. We are."

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Persevero,

   

"You Asked For A Loving God..."

"You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the 'lord of terrible aspect,' is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds. persistent as the artist's love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes."

~ C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

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Persevero,

Basic Christianity - Chapter 5 "The Fact and Nature Of Sin" Part 2

The Ten Commandments

I. You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me

"This is God's demand for man's exclusive worship. It is not necessary to worship the sun, the moon and the stars to break this law. We break it whenever we give to something or someone other than God Himself the first place in our thoughts or our affections." For some people, it might be sports or hobbies; for others, money and possessions. These things aren't wrong or sinful in and of themselves. But it is wrong and sinful when we idolize them, and give to them the place that only God should have. To perfectly keep this commandment would be, as Jesus said, to love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind; to seek His will and glory always; to give Him the first place in thought, word, and deed. No one has ever fully kept this commandment save Jesus of Nazareth. All others have failed utterly. "What someone wrote of the Englishman is true of everyman: he is 'a self-made man who worships his creator'."

~

II. You Shall Not Make For Yourself A Graven Image.

"If the first commandment concerns the object of our worship, the second concerns its manner. In the first, God demands our exclusive worship, and in the second our sincere and spiritual worship. For 'God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth' (John 4:24)." Although we may have never made a graven image with our hands, what gruesome mental image have we conjured up in our minds? And although this commandment doesn't prohibit the use of all external forms of worship, it does imply that they are futile except there be inward reality as well. "We may have attended church; have we ever really worshipped God? We may have said prayers; have we ever really prayed? We may have read the Bible; have we ever let God speak to us through it and done what He said?" It is pointless to approach the Lord with our lips if our hearts are not sincere (Isaiah 29:13; Mark 7:6).

~

III. You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord Your God in Vain.

"The name of God represents the nature of God... His Holy Name can be profaned by our loose language and most of us could do worse than revise our vocabulary from time to time. But to take God's name in vain is not just a matter of words, but also of thoughts and deeds." Whenever we our actions are contradictory to our beliefs, or our practice is not aligned with what we preach, we take God's name in vain. If we call Him "Lord" and then disobey Him, we are taking His name in vain. If we call Him "Father" and then doubt Him, we deny His name. This is hypocrisy.

~

IV. Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep It Holy.

"To set one day in seven apart is not just a human arrangement or a social convenience. It is God's plan... Man's body and mind need rest, and man's spirit needs the opportunity to worship. The sabbath is therefore a day of rest and worship." We are not only to keep it as such ourselves, for our own well-being, but we are to do everything we can for the common good to make certain that others do not have to work needlessly on this day. Sunday is holy, set apart unto God. It is His day, not ours. Therefore, we are to spend it in His way, and not in our way; we are to use it for His worship and service and not just for our own selfish pleasures.

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V. Honor Your Father and Your Mother.

"... our parents, at least while we are children, stand towards us in loco Dei: they represent God's authority. Yet often it is in their own home that people, young people especially, are at their most selfish and inconsiderate." It is too easy to be ungrateful and negligent, and to fall short of giving our parents the respect, affection, and honor they deserve.

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VI. You Shall Not Kill.

This commandment does not just prohibit outright murder. "If looks could kill, many would kill with a look. If murder can be committed by cutting words, many are guilty." In fact, Jesus clearly stated that to be angry with someone without a cause, and to be insulting, are matters just as grave. John writes, "Whoever who hates his brother is a murderer" (1 John 3:15). "Every loss of temper, every outburst of uncontrolled passion, every stirring of sullen rage, every bitter resentment and thirst for revenge - all these things are murder. We can kill by malicious gossip... studied neglect and cruelty... spite and jealously. We have probably all done so." Note that this commandment also forbids the taking of one's own life. Since God controls all things, and has chosen each person's circumstances, to commit suicide is to rebel against His authority.

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VII. You Shall Not Commit Adultery.

"... this commandment has a far wider application than just to unfaithfulness in marriage." It means that we are to be holy in heart, language, and conduct. This includes reading or watching impure things; speaking or jesting in a coarse, unseemly manner; or acting in any way that would compromise one's own purity or the purity of others. "This commandment in fact embraces every abuse of a sacred and beautiful gift from God."

~

VIII. You Shall Not Steal.

"To steal is to rob a person of anything which belongs to him or is due to him. The theft of money or property is not the only infringment of this commandment. Tax evasion is robbery. So is dodging the customs. So is working short hours. What the world calls 'scrounging' the Bible calls 'stealing'. To overwork and underpay one's staff is to break this commandment." Yet these negative commandments also entail a positive counterpart. To truly abstain from killing, we must do everything in our power - so far as it is lawful and God-honoring - to nurture the health and protect our own lives and the lives of our fellow men. It is not enough to merely refrain from the act of adultery. The commandment requires the proper, healthy, and honorable behaviour of each sex towards the other. "Similarly, to keep from stealing is no particular virtue if one is miserly or mean. Paul was not satisfied that a thief should stop stealing; he had to start working. Indeed, he had to continue in honest labor until he found himself in a position to give to those in need." 

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IX. You Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor.

This commandment forbids not only perjury, but also slander, scandal, idle talk, lies, and deliberate exaggerations or distortions of the truth. "We can bear false witness by listening to unkind rumors as well as by passing them on, by making jokes at somebody else's expense, by creating false impressions, by not correcting untrue statements, and by our silence as well as by our speech."

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X. You Shall Not Covet.

"The tenth commandment is in some ways the most revealing of all. It turns the decalogue from an outward legal code to an inward moral standard. The civil law cannot touch us for covetousness but only for theft. For covetousness belongs to the inner life. It lurks in the heart and the mind. What lust is to adultery and temper is to murder, that covetousness is to theft." When a man covets, he not only breaks this commandment, but the first commandment also. He is allowing his desire for someone else's property to usurp the place of God. This is idolotry (Colossians 3:5b). By contrast, Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 6:6 that godliness with contentment is great gain.

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Taking a careful look at these commandments has revealed a hideous catalogue of sins. Stott says, "So much takes place beneath the surface of our lives, in the secret places of our minds, which other people do not see and which we manage to conceal even from ourselves. But God sees these things. His eye penetrates into the deep recesses of our hearts (Hebrews 4:13). He sees who we really are, and His law shows up our sins for what they really are. Indeed, it was the purpose of the law to expose sin (Romans 3:20)... nothing can convince us of our sinfulness like the lofty, righteous law of God."

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Persevero,

Basic Christianity - Chapter 5 "The Fact and Nature Of Sin" Part 1

Having examined and established the evidence for the unique deity of Jesus Christ, we will now move on to a new subject: the Fact and Nature of Sin. The reason why it is so essential that we examine this issue is simple: we not only need to know who Jesus was, but what he came to do. John Stott reminds us, "He is presented not simply as the Lord from heaven but also as the Saviour of Sinners. Indeed, the two cannot be separated, for the validity of His work depends on the divinity of His person."

~

Yet before we can appreciate the work which Christ accomplished, we have to recognize who we are as well as who He is. After all, the work He did was done for our sakes. "It was the work of a person for persons, a mission undertaken for needy persons by the only person compentent to meet their need." Christ's compentence is found in His deity; our need is found in our sin. We have thoroughly examined His compentence; we must now take a honest, straightforward look at our sin. "Only then, after we have clearly grasped what we are, shall we be in a position to perceive the wonder of what He has done for us..."

~

Of course, sin isn't a popular subject to deal with. Many would rather leave it alone. Christians are often critcized for giving the matter too much consideration. "But," Stott responds, "it is only because Christians are realists that they do so. Sin is not a convenient invention of parsons to keep them in their job; it is a fact of human experience." 

~

In fact, Stott points out further, a lot of what we take for granted in "civilized" culture is founded upon the assumption of man's sinfulness. "Nearly all legislation has grown up because human beings cannot be trusted to settle their own disputes with justice and without self-interest. A promise is not enough; we need a contract. Doors are not enough; we have to lock and bolt them. The payment of fares is not enough; tickets have to be issued, inspected and collected. Law and order are not enough; we need police to enforce them." All of this owing to man's sin. We can't trust each other. We have to be protected from one another. It is a terrible reflection of human nature.

~

We will first touch upon the universality of sin. This fact is one which is clearly and strongly affirmed by the biblical writers. Here are a few examples:

• Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-3; 130:3; 143:2
• Ecclesiastes 7:20; 9:3
• Isaiah 53:6; 64:6
• Jeremiah 2:29; 16:12
• Micah 7:2
• Romans 3:10-12; 3:22 -23; 5:12;
• 1 John 1:8; 5:19

After reading such passages as these, the universal extent of sin is plain. But what is sin? What is its nature? The answer to this important question can be best summed up this way:

"Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the Law of God."

Thus, sin is both 1. a shortcoming (failure to conform or obey) and 2. a transgression (willful trespassing or disobedience). In other words, when we sin, we are not only falling short of God's requirements, but we are also willfully disobeying God's requirements. If I were to steal, my wrong would be twofold: first, I would be failing to love my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22:39); second, I would be deliberately disobeying the 8th Commandment "You Shall Not Steal" (Exodus 20:15).

~

Of course, all this implies the existence of a moral standard, something by which we may measure ourselves and our actions. This standard is the Law of God, summed up in the Ten Commandments. But we fall far, far short of it. We are desperate sinners who have failed the test miserably.

~

There are many people who reject this idea. They have their own "standards", their own "ideals", and believe that they attain them more or less. They do not indulge in much inward examination, nor in undue self-criticism. They know they have lapses every now and then; they are aware of certain character deficiencies; but they are not especially alarmed by them, and they consider themselves to be no worse than other men. Stott says, "All this is understandable enough, until we remember two things. First, our sense of failure depends on how high our standards are. It is quite easy to consider oneself good at high-jumping if the bar is never raised more than waist-high. Second, God concerns Himself with the thought behind the deed and the motive behind the action. Jesus clearly taught this in the Sermon on the Mount. With these two principals in mind, it should prove a healthy exercise to take the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 as our standard and see how very far short of it every man falls."

To be continued...

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Persevero,

On the New Birth

Earlier this afternoon, as I was reading from John Piper's Finally Alive, I came across some great points about the new birth which I thought I'd share...

~

1. Apart from the new birth, we are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1-2).
"Dead implies lifeless. Not physically or morally lifeless, but spiritually lifeless... we are not dead in the sense that we can't sin. We are dead in the sense that we cannot see or savor the glory of Christ... we are unresponsive to God and Christ and this word."

~

2. Apart from the new birth, we are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3).
"Apart from the new birth, I am my problem. You are not my main problem. My parents are not my main problem. My enemies are not my main problem. I am my main problem. Not my deeds, and not my circumstances, and not the people in my life, but my nature is my deepest personal problem."

~

3. Apart from the new birth, we love darkness and hate the light (John 3:19-20).
"We are not neutral when spiritual light approaches. We resist it. And we are not neutral when darkness envelops us. We embrace us. Love and hate are active in the unregenerate heart. And they move in exactly the wrong directions - hating what should be loved and loving what should be hated."

~

4. Apart from the new birth, our hearts are hard like stone (Ezekiel 36:26; Ephesians 4:18).
"At the bottom of our problem is not ignorance. There is something deeper... our ignorance is a guilty ignorance, not innocent ignorance. It is rooted in hard and resistant hearts... we suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Ignorance is not our biggest problem. Hardness and resistance are."

~

5. Apart from the new birth, we are unable to submit to God or please God (Romans. 8:7-8).
"... without the Holy Spirit, our mind's are so resistant to God's authority that we will not, and therefore cannot, submit to Him... and if we cannot submit to Him, we cannot please Him."

~

6. Apart from the new birth, we are unable to accept the gospel (Ephesians 4:18; 1 Corinthians 2:14).
"The problem is not that the things of God are over [our] heads intellectually. The problem is that [we] see them as foolish... in fact, they are so foolish to [us] that [we] cannot grasp them... the heart is so resistant to receiving them that the mind justifies the rebellion of the heart by seeing them as foolish. This rebellion is so complete that the heart really cannot receive the things of the Spirit. This is real inability. But it is not coerced inability. The unregenerate person cannot because he will not. His preferences to sin are so strong that he cannot choose good. It is a real and terrible bondage. But it is not an innocent bondage."

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7. Apart from the new birth, we are unable to come to Christ or embrace Him as Lord (John 6:44, 65; 1 Corinthians 12:3)
"It is morally impossible for the dead, dark, hard, resistant heart to celebrate the Lordship of Jesus over his life without being born again... we so strongly prefer self-reliance that we cannot come. That is what has to be changed in the new birth. A new preference, a new ability, is given."

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8. Apart from the new birth, we are slaves to sin (Romans 6:17)
"Until God awakens us from spiritual death and gives us life that finds joy in killing sin and being holy, we are slaves and cannot get free. That's why the new birth is necessary."

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9. Apart from the new birth, we are slaves of Satan (Ephesians 2:1-2; 2 Timothy 2:24-26)
"Our deadness is not unresponsive to the devil. It is perfectly in tune with the devil... the mark of unregenerate persons is that their desires and choices 'accord with' the prince of the power of the air. The unregenerate may scoff at the very idea of a devil. And of course, nothing is more in line with the father of lies than the denial that he exists... until God does that that miracle of new birth, we stay in bondage to the father of lies because we love to tell ourselves whatever we please. We keep fondling smooth roaches and warm, fuzzy tarantulas in the dark."

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10. Apart from the new birth, no good thing dwells in us (Romans 7:18)
"Faith is good. The Holy Spirit is good. The new spiritual nature is good. Growing holiness is good. But in [our] flesh, that is, in the person [we] are by nature apart from the new birth, there is no good thing. All that was created good was ruined by being made the servant of man-centered concerns, not God-centered concerns."

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Persevero,

Basic Christianity - Chapter 4 "The Resurrection of Christ" Part 2

III. The Lord Was Seen. Everyone who reads the Gospels knows that they contain some unusual stories of how Christ appeared to His disciples following His miraculous resurrection from the dead. We are told that He appeared to:

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-- Mary Magdalene (John 20:18; Mark 16:9)
-- Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5)
-- two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-15; Mark 6:12-13)
-- the ten gathered in the upper room (John 20:19-23; Mark 16:14-35)
-- the eleven (including Thomas) a week later (Mark 16:14; Luke 24:13-35)
-- more than five hundred brethren at one time, probably on the mountainside in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20)
-- some disciples including Nathaniel, Peter, Thomas, James, and John by the Galilee lakeside (John 21:1-4; Matthew 28:16)
-- many on the Mount of Olives near Betheny at the time of the ascension (Acts 1:9-12; Luke 24:50-53; Mark 16:19-20)
-- Paul on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:4-5)

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And as Luke states at the beginning of the Acts that Christ 'presented Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, appearing to them (the apostles) during forty days', there may well have been other appearances, of which we have no surviving record.

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We cannot flippantly throw out this collection of living testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. An explanation must be found for these narratives. Only three seem possible...

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Explanation 1: were they inventions?
Stott says there is no need to devote much space to the refutation of this suggestion. "That the resurrection appearence stories are not deliberate inventions is as plain as could be." For one thing, the narratives are sober and unembelished. For another thing, they are vibrant, and enlivened by the in depth touches which sound like the work of an eye-witness. The accounts of the race to the sepulchre and of the walk to Emmaus are too striking and real to have simply been made up.

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"Besides," Stott continues, "no one could call them good inventions. If we had wanted to invent the resurrection, we might have done much better ourselves. We should have been careful to avoid the complicated jigsaw puzzle of events which the four Gospels together produce. We should have eliminated, or at least watered down, the doubts and fears of the apostles. We should probably have included a dramatic account of the resurrection itself (as do the fantastic apocryphal Gospels), describing the power and glory of the Son of God as He broke the bonds of death and burst from the tomb in triumph. But no one saw it happen, so we have no description of it. Again, we should scarcely have chosen Mary Magdalene as the first witness, if only to avoid Renan's sneer that 'la passion d'une hallucinee donne au monde un dieu ressusite'."

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An even greater objection to the invention theory is the fact that the apostles, and therefore the evangelists and the early church, were sublimely persuaded that Jesus Christ had risen. The entire New Testament, Stott reminds us, "breathes an atmosphere of certainty and conquest." Those who wrote it may have been misled, if you like; but they were certainly not intentionally misleading.

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Explanation 2: were the appearances themselves hallucinations?
This is a widely-held opinion, and of course, hallucinations are not an uncommon phenomenon. Hallucinations are most commonly associated with someone who is at least neurotic, if not in fact psychotic. It is impossible to say that the apostles were this sort of deranged and unbalanced people. Mary Magdalene might have been, but hardly brash Peter and doubting Thomas.

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Hallucinations have also been known to occur in perfectly normal people, and in such instances, two characteristics may frequently be detected. First, they occur as the high point to a period of inflated wishful thinking. Second, the conditions of time, place and mood are favorable. "There must be a strong inward desire and the predisposing outward setting," says Stott. When we go to the Gospel resurrection narratives, however, both these factors are absent...

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Far from wishful thinking, it was just the opposite. "When the women first found the tomb empty, they fled in 'trembling and astonishment' and were 'afraid'. When Mary Magdalene and the other women reported that Jesus was alive, the apostles 'would not believe it', and their words 'seemed to them an idle tale'. When Jesus Himself came and stood in their midst 'they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit', so that Jesus 'upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart'." Thomas obstinately declared that he would not believe unless he could actually see and feel the nail-marks for himself. When Jesus met the eleven and others by appointment in Galilee, 'they worshipped Him; but some doubted'. We do not have wishful thinking or naivete here. The disciples weren't blind, gullible fools, but instead, cautious, skeptical and 'slow of heart to believe'. And strange visions alone wouldn't have satisfied them. Their faith was built on the hard facts of verifiable reality.

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The outward circumstances were anything but favorable. "If the appearances," Stott points out, "had all taken place in one or two particularly sacred places, which had been hallowed by memories of Jesus, and their mood had been expectant, our suspicions might well be aroused. If we had only the story of the appearances in the upper room, we should have cause to doubt or question. If the eleven had been gathered in that special place where Jesus had spent with them some of His last earthly hours, and they had kept His place vacant, and were sentimentalizing over the magic days of the past, and had remembered His promises to return, and had begun to wonder if He might return and to hope that He would, until the ardour of their expectation was consummated by His sudden appearance, we might indeed fear that they had been mocked by a cruel delusion. However, we can easily see this was not the case. Indeed, an investigation of the... appearances reveals an almost studied variety in the circumstances of person, place and mood in which they occured."  

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It is not at all possible for us to simply dismiss these manifestations of the divine Lord as mere hallucinations of unstable minds. Therefore, if they weren't made-up stories or hallucinations, they only remaining alternative is that they actually happened. Christ, the risen Lord, was seen.

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IV. The Disciples Were Changed. It may be that the change of Christ's disciples is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection, because it is completely sincere and artless. They do not bid us to look at themselves, as they bid us to look at the vacant sepulchre and the undisturbed graveclothes and the Lord whom they had seen. Yet we can discern the transformation without being told to look. The men who figure in the pages of the Gospels are new and different men in the pages of the Acts. Their Master's death on the cross left them feeling hopeless, disillusioned and utterly dejected. But in the Acts, they come forth fearless and bold men, ready to hazard their lives for the name of Christ and turn the world upside down. Stott asks, "What has made change? What acounts for their new faith and power, joy and love? Partly, no doubt, Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit; but then the Holy Spirit came only when Jesus had risen and ascended. It is as if the resurrection let loose mighty moral and spiritual forces. Two examples stand out..."

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The first is Simon Peter. During the passion of his Lord, he suffered a tragic eclipse, denying Christ three times. He cursed and swore as if he had never known the restraining influence of Jesus in his life and went out into the night, weeping bitterly. After the death of his Master, he joined the others hiding in the upper room, behind doors that were barred and bolted, fearful of retaliation from the Jews. "But when we turn one or two pages in the Bible, we see him standing... [and] preaching so boldly and so powerfully to a vast crowd that three thousand people believe in Christ and are baptized. We turn on to the next chapters of the Acts and we watch him defying the very Sanhedrin who condemned Jesus to death, rejoicing that he is counted worthy to suffer shame for His name, and later sleeping in his cell on the night before his expected execution. Simon Peter is a new man. The shifting sands have been blown away now; true to his nickname, he is a real rock now." 

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Or take James, who later became a leader in the Jerusalem church. He was one of "brethren of the Lord", who are represented throughout the Gospels as men who did not believe in Jesus (John 7:5). When we reach the opening chapters of the Acts, however, "the list which Luke gives of the assembled disciples concludes with the words 'and...His brothers'. James is evidently a believer now."

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These are the proofs of the resurrection of Jesus. The body had vanished. The graveclothes remained undisturbed. The Lord was seen. And the disciples were changed. "There is no other adequate explanation for these phenomena other than the great Christian affirmation 'the Lord is risen indeed'."

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In conclusion, Stott adds, "We have been occupied for three chapters in a critical investigation of the most absorbing personality of history, a modest carpenter from Nazareth who became a peasant preacher and died a criminal's death. His claims were stupendous. He seems to have been morally perfect. He rose from the dead. The cumulative weight of this evidence is all but conclusive. It makes eminently reasonable that last step of faith which brings us to our knees before Him and puts on our lips the mighty confession of doubting Thomas: 'My Lord and my God'."

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Persevero,

Scribe

Basic Christianity - Chapter 4 "The Resurrection of Christ" Part 1

In the last couple Basic Christianity posts, we've been examining the evidence that Jesus Christ was the sinless, perfect Son of God. This evidence, you will remember, consists in three things: the Claims of Christ; the Character of Christ; and the Resurrection of Christ. Again, it must be understood that no one argument is final or decisive; combined, however, these three arguments unfailingly direct us to the same conclusion. 

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Therefore, having already examined the first two pieces of evidence, we will proceed to examine Evidence # 3: The Resurrection of Christ. We will divide this piece of evidence into four points: the Body Had Gone; the Graveclothes Were Undisturbed; the Lord Was Seen; and the Disciples Were Changed. Before we embark on these, however, here are a few things to bear in mind:

• If true, the resurrection has great significance. John Stott says, "If Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, then He was beyond dispute a unique figure. It is not a question of His spiritual survival, nor of His physical resuscitation, but of His conquest of death and His resurrection to a new plane of existence altogether. We do not know of anyone else who has had this experience."
• We are not arguing that the resurrection of Christ establishes His divine nature, but rather, that it is consistent with it. "It is only to be expected that a supernatural person should come and leave the earth in a supernatural way. This is in fact what the New Testament teaches and what, in consequence, the church has always believed."
• Christ never predicted His death on the cross without adding that He would rise once more.  Furthermore, Christ spoke of His coming resurrection as a 'sign'. Paul says that Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power... by the resurrection from the dead". Also, Stott points out that "the earliest sermons of the apostles recorded in Acts repeatedly assert that by the resurrection God has reversed man's sentence and vindicated His Son".
• Concerning the resurrection, Luke, who is known to have a detailed and very accurate historian, declares there are 'many proofs'. Thomas Arnold called Christ's resurrection "the best attested fact in history", and Stott says, "... many impartial students have judged the evidence to be extremely good."

Those points considered, we will move on...

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 I. The Body Had Gone. You will remember that the resurrection narratives of the four Gospels commence with certain women visiting Jesus' tomb early on the morning of Easter Sunday. When they arrived, they were astounded to find that the body of the Lord had vanished. A few days later, the apostles started preaching that Jesus Christ was no longer dead, but had risen. It was the central theme of their message. But they could not have expected men to believe them if the body of Jesus was in fact still lying cold, still, and untouched in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb! No. The body was gone. There can be no disputing this fact. Rather, the question is how to explain it.

• First Theory: the women went to the wrong tomb. After all, it was still dark, and they were yet grieving over the death of their Lord. They could've easily, it is claimed, made a mistake.
• Answer: While this theory may appear plausible on the surface, Stott says it hardly bears examination. "To begin with, it cannot have been completely dark. It is true that John says the women came 'while it was still dark'. But in Matthew 28:1 it is 'toward dawn', while Luke says it was 'at early dawn', and Mark distinctly states that 'the sun had risen'." Furthermore, Stott points out, these women weren't fools. At least two of them had witnessed where Joseph and Nicodemus had laid the corpse of Jesus. They had even watched the entire process of the burial, 'sitting opposite the sepulchre'. The same two women (Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus) returned again at dawn, this time bringing with them Salome, Joanna, and 'the other women', so that even if one had mistaken the path or the tomb, she would probably have been corrected by the others. "Besides, no mere sentiment brought them so early to the tomb. They were on a practical mission. They had bought spices and were going to complete the annointing of the Lord's body, since the approach of the sabbath had made the work so hasty two days previously. These devoted and businesslike women were not the kind to be easily decieved or to give up the task they had come to do." Also, even if they had made a mistake about the tomb, would the same mistake have been made by Peter and John, who ran to verify the story? And what about the others who undoubtedly came later, including Joseph and Nicodemus themselves?
• Second Theory: the swoon theory. Those who maintain this view say that Jesus didn't really die on the cross, but only fainted. He then revived in the tomb, left it, and reappeared to His disciples.
• Answer: This explanation is full of problems. The evidence thoroughly contradicts it. Pilate, though surprised at how quickly Jesus died, was sufficiently convinced by the centurion's assurance to allow Joseph to remove the body from the cross. The centurion was certain, because he must have been there when 'one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water' (John 19:34). So Joseph and Nicodemus took down the body, wrapped it in graveclothes, and buried it in Joseph's tomb. Stott says, "Are we then seriously to believe that Jesus was all the time only in a swoon? That after the rigours and pains of trail, mockery, flogging, and crucifixion He could survive thirty-six hours in a stone sepulchre with neither warmth nor food nor medical care? That He could then rally sufficiently to perform the superhuman feat of shifting the boulder which secured the mouth of the tomb, and this without disturbing the Roman guard? That then, weak and sickly and hungry, he could appear to His disciples in such a way as to give them the impression that He had vanquished death? That He could go on to claim that He had died and risen, could send them into all the world and promise to be with them unto the end of time? That He could live somewhere in hiding for forty days, making occasional surprise appearences, and then finally disappear without any explaination? Such credulity is more incredible than Thomas' unbelief."
• Third Theory: thieves stole the body.
• Answer: What possible motive would they have had for doing so? How could they have hoodwinked the Roman guard? Why would the thieves steal the body and leave the graveclothes behind?
• Fourth Theory: the disciples removed the body. Matthew tells us that this is the very sort of rumour which was spread by the Jews from the earliest days. After the death and burial of Jesus, the chief priests and Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for a guard to be placed over the tomb, lest 'His disciples go and steal Him away' (Matthew 27:62-65). Pilate consents to their request. A heavy stone is rolled over the mouth of the tomb and a guard is set. Matthew goes on to describe how such precautions could not prevent the resurrection. Shortly thereafter, the guards returned to the city to report what had happened. After a consultation amongst themselves, the chief priests and Pharisees bribed the soldiers, and commanded them to spread the story that Jesus' disciples had come by night while they were asleep and stolen His body (Matthew 28:11-15).
• Answer: This story doesn't hold water. First of all, is it likely that a picked guard, whether Roman or Jewish, would all sleep on duty when strictly ordered to watch? Not very. "And even supposing the disciples could have suceeded in removing the Lord's body," Stott points out, " there is a psychological consideration which is enough to discredit the whole theory. We learn from the first part of the Acts that in their early preaching the apostles concentrated on the resurrection. 'You killed him, but God raised Him, and we are witnesses', they kept saying (Acts 2:23-24). Are we then to believe that they were proclaiming what they knew to be a deliberate lie? If they had themselves taken the body of Jesus, to preach His resurrection was to spread a known, planned falsehood. They not only preached it; they suffered for it. They were prepared to go to prison, to the flogging post and to death for a fairy-tale.  This simply does not ring true. It is so unlikely as to be impossible... They may have been decieved if you like, but they were not deceivers. Hypocrites and marytrs are not made of the same stuff." 
• Theory Five: the Roman or Jewish authorities took Jesus' body into their own custody. It is certain they would have had motive enough to do so. They had heard Jesus proclaim that He would rise again, and so, to forestall any trickery, they took the precaution of confiscating the body.
• Answer: When this explaination is carefully considered, however, it falls to pieces. We see that within a few weeks of Jesus' death the Christians were boldly declaring His resurrection. The news spread quickly. The new movement threatened to undermine the bulwarks of Judaism and to disrupt the peace of Jerusalem. "The Jews feared conversions; the Romans feared riots." All the authorities had to do was produce the body and state what they had done. But they didn't. They were silent. Instead they resorted to violent methods of supressing the new movement. They arrested, flogged, imprisoned and killed. But all this was unnecessary if they had the body of Jesus in their possession. "The church was founded on the resurrection. Disprove the resurrection, and the church would have collapsed. But they could not; the body was not in their possession. The authorities' silence is as eloquent a proof of the resurrection as they apostles' witness."

None of these theories is a satisfactory explaination for the emptiness of the tomb and the disappearence of the body. There is no evidence to back any of them up. Therefore, for lack of "any alternative explanation, perhaps we may be forgiven if we prefer the simple and sober narrative of the Gospels, describing the events of the first Easter Day. The body of Jesus was not removed by men; it was raised by God". 

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II. The Graveclothes Were Undisturbed. "It is a remarkable fact," continues Stott, "that the narratives which say that the body of Jesus was gone also tell us that the graveclothes had not gone." John particularly lays emphasis on this fact, as it was he who accompanied Peter on the early morning race to the tomb. The account he gives of the incident (John 20:1-10) has the definite marks of personal experience.  He outdistanced Peter, but when he arrived at the tomb, he only looked in, until Peter came and entered it. 'Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed' (John 20:8). We then ask: What did he see which made him believe? "The story suggests that it was not just the absence of the body, but the presence of the graveclothes and, in particular, their undisturbed position."

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We will now attempt to reconstruct the story. John tells us (John 19:38-42) that Joseph asked Pilate for the body of Jesus; meanwhile, Nicodemus 'came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds' weight''. Together, they then 'took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews'. They wound the linen "bandages" around His body, sprinkling the powdered spices into the folds. A seperate cloth would have been used for the head. Thus they wrapped His body and head, leaving His face and neck uncovered, according to oriental practice. This done, they laid His body on a slab of stone which had been cut out of the side of the cave-sepulchre.

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"Now supposing we had been present in the sepulchre  when the resurrection of Jesus actually took place. What should we have seen? Should we have seen Jesus begin to move, and then yawn and stretch and get up? No. We do not believe that He returned to this life. He did not recover from a swoon. He had died, and He rose again. His was a resurrection, not a resuscitation. We believe that he passed miraculously from death into an altogether new sphere of existence." What then should we have seen? Stott contends, "We should suddenly have noticed that the body had disappeared. It would have 'vaporized', being transmuted into something new and different and wonderful. It would have passed through the graveclothes, as it was later to pass through closed doors, leaving them quite untouched and almost undisturbed. Almost, but not quite. For the body cloths, under the weight of 100 lbs. of spices, once the support of the body had been removed, would have subsided or collapsed, and would now be lying flat. A gap would have appeared between the body cloths and the head napkin, where His face and neck had been. And the napkin itself, because of the complicated criss-cross pattern of the bandages, might well have retained its concave shape, a crumbled turban, but with no head inside it." A careful look at the text of John's narrative (John 20:6-7) suggests that it is just these three characteristics of the discarded graveclothes which he noticed. 

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It is not difficult to imagine the scene which the disciples came upon when they reached the tomb: the stone slab, the collapsed graveclothes, the empty shell of the head napkin and the gap between the two. It is no wonder they 'saw and believed'. One look at the graveclothes was proof of the reality, and indicative of the nature, of Christ's resurrection. They hadn't been folded or manipulated by the hand of any human being. "They were like a discarded chrysalis from which the butterfly has emerged."

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Stott adds, "That the state of the graveclothes was intended to be visible, corrobarative evidence for the resurrection is further suggested by the fact that Mary Magdalene (who had returned to the tomb after bringing the news to Peter and John) 'stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet' (John 20:11-12) Presumably this means that they sat on the stone slab with the graveclothes between them. Both Matthew and Mark add that one of them said, 'He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay' (Matthew 28:6; Mark 16:6)...these allusions to the place where Jesus' had lain, emphasized by both the position and the words of the angels, at least confirms what the understanding of the evangelists was: the position of the clothes and the absence of the body were concurrent witnesses to His resurrection."

To be continued...

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Persevero,

Scribe