The Righteous Will Be Judged

Answering a question on Quora:

Why will the righteous be judged?

The short answer is that, whereas the unrighteous are judged for punishment, the righteous are judged for reward.

The long answer requires starting by defining “the righteous.” The righteous are not people who never sin.

Now we know that whatever the Law [the Ten Commandments and associated commands] says, it speaks to those who are under the Law [ancient Israelites], so that every mouth may be closed and call the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh [no human] will be justified in His [God’s] sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God… — Romans 3:19–20, 23

The purpose of passages such as the Ten Commandments is not to show us how we can earn heaven. It is to show us that we cannot earn heaven. It drives us to seek a different way to have positive relationship with God.

Rather, the righteous are people who let go of self-righteousness and instead trust that God paid their penalty through Jesus’s sacrifice and then proved it by raising Jesus from the dead. Scriptures use accounting language to say that God credits their penalty to Jesus and imputes their faith to their account for righteousness. They become, not perfect or sinless, but declared righteous.

Being declared righteous does not automatically make their thoughts and actions righteous; that takes growth over the rest of their lives. Becoming a Christian doesn’t make you perfect, it makes you a student.

Here’s an important distinction: Being declared righteous does not mean you can do whatever you want. There are many reasons for this. First, believers do what they believe, so if they really believe God, then they’ll start learning to do God’s will.

Second, God takes steps to help them grow more holy in what they do. So their belief will produce evidence, that is, good behaviors. Good behavior is not a cause of God’s gift of forgiveness, it is a result. Every false system will reverse that by making good works into requirements for receiving the gift. But when you try to earn a gift, you insult the Giver and miss out on getting the gift.

Third, God tests and chastises His children to instill good behaviors. In extreme cases, chastisement can even lead to taking a severely disobedient believer home to heaven. So it’s laughable to say that being secure in God’s love and not having to persevere in good works means you can get away with anything. A “believer” who does whatever he wants and gets away with it demonstrates that he is a counterfeit Christian.

The judgment of the righteous is different from the judgment of those who reject or fail to accept God’s gift (let’s call them “the lost”). When the lost are judged, their moral crimes determine their degree of punishment. Since we sin against infinite God, even a “small” sin earns a very serious punishment.

The righteous, on the other hand, are not judged for punishment because their sins were already punished. (Remember, they were transferred to Christ.) Instead, their works are judged for reward. Many of their “good” works will be disqualified because they were mixed with error, bad methods, or wrong motives. Those works that survive the test will be rewarded. 1 Corinthians 3:12-13

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Repetitive Sin and Losing Salvation

Answering a question on Quora:

Have I lost my salvation? I keep falling back into the same sin for 6 years deliberately after I repent but after the last time I feel as though I cant be forgiven. and if its not to late how can I get back to the lord and make him happy and proud?

First question: No, you have not lost your salvation. There are two possibilities. Your concern over your sin is good, in either case.

• Jesus spoke about people who received the message of God and fell away because of trouble, persecution, worries, or desires. The message bore no fruit in their lives. He spoke even more about people who heard the message and seemed to understand it intellectually, but never grasped it with humbled, needy hearts. Many of them fooled the world and even did mighty works in Jesus name. The message seemed to bear fruit, in their lives, but it was a false fruit. On Judgment Day, Jesus won’t say, “I knew you and then you fell away so I forgot you.” Jesus will say, “I never knew you.”
  
  In other words, you cannot lose what you never had. But if you decide that this is the case, your concern has placed you on the right path to correcting the situation.
  
  The application for you is to make sure you heard the message not just with your head, not just with your heart, and not a deficient version. Your concern may have brought you to the point where you are ready to correct a bad understanding of the gospel or some deficiency in the way you received it.
  
  
• God’s salvation brings many benefits. If you are saved, “regeneration” means that God has made your dead spirit alive. He has made you one of His sheep and put it in your heart to follow Him and no other. The Father holds you in His hand, the Son also holds you in His hand, and the Spirit indwells you. The Spirit, in fact, closes the lid and seals you with a seal that only Jesus can break. God even predestines you to be transformed into the (figurative) image of Christ, and the judgment of the Second Death, when the lost are cast into the Lake of Fire, has no power over you. He has birthed you into His family and adopted you as an heir with full adult privileges of the family business.
  
  In other words, you cannot “lose” what God has declared done or as good as done.
  
  There are many reasons why God does not give instant victory over sins. For example, He doesn’t want us to grow self-righteous or independent. He wants us to struggle to develop strength or to be able to have the wisdom or empathy to help others. Some other sins are a higher priority as He shapes you for the tasks He has ahead. I cannot read God’s mind, so I cannot tell you which of the hundreds of possibilities apply to you.

Second question: There are two possible reasons you feel as though you cannot be forgiven. You are receiving the Father’s chastisement or you don’t understand forgiveness.

• If you have been saved, then God’s relationship with you changed. Before, He was your Judge, but now, He is your Father. Before, your fate was wrath, but now, you are predestined to reward. In the meantime, we are stuck in these sinful bodies. Our natural hearts are deceitful and incurable until that day. God accepts us as we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way. He works in us “to will and to do according to His good pleasure.”
  
  God also chastises His children. That feeling of an unforgivable state reflects the interruption in fellowship that happens. This could be a second-level chastisement; you don’t want to find out what the third level is like. There’s even a chastisement to the point of calling us home to heaven for the most severe sins — and yet, the purpose of such extreme measures is preserving the soul.
  
  God presents us with a carrot and a stick. The carrot, the blessings of a restored relationship with God, and the stick, the knowledge that returning to sins will have increasingly severe consequences, should give you something to meditate on and to motivate you.
  
  
• Judicially, Jesus bore the sentence for our sins 1,967 years ago. All of our sins were “future” to Him. God does not forgive our sins just up to that point of our conversion or confession. All the sins of God’s children — past, present, and future — were nailed to the cross.
  
  Jesus Himself commanded the disciples to forgive a repentant brother an unlimited number of times; and Jesus would not issue such a command if the God did not do the same. Whether God already forgave, or God forgives every time does not matter. The result is the same.
  
  Parentally, God does not condemn His children, although He chastises them. Sin does break fellowship with God. It also alienates the Holy Spirit, depriving us of His comfort and power. But what Good Father would not receive a repentant child with open arms?
  
  So the weakness here is failing to trust that God, as Judge, has already forgiven; and as Father has already received you. The problem may be that you are usurping God’s parental privilege and chastising yourself.

Our feelings are not the source of our faith. The scriptures are. It’s tempting to give in to feelings, but we must understand first and then decide to act accordingly. The mind is powerful, and we can control our feelings better than we think.

Third question: You can can “get back to the lord and make him happy and proud” with three steps.

• Make sure you’ve understood the gospel. Technically, this might not be “getting back” to the Lord; it might be getting to Him for the first time.
  
  You feared having lost your salvation. That means that you believed that your salvation was conditional or incomplete. You may have believed that God saves, but salvation ultimately depends on ceremonies (such as baptism) or on your behaviors. The gospel you believe is like a chain with two links. One link represents God’s work, and the other represents your righteousness. Guess which link breaks every time? The biblical gospel has only one link in its chain.
  
  Scroll up to that paragraph that starts out, God’s salvation brings many benefits. Now read each benefit and explain how you can undo that benefit in order to lose your salvation. For example, are you stronger than the Holy Spirit who seals you? Predestination means that God will make something happen. Are you stronger than God? Moreover, if God has forgiven your sins by washing them away and casting them as far away as East is from West, can you filter your sins out of the blood or fetch them back from infinity? If God has erased your sins from the Books of Works, can you write them back in?
  
  Other common misunderstandings regards the meaning of repentance. Many churches ignore it. “Just ask Jesus into your heart,” they say. “Jesus wants to be your friend and make life wonderful for you.” But salvation starts with forgiveness of sins, and conversion starts with an awareness, not that there’s a hole in your life, but that our sins have condemned us.
  
  The other extreme about repentance requires cleaning up our lives in order to be saved. This is tied to the error of thinking you can lose salvation. Trying to earn the gift insults the Giver. Repentance is an attitude, not actions. It means seeing our sins the way God sees them. It does not include reforming yourself; and it cannot, because we cannot achieve the degree of righteousness that God would require. In fact, making reform a requirement for salvation is a form of self-righteousness, one of the sins we must repent from!
  
  Salvation does not result from reform; reform results from salvation. It is not a test for salvation; it tests whether salvation is genuine. Reform gives evidence of salvation; it is a product of salvation; it does not cause it.
  
  
• Assuming you had salvation, then, if you fear having lost it, then you are not trusting in God’s forgiveness. You are fearing that God has changed from Father back into Judge. This is an area where you can please God by expanding your trust in Him.
  
  
• Trust Him to keep you saved.
• Trust that He has already forgiven all your sins.
• Trust that God is now your Father instead of your Judge.
• Trust that your Father will never disown you.
• Thank Jesus, Son of God, for bearing your punishment.
• Thank your Father for His chastisement.
• Thank Him for the promise that one day, He will complete your transformation and free you from sin.
  
  
• Don’t stop repenting. Jesus commanded disciples to forgive every time a brother came in repentance. Trust that what God commands of us, He does.
  
  Bear this in mind: You are focused on one sin. If you think this sin is the only one, you have a problem of self-righteousness. Ironic, isn’t it? We can feel so guilty about one sin that we forget all the other sins we commit. We all commit so many sins, we don’t even recognize all of them. What makes this one sin so special that it costs your salvation while all the others don’t?
  
  Don’t get me wrong. Some sins are more detestable, and different sins cause different levels of damage or chastisement. But sin is sin, and the sacrifice of infinite God the Son was sufficient to cleanse us from any guilt.

I’ll conclude with some practical hints. Make sure you understand the gospel. You can only “get saved” once, but you can make sure of it as many times as you need. Copy Romans 3:28, Ephesians 2:8–9, Titus 3:5, and Romans 8:38–39 onto 3x5 note cards; then read and re-read them until you can recite them from memory. Repent from not trusting God. Increase your trust and make it a habit to thank God for securing you in His love — and even thank Him for His chastisement.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, and please give credit where credit is due.

Why the Universe Couldn't Always Have Existed

 Answering a question on Quora:

If God always existed and did not need to be created, why is not possible that the universe always existed and did not need to be created?

The question needs a two-part answer. First, I want to clarify: For many, establishing the existence of God must precede establishing that God has revealed Himself. A debates over Big Bang cosmology versus various versions of Creationism is a subsequent issue. It can wait. One step at a time.

...why is [it] not possible that the universe always existed and did not need to be created?

Theoretical physicists don’t believe the universe is eternal. They believe it began 13.787±0.020 billion years ago. According to General Relativity, “universe” includes not only mass and energy, but also space-time.

1. Obviously, if the universe began to exist a finite time ago, it could not have always existed.
2. “Always existed” implies an infinite past. If space-time began during the inflationary period as physicists believe it did, then there was no earlier past in which the universe could have existed.
3. Due to increasing entropy, an infinitely old universe would have experienced heat death, long ago. Even if the universe were cyclical or a child universe, entropy would have been preserved through the rebirths or births, so an infinitely old series of cycles would still have produced a dead universe long ago.
4. If the universe began in the infinite past, it would be impossible to traverse an infinite time to get to “now.”
5. It would be impossible to traverse an infinite series of real things or events such as birth-rebirth cycles.

At the minimum, the universe had to begin to exist. This leads to a tangent: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. From the characteristics of the universe and of life, we can infer a number of attributes such as unimaginable power, creative power over space-time that enables spatial and temporal omnipresence, unimaginable levels of intelligence and craftsmanship — attributes of a Creator-God.

If God always existed and did not need to be created….

Again, “always existed” implies an infinite past. That has already been refuted. Theist apologists familiar with cosmology do not say God always existed. They say God had to exist “before” the universe. Since time is an attribute of the universe itself, and the universe had a beginning a finite time ago, God existed outside of time (not “always”).

While God existed outside of time, He also can enter into time. If God created the universe, and time is an attribute of the universe, then God has creative power over time. With such a creative power, God can enter into time, experience it, and interact with His creatures.

In fact, with such creative power, God can enter into space-time as multiple Persons or centers of consciousness. Being Spirit and not matter, the impossibility of two masses existing at the same time and location do not apply. And being timeless and spaceless combines with creative power so that coexisting as three Persons having the same essence (spiritual “substance”) does not create any paradoxes. But the fact of a triune God must be revealed; it cannot be deduced, sensed, or detected.

As with an infinite universe or cycle of universes, an infinite regression of gods creating gods is impossible. If there were a chain of gods creating gods, one of them must be the First Cause. This might make sense causally, but remember, you lack time during which sequences such as need and creation could occur. The idea of God being created is nonsensical in a condition that lacks the dimension of time.

One link in the chain of gods is as far as the evidence and logic permit us to go, and One is enough. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use; and remember to give credit where credit is due.

Everlasting Rage in Hell

Answering a question on Quora:

In Matthew 25:30, what does gnashing of the teeth mean?

The Parable of the Talents begins in Matthew 25:14. The word gnashing appears at the parable's end, verse 30, describing hell as being a place of outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

This question brings out a point that most people miss. Most people focus on weeping as a sign of sorrow, regret, or pain. The term, gnashing of teeth, ought to turn that around.

The Bible usually defines its own terms. We can determine the meaning of gnashing from Acts 7. Shortly after the beginning of the Christian church, the religious authorities who ruled Jerusalem put Stephen, a deacon in the church, on trial for preaching that Jesus of Nazareth was Messiah. Stephen’s defense demonstrated his innocence and showed that the rulers were the guilty ones who had murdered Jesus.

This infuriated the rulers. It says in Acts 7:54, On hearing this, the members of the Sanhedrin were enraged, and they gnashed their teeth at him. Then they mobbed him, dragged him out of the city, and stoned him to death.

Literally, to gnash your teeth means to make a biting, chewing, or clenched motion with your jaw. My dad did this in his sleep. It was loud! We called it grinding his teeth. The same gesture, done in anger by the Jewish rulers, was probably like a dog baring his teeth, biting at the air, and making hostile growling noises.

So the lesson of this phrase in Matthew 25 is that hell is not merely a place of pain. It is also a place of rage. Those who hate God now will forever consume themselves with the same hate. Even if flames, darkness, or worms are metaphors, being locked into overwhelming grief and rage, consuming you from within without relief or escape, is a horror that should motivate any Christian to pray for, love, and share the gospel with everyone they meet. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Free for non-remunerated use, but please give credit where credit is due.

Jesus was not Joseph Campbell's hero

Answering a question on Quora:

Is the book of Matthew a monomyth?

In my opinion, the Gospel According to Matthew has some elements of a monomyth but lacks the most critical characteristic.

According to Wikipedia, monomyth is a term from narratology Narratology and Comparative mythology, popularized by Joseph Campbell as the Hero's journey. The monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed.

Atheists believe Matthew is mythological, but it was intended as biographical; and good historical evidence supports that. While the book may be biographical, it remains narrative, so I would not exclude it from being a “hero’s journey” just because it is factual. There are better reasons.

Wikipedia includes a quote from Campbell that boils the Hero’s Journey cycle to such simple elements that Matthew could qualify as monomyth. However, that quote oversimplifies the cycle.

If you are familiar with Matthew and compare the events in Matthew to the graphic on Wikipedia’s page, you will find monomyth elements such as a mentor (God the Father), although mentorship precedes the narrative. Jesus of Nazareth has helpers (primarily the God the Holy Spirit), but his disciples are more dependents than helpers. Jesus of Nazareth gains victory over a climactic challenge — a torturous, humiliating death — resulting in the transformation of His body, but His character remains unchanged, since the core of His being was always fully formed. Jesus does not really return “home.” After His victory, He sporadically appears to His disciples to convince them of His victory and
deliver parting messages, but Matthew does not include the return home because "home" is God's throne. (The return home is described in Luke’s book, The Acts of the Apostles.)

Matthew lacks a self-revelation that transforms Jesus. Rather, Matthew turns much of the template upside down. Instead of being changed, Jesus changes the world. Specifically, Jesus transforms the relationship between God and humans. What people previously saw only through ceremonial metaphors and through clouded prophecies, they came to know historically and personally. What was previously conditional and superficial, He made unconditional and everlasting. (To support this statement, I would need to go into theological differences between Old Testament and New Testament salvation, which would stray off topic.)

Matthew does not qualify as monomyth. Rather than experiences transforming the Hero, the Hero’s experience enables transformation of the audience. The intent of Matthew is not to entertain readers with a transformed hero’s journey, but rather, to transform readers and send them on their own journeys.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated purposes, provided credit is given where credit is due.

Praying for Wealth

From a question on Quora 

Is there a specific mantra or prayer for financial prosperity and wealth?

I answer from a Christian perspective. If you are considering mantras, my answer is probably irrelevant. Hopefully, it will help other, future readers. I had three points to make in answer to the question.

Jack Richards’ answer made my first point. Christians should concern themselves with what good they can do for others and what sort of persons they are, not with how to be come healthy and wealthy. God chooses to make some wealthy so they can help others, but His heart goes out to the lowly and He rewards those who love serving others.

The standard for what Christians should believe is their Bible. There is a type of Christianity called the Prosperity Gospel that deviates from biblical teachings. It emphasizes health and prosperity instead of emphasizing growth in holiness, service to God and others, and spreading the good news that God redeems people at His own expense if they will only receive it.

The prosperity gospel works for its leaders — at the expense of gullible people who love being flattered and whose minds are on materialism. Its mass manipulation and prestidigitation appeal to people who lack knowledge of such matters. It also appeals to people with shallow faith, who need extraordinary proofs before they can trust God for deeper relationships.

Prosperity gospel preachers often teach people to say specific words, such as commanding wealth to come to them. This is not only unbiblical, it is antibiblical. It is so American — and so human. It is a wrong mindset, as described in Marcus Anderson’s answer.

Marcus made my second point by giving an example of a prayer from the Bible about wealth, made with a right mindset. The prayer asks for enough prosperity to meet needs. We need enough wealth to buy food, clothing, shelter, education, transportation. We need enough left over to help others. So asking for income, or, better, ways to earn income, is right.

However, prosperity is a trap for most people. It tempts us to think we are the source of prosperity and forget to thank God for giving us the ability to earn. We become self-sufficient instead of depending on God. Gaining and protecting wealth tempts us into moral compromise and even into treating others unjustly. And every week, we read about how wealth gave some celebrity the means to indulge in self-destructive vices. Whatever we give a higher priority to than we give to God becomes an idol.

My third point is that Christianity is not a religion of magic. Words have power to inform, convince, and motivate people; but they have no power over physical things. Words can deceive or show disrespect. In that sense, they have power to cause a negative reaction. This is especially true when treating labels for God as worthless or usurping His titles. Fortunately, we can also use words in prayer to convince God to do things. But in prayer, there are conditions; primarily:

• God is Spirit, so the thoughts and intents of our spirits are as real to Him as our actions are. Our words are powerless with God if our intents do not correspond.
• God has plans of His own for running the universe. Our prayers must be moral and must fit with God’s plans.
• God loves His family and provides for them. He sometimes demonstrates His presence for the sake of those not yet in His family. But He has no obligation to creatures who owe all their obligation to Him. 

Christianity is not like magic or like other religions in which words have power of their own. Mantras and pre-written “prayers” do not impress God. Jesus of Nazareth said, “When you pray, do not babble on like pagans, for they think that by their many words they will be heard” (Matthew 6:7). The word in the ancient Greek manuscripts was βαττολογέω (battalogeó), which meant to stammer, utter nonsensical repetitions, be long-winded, or use empty, formalistic words. It describes practices from those requiring prayer beads (e.g., Catholic, Buddhist, shamanic), Pentecostal / Charismatic tongues-speaking, formulaic prayers heard in liturgical churches, and bloviating prayers anywhere else.

Christianity is a relationship, and a prayer is one side of a conversation within that relationship. Prayer is simply reasoned asking in humility and dependence. If your heart drives you to repeat yourself, it is not wrong. It is even commendable to think deeply about your request and present reasons as part of your request. The power, there, is in examining your own intentions and opening up your heart to God.

But manipulative repetition is disrespectful, and God will not respect it. Many Christians fall into using pre-written prayers. That is an acceptable method for those who cannot stay focused or who find prayers that express their hearts. They must take care, however, that such prayers do not become shallow formulas, lazy ways to avoid thinking deeply, or evasive ways to avoid opening up their hearts before God.

Copyrighte 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use; and I trust you to give credit where credit is due. 

1 Corinthians 13:13

From a question on Quora:

What does 1 Corinthians 13:13 mean?

Three things abide

[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. (verses 8–10)

But now these three things abide: faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love (verse 13).

Chapter 13 compares the fruits of the Spirit such as faith, hope, and love, to verbal, revelatory gifts of the Spirit, prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. From the perspective of the early 50’s AD, when the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, spiritual gifts of prophecy and knowledge would be done away with (passive voice), and the spiritual gift of speaking in unlearned foreign languages would do itself away (middle voice).

This, in fact, happened before the end of the first century. The bit-by-bit Word of God revealed through knowledge (of the existing, incomplete scriptures) and prophecy was completed with the apostle John’s writing of Revelation. Chapter 14 explains that tongues was a sign to educated Jews that Jerusalem was about to be destroyed and the Roman diaspora of the Jews was about to happen. (Chapter 14 does this by invoking prophetic Old Testament passages.) The prophecy was fulfilled in 67–70 AD.

So the Spirit stopped endowing people with the spiritual gifts or prophecy, tongues, and knowledge within less than 50 years of when the passage was written. In contrast, the fruits of the Spirit would continue.

The Corinthians had been emphasizing the wrong things. They went for the showy, the novel, the impressive, the ego-boosting gifts of the Spirit and missed the greater things, holiness and the fruits of the Spirit.

If you miss this contrast, you miss why Paul was correcting their priorities.

The greatest of these

Verses 4–6 describe characteristics of love. For example, contrast “Love… does not seek its own” against 14:4, The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies edifies the church. Each phrase in verses 4–6 describes a characteristic of behavior that flows from love.

Specifically, in verse 6, love “believes all things, hopes all things….” The word translated believes is the verb form of the word translated faith in verse 13. So we can see that love not only has many characteristics, but believing/faith and hoping/hope are two of those characteristics. In a hierarchy (an ontology), love is expressed or enacted through faith and hope. Hierarchically, then, love is greater than faith and hope.

Tangent

I’m surprised how some people link passing away (verse 10) to faith and hope (verse 13). Doing so, they break up the sentence that defines passing away’s context:

For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. (verses 9–10)

The partial is prophesy and knowledge. The partial, prophesy and knowledge, will be done away.

True, when prophesy is fulfilled and knowledge is based on first-hand, entire observation, faith and hope will become moot. But the topic is types of verbal revelation. Don’t miss what was to be done away: prophesy, tongues, and knowledge.

The looking-glass in verse 12 is a mirror (compare the same word in James 1:23, For anyone who hears the word but does not carry it out is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror. The mirror in which they saw themselves dimly was the Old Testament scriptures, discerned through knowledge, plus prophecy. The thing to be completed was the scriptures, at which time the partial, prophesy and knowledge, became superfluous.

The passive verb for prophesy and knowledge is not the same as the middle-voice verb for tongues. The meaning of tongues is explained in chapter 14 and in Old Testament scriptures that chapter 14 refers to: It was a sign to educated Jews of coming judgment, which was fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem and the diaspora in the first century.

So within 50 years of Paul writing 1 Corinthians, the Holy Spirit stopped distributing spiritual gifts that revealed new truths. The fruits of the Spirit, however, will continue throughout this age. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, but please give credit where credit is due.

Will God Forgive Bitterness?

From a question on Quora:

Will God still forgive those who hold bitterness in their hearts towards others?

Bitterness is wrong. It hurts others and it hurts you. It means that you have not seen yourself through God’s eyes because you see yourself as superior to the other person. You must know this, so I’ll keep the focus on God’s forgiveness.

There are two routes to heaven. If you depend on the first route, then, along with obeying numerous other commandments, you must forgive everyone who offends you in order to earn God’s forgiveness. If you have depended on the second route, God has already forgiven you as Judge, although He may chastise you as a loving Father.

The Jews of Jesus’s day, most people around the world, and many “Christian” denominations and offshoots pursue the first route. This route depends on human merit.

• The Jewish leaders, being descendants of Abraham, believed their heritage earned heaven for them. You will hear similar claims today, such as “My mother was a saint!” or “Grandpa was a Baptist preacher.”
• Many believed that the sacrifices made by their parents or ceremonies such as circumcision that their parents put them through brought them into a special relationship with God. When I was 18, I thought that because I was born an American and my parents had me “baptized” when I was little, I would see heaven.
• Others believed that if they kept the Ten Commandments, related commandments, traditions, and ceremonies; did acts of love and generosity; and kept themselves separate from things that would defile them (such as eating pork of shrimp), God would forgive them. Much of that continues today. The standard may be as simple as “Love one another” or may include performing sacraments, works of charity, refraining from offenses, or forgiving others.

Jesus often preached against depending on the first, heritage. He also preached that the second, what others do for you, was worthless unless you embrace the third in your heart. He did often preach the third, personal righteousness. But there’s a catch.

If you depend on personal righteousness, then the standard is perfection. The test is Pass/Fail, and any score less than 100% is Fail. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive yours (Matthew 6:15). Jesus implied that the personal righteousness standard was so high that, instead of saving people, it condemned them. All (except Jesus) have fallen short of God’s standard. Because of this, God cannot allow us to defile His presence. Even if we could, we could not bear to be in His presence.

Not everybody reaches sufficient humiliation to admit in frustration and self-condemnation, “I can’t.” For those who do give up on the futile self-merit route, God has created the second route.

The word grace means gift or unmerited favor. If something is a gift, you don’t insult the Giver by trying to earn it either before or after the fact. You don’t mix faith and works or mix grace and merit the way many churches do.

God’s grace is an attitude, not a money-like stuff that comes bit-by-bit. Someone made up an acronym to explain g-r-a-c-e: God Redeems At Christ’s Expense. Jesus, Son of God, like a Big Brother taking his little brother’s punishment, took God’s punishment for our sins. Jesus’s sacrifice was sufficient for all sins of all people; and God demonstrated His satisfaction by physically raising Jesus from the dead.

God applies that payment to those who trust God instead of themselves. That includes several points of faith such as our guilt and its consequences, Christ being God, Christ dying on a cross and rising from the dead, and God’s promise to save trusting people from being judged for their offenses.

When you have that kind of repentance and faith, God grants total forgiveness. That means you will never face God as Judge because He has changed your relationship. He births you into His family and adopts you as His heir. So now He’s your Father who will never leave or abandon you, even if you have not yet overcome bitterness in your heart.

Does that mean you can do anything you want — such as failing to forgive — without consequences? Absolutely not! God chastises His children when they will not turn from offensive ways. Sometimes, chastisement can be as severe as sickness or death. But your sin cannot change what you are.

So if you want to earn your way to heaven, go ahead: Hold yourself to an impossibly high standard. And when you fall flat on your face, go to God in humility. As Judge, God will forgive all your sins — and by all I mean all, including bitterness. And as Father, he will train you, using internal influence over your spirit, positive reinforcement, and chastisement. 

Copyright 2020 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, and please give credit where credit is due.

Contradicting Quotations in the Bible

Commenting on an answer to a question on Quora:

Phantom Contradictions in the Bible

This was hard for my formerly fundamental KJV-Only Baptist self to admit. But as I read the gospels in harmony format, I have to concede that the gospel writers were more like NIV translators than like Berean Literal Bible translators.

Anybody who picks on the exact wording of quotes in the Bible is applying grammatical rules that do not seem to have existed anywhere when the Bible was written.

I have seen passages that disagree in inconsequential ways. For example, in parallel accounts, Matthew has Jesus saying “kingdom of heaven” whereas other gospel writers have Him saying “kingdom of God.”

(You may have to open the graphic in a separate window to make it large enough to read.)

Whether it is the kingdom of God’s heaven or the kingdom of heaven’s God makes no difference.

Other examples happen when one writer says Jesus spoke a sentence one way and another writer says says Jesus used the same phrases but in an opposite order.

However, the sense of the quotes are always the same. Reportedly, that was adequate by the standards of the day. Before the 1500s, quotes were merely indicated by multi-use marks in the margins; and I couldn’t find any reference to that practice before the third century. Quotation marks that set off direct quotes weren’t invented until the 1500’s. Clear rules for distinguishing between direct, word-for-word quotation and indirect, paraphrased quotation seem to have come even more recently.

And I have never seen a substantial contradiction.

People who see “contradictions” invariably have jumped to that conclusion. They want contradictions to exist. They are willing to ignore not only logical explanations, but also the logical rule that, if a discrepancy can be rationalized, then persisting in calling it a contradiction crosses into intellectual dishonesty.

Copyrights 2020 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, and please give credit where credit is due.

When Prophecy and Knowledge Are Idled

From a question on Quora:

What does 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 mean?

You won’t catch the meaning if you leave out 13:8 and 14:20–22.

The Corinthians church abused a spiritual gift of speaking in human, foreign languages (“tongues”) that a person had never learned.

The writer, the apostle Paul, included several relevant messages in chapters 12–13. One point was that believers should always practice faith, hope, and love, but revelatory gifts such as prophecy, tongues, and knowledge would become redundant. The Holy Spirit distributed gifts for specific purposes; so when a gift’s purpose was fulfilled, the Holy Spirit would stop distributing it.

Verse 8 uses different verbs to separate the causes of tongues’ ceasing from what caused prophecy and knowledge to cease.

• Love never fails; but if there are [spiritual] gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are [spiritual gifts of] tongues, they will cease; if there is [a spiritual gift of] knowledge, it will be done away.

Prophecy and knowledge would be idled (passive form of καταργέω (katargeó) -- to render inoperative, abolish) whereas tongues would stop themselves (middle voice (something acting upon itself) form of παύω (pauó) -- to make to cease, hinder). If you miss this, then you miss how the remainder of chapter 13 and chapter 14 are organized.

Verses 9–12 deal with what would end the spiritual gifts of prophecy and knowledge. The reason for the spiritual gift of tongues ending is described in 14:20–22.

Verses 9–10, 11, and 12 explain, in three different ways, that gifts of prophecy and knowledge would become become redundant.

• Verses 9–10 describes speaking gifts as partial. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. Speaking gifts give you a little revelation here and a little there. You never get the whole thing. When the whole verbal revelation comes in a recorded, written form, then you don’t need the partial revelations anymore.
• Verse 11 describes things that are needed by the immature. When maturity comes, then we put away the things of childhood. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. The infant church needed prophecy and knowledge. All they had was the Old Testament. But a degree of maturity would come when revelatory gifts would no longer be needed.
• Verse 12 describes seeing the full knowledge that comes from seeing directly as being superior to the partial knowledge that comes from looking in a first century mirror. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. In New Testament lingo, the mirror is verbal revelation from God.* Piecemeal revelation through prophecy and knowledge gives us but occasional glimpses of ourselves, whereas the completed scriptures made full knowledge available and at all times.
• * James 1:23–24, For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

The perfect, complete, sufficient verbal revelation came as the New Testament scriptures were completed. The church passed from infancy to adulthood. Full knowledge of God’s words would replace going to the prophet to get verbal revelation bit-by-bit. As the scriptures reached completion, the spiritual gifts that delivered the same subjects would become redundant. The gifts of knowledge and prophecy would be idled by the completion of the New Testament.

The cause of tongues ceasing is a tangent, so I’ll be brief. Chapter 14 explicitly says “tongues are for” a purpose. Verses 20–22 refer to an Old Testament prophecy: Tongues was a sign to unbelieving Jews. The sign meant that God would soon punish the Jews for rejecting their Messiah. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in 53 AD. In 66 AD, Israel rebelled against Rome. Rome swept over Israel and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD. Rome again warred against the Jewish remnant in 132–136. So as you read verses 20–22 in light of the prophecy’s significance, you find that tongues were for a particular audience:

• Not believers (14:22). 14:4 says, The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies edifies the church. Anybody who thinks speaking in tongues to edify yourself is a good thing has completely missed the point. Chapter 12 says the gifts are to edify the church, and no gift is given to everybody. Chapter 13 says the gifts are for loving others, and love does not seek its own (13:5). Chapter 14 says to seek better gifts and keep things orderly. Even 14:4 contrasts (“but”) tongues and prophecy in a way that puts tongues in a negative light.
• Unbelievers; more specifically…
• Unbelieving Jews educated in Old Testament prophecy
• Unbelieving Jews that the prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction might apply to — in other words, first century Jews.

When Rome fulfilled the prophecy for which tongues was a sign, tongues became redundant. Similarly, as the scriptures were completed and circulated, the gifts of prophecy and knowledge became redundant. Logically, the Spirit would no longer distribute redundant spiritual gifts.

All Bible references are from the New American Standard Bible.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. Remember to give credit where credit is due.

God's Name: Holy, But Not Magic

Another question from Quora

Why are some words capitalized in the Bible?

Which Bible? Which words?

A. Others have explained how words such as pronouns are capitalized out of reverence when the words refer to God. Sometimes that practice is helpful because ancient writers were not always clear about whom a pronoun referred to. If a sentence referred to a prophet, a king, and God, figuring out which one of them “he” refers to might be difficult. When the pronounce is capitalized, you know that at least the translator believes it refers to God.

B. The New American Standard Bible uses all-capitals to identify quotations, particularly quotations from the Old Testament.

C. But I think what you really want to know about is the word LORD, in all capital letters.

Before the time of the exodus from Egypt, those who worshiped God referred to Him descriptively as “God” or “Lord.” Egypt had many gods, so after God told Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses wanted a name so he could tell the Israelites who sent him to them. God answered, “Tell them I AM has sent you.” That name was spelled YHWH. Hebrew did not have vowels, so if you did not learn Hebrew by hearing it, you would not know how to pronounce the name.

A thousand years later, Israel had departed from worshiping YHWH. God removed His protection, so other nations destroyed Israel and deported the leaders for seventy years. When the leaders were sent back to Israel a few years before 530 BC to re-establish the nation, they had learned their lesson and become extremely serious about worshiping God.

They became so serious that they refused to pronounce that holy name, YHWH. Consequently, later generations forgot how to pronounce it! By the time of Christ’s birth, it had become regular practice to add the vowels from Adonai (“Lords”) to YHWH to make YaHoWaH.

Since the actual pronunciation was lost, this new pronunciation stuck. Over time, the name was Hellenized for Greek translations. Then that was Latinized for Roman translations. Then that was Anglicized for English translations. That’s how it came to be pronounced Jehovah. Sometimes, some translations use the name Jehovah; other times, they use LORD in its place.

LORD is still used in place of YHWH in many modern translations. Sometimes LORD is used for Adonai, too, especially in compound names such as Adonai Elohim (literally, “Lords Gods,” but often translated “LORD God”). It’s done partly out of respect, partly out of tradition, and partly because we have no confidence that Yahowah is the correct pronunciation. It’s just assumed that readers know; but obviously, not everybody does.

Watch out for organizations of movements that stress knowing God’s “name” such as Yah, Yahweh, Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, or Jehovah. They take advantage of people who lack biblical education. It’s good to learn the meanings that words and names convey. However, God understands all human languages, even when we mispronounce His name. Biblical faith is not a religion of sorcery and incantations wherein the words themselves have power. Our goal is to know and experience God, not magical words.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Free for non-remunerated use, but please give credit where credit is due rather than committing plagiarism.

Omniscience Is No Paradox for God

Answering a question on Quora

Sometimes, the answers on Quora are so bad, you have to add your own answer, even if the question is so elementary that any diction should give an adequate answer, because people who post questions tend to be most influenced by the first answers they read.

What does it mean to be "omniscient"?

Omniscient combines the prefix omni-, “all,” with the Latin root word scientia, “knowledge.” To be omniscient is to know all knowable information. For a more complete definition, watch the opening of the video below, titled, “Omniscience Paradox Debunked.”

Contrary to some objections, a Being with omniscience does not take away free will. Suppose you see someone whose face has lost its color, their eyes have become glassy and unfocused, and their body has started wobbling; and he says, “I’m going to faint.” You now have good reason to believe (“know”) that he’s going to faint. Has your knowledge taken away his choice to either continue standing or to lie down before he loses consciousness? Of course not. Similarly, an omniscient Being’s knowledge of what we decide to do or believe does not limit the freedom of our wills.

It could be argued that, if you knew the consequences of every option you do or do not choose, there would be no meaning to anything. This argument assumes that meaning comes from ignorance of future success or failure. Human motivation peaks when the ratio of success to failure calculates at around 2/3 — significantly higher for some, significantly lower for others. Motivation fades if one either succeeds too often or fails too often. But it is presumptuous to project a human tendency onto a Being who has attributes of perfection such as omniscience. Such a Being could derive meaning from other factors such as demonstrating justice, love, and an unimaginably intricated level of planning.

Some see a paradox in knowing even one’s future choices. If you already knew in the past what you were going to choose now, then you aren’t making a choice now. But this merely shows the falsehood of the assumption that you will make choices in the future. Any choices would already have been made through the same mechanism that endowed omniscience. Imagine the gears of a mechanical watch. The gears firmly enmesh so that all move together. Similarly, choices and knowledge could enmesh so that, if one exists, so does the other.

Further reading (or listening):

• What does it mean that God is omniscient?
• What Determines the Future?
• Doctrine of God (Part 13): Systematic Study of God’s Omniscience | Reasonable Faith
• God's Omniscience and Man's Free-will (William Lane Craig)
• Omniscience Paradox Debunked
• You might want to read answers to questions already on Quora, “What is omniscience?” and “Does an omniscient being know it's omniscient?”

Copyright 2020 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, and please give credit where credit is due.

Bible Contradictions About Eating Pagan Sacrifices

Answering a question on Quora:

Does 1 Corinthians 10:18-22 contradict 1 Corinthians 8:4-13?

The two passages reveal overlapping principles in different contexts. They do not contradict.

Before continuing, follow the first rule of Bible interpretation: Never read a Bible verse; read it in context.

• 1 Corinthians 8 NASB
• 1 Corinthians 10 NASB

Note that if you continue reading after 10:22, the meaning of that passage becomes clearer. So always read at least one previous paragraph, the current passage, and one following paragraph when somebody gives you a passage to read. Preferably more.

As a brand new Christian I drove a girl named Wanda home from a youth activity. I offered to turn on the radio to fill the silence. I would have put it on the station that played “adult” music of the 50s and 60s. It was tamer than “easy listening” is today. But she said “No, I don’t listen to that kind of music.” I looked up to her, so for a long time, I listened only to classical or Christian music.

However, she did something that created cognitive dissonance for me. We happened to attend the same Grad Night at Disneyland. When I saw her a few days later, she expressed delight about the Olivia Newton-John concert, which I had avoided. She had set my standards high and then undermined them.

That incident gnawed at my conscience. After a few years, I started listening to instrumental rock. Gradually, that bar lowered to classic rock, and then only restriction was a matter of taste. After somebody has set a high standard for you, it doesn’t take much of a poor example to erode that standard until you drop it altogether. 

In the Hellenic culture of the ancient Greeks and under Roman rule, much of the food was presented as sacrifices in the pagan temples and then sold in the market places. In some places it was difficult to find food that had not been dedicated to idols. Additionally, on some occasions, traditions such as civic ceremonies required eating in the temples. This posed a practical problem for new Christians who feared that eating such food would bring a curse on them. It also posed a problem for recent converts from the pagan religions who might be tempted to return to worshiping idols.

Many of the Corinthian believers used to be worshipers of the Hellenist or Roman gods. In their minds, eating sacrificed foods, especially in the temples, meant sharing in the sacrifices. That would tempt them to return to their previous pagan cultures. So the passage in Chapter 10 begins by warning young or weak Christians not to take part in pagan sacrifices, especially in any ceremonies that constitute worship of the pagan gods. Then the chapter goes on to teach something for more mature Christians….

Both chapters state that any dedication to the idols holds no actual effect. In chapter 8, the apostle wrote that sacrificed food “will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat” because “we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.” So not only did the sacrifice not do anything, but even the temple and idol had no power of their own.

Chapter 10 agrees, saying, “What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? Rather [meaning “no”]…. All things are lawful, but not all things edify” (10:19–20,23b).

Since the sacrifice of food to an idol does nothing to the food, both passages allow eating such food. A Christian even had the freedom to eat it in the temple. However, both passages command that out of love, the strong Christian with this freedom should abstain from eating such food if it will cause somebody to stumble.

Chapter 8 focuses on avoiding offending weaker Christians who would be upset to see Christians they looked up to eating in temples. Such weaker Christians might see that as an endorsement of the pagan religion and return to it. Chapter 10 teaches a parallel principle but instead focuses on avoiding offending unbelievers.

The principle taught in both is that it does not matter that I know the sacrifice has no effect; if the other person believes the sacrifice has power, then I must set aside my right so they do not stumble.

Can you see how the prime principle is loving others? Can you think of other issues that might have similar applications? Imagine how much better society would be if we all were willing to give up our rights for the sakes of others.

Copyright 2020 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, but please don't offend me by forgetting to give credit where credit is due.

How to Defeat Any Curse

From a question on Quora:

Do you believe curses or hexes exist?

A hex is just a curse made by a witch, so I’m going to just call them curses.

Curses can come from two sources: humans and God.

A curse from a human has no power of its own. It’s just words. Words can influence persons, but they have no force of their own. However, a curse can incite a listener to act. Curses can have a nocebo effect, which is the opposite of a placebo's positive effect. That is, the fear of a curse produces its own negative results or perception of negative results. Curses can also invite demonic forces into people's lives.

Note that agents of darkness may not be welcome in the life of the person who is cursed. For example, they might have the protection of the Holy Spirit of God. However, by invoking agents of darkness, people pronouncing curses invite demons’ influence into their own lives. So cursing can be more dangerous for the person cursing than for the person cursed.

The ways demons might influence or control people are a separate subject.

A curse from God is a pronouncement of judgment. The pronouncement may merely predict the consequences of evil action, such as when God cursed cities to be destroyed and never rebuilt. Two, three, of four thousand years after the destruction of such cities, their ruins are found by satellite photos, buried in the sands. Such pronouncements may also reflect God’s influence over humans to prevent anybody from ever re-established such cities.

God’s curse is far worse than curses coming from witches, shamans, demons, or anything else. Because we fall short of the moral standard based on God’s perfect holiness, God’s verdict of guilty and sentence of everlasting separation from God falls on all of us. If you don’t see yourself that way, just read the Ten Commandments and keep in mind that the violation need not be physical. God is Spirit, and the thoughts of our spirits are just as real to Him as physical actions are to each of us.

God offers to lift that curse. As Creator of the universe — time, space, energy, and matter — God used His creative power to enter, experience, and act in time and space as three Persons. The three Persons, while have identical natures, voluntarily assumed three distinct roles: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son voluntarily took on a human body called Jesus of Nazareth. He preached and performed miracles that validated His identity, and then He took our curse upon Himself.

God offers freedom from the curse as a gift, but the gift comes with three costs. The first cost is abandoning the pride and self-righteousness that leads us to either deny that we are under the curse or to think we can do enough good to justify ourselves. We can’t do good to make up for wrong thoughts and actions because we already owe it to our Creator to do good. We cannot pay with what we already owe.

The second cost is the flip side of the first. We need to depend completely on God’s gift. We cannot insult the Giver by depending on our own merit or by mixing our merit with His gracious generosity. The gift must be received as a gift.

Underlying this dependence is an acknowledgment that God (specifically the Son), adding to His own nature the nature of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, bore our curse by dying on a cross; but being God, could not be held by death; and so He restored life to that body and physically rose from the dead on the third day. That resurrection sealed the validation of His identity as the Creator of life. It proved the sufficiency of His death as payment for our moral crimes. And it served as a down payment for the continuation of our lives in heaven and the eventual resurrection and transformation of our physical bodies.

The third cost is the practical side of abandoning self-righteousness and receiving the gift of redemption from the curse. People who do that are called believers or Christians. They are also called disciples because, if they are sincere, they begin learning about and loving the things that God loves and hating things that God hates. They start abandoning old practices and start doing things, not to justify themselves, but to demonstrate their sincerity, out of gratitude to God, and out of love for others. When their lives and choices change, some people will be happy for them, but others will think them strange or even hate them.

Most people will not pay the cost. Accepting guilt and its deserved consequences and then depending entirely on God for freedom from the curse offends our pride. Not all have the courage to enduring what family, friends, or enemies of God will say and do. Those who accept freedom from the curse, however, will receive rewards in heaven that far outweigh any cost.

When people accept the cost, repent over their moral crimes or bad beliefs, and put their trust entirely in the Gift of Gifts, the Holy Spirit enters their lives and intercedes with the Father for them. Where the Holy Spirit dwells, dark forces lose all their power. The Son also welcomes them as beloved siblings and intercedes for them. And the Father welcomes them as beloved children.

Over such, no curse has power.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use for non-remunerated purposes, but if you fail to give credit where credit is due, a pox be upon you!

Kingdom of God Within? Luke 17:21

From answering a question on Quora:

What did Jesus mean when He said “the kingdom of God is within you”? Does the Kingdom of God only exist in our hearts and minds?

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst." (Luke 17:20-21, NASB; Feel free to read the whole chapter in a chapter of your choice.)

“Within you” loses a bit in the translation due to our changing language. In current English, a better preposition would be among. Let’s get a bit of context.

Over what is God the King? Although God does not assert His sovereignty yet, He is King over all. And here, all means all. There is no jurisdiction outside of His sovereignty. All realms are subject to Him, even if He does not micromanage His kingdom. So, whether we bow to Him as citizens of His kingdom, ignore Him, or rebel against Him, we are in His kingdom.

We might call God’s kingdom “the universe” when talking about the kingdom itself. When talking about it in its relationship to God, we can call it the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. Those two terms are used interchangeably in Matthew.

The preposition translated within can also mean inside, among, or in the midst of. Since Jesus was addressing unbelieving Pharisees, we can test the interpretation, within each of you now, by considering what Jesus said about non-believers.

For example, Jesus told some Jewish leaders that they were of their father, the devil (John 8:44). The Old Testament speaks of our hearts being, by default, lifeless, such that God needs to (figuratively) replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). And the New Testament epistles explicitly teach that the Spirit of God indwells believers (Romans 8) but not unbelievers (1 Corinthians 2:14); and some unbelievers are even controlled by demons.

So saying that the kingdom of God is already within everybody is not a possible interpretation. That leads us to test the other interpretation: The kingdom of God was among them and is among us.

The men questioning Jesus were looking for a political kingdom. Look at the preceding verse: 20 Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed 21 nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is…!' (Luke 17:20,21, NASB).

That does not mean that God will not one day assert His sovereignty in a military, civil, or political sense; it just means that we don’t have to wait. For the people who heard Jesus, it was present in a new way anticipated for centuries: The King of Kings had taken on a human body. God was giving face-to-face access to God to those who followed Him.

And an even more wonderful phase was to soon follow. Whereas the Holy Spirit of God had come upon a select few people to accomplish specific tasks such as governing or preaching verbal revelation, the Holy Spirit would permanently indwell, empower, preserve, reform, and intercede for all believers, joining believing Jews together with believers from among all races, cultures, and levels of society.

That is why both John the Baptist (Matthew 3:2) and Jesus (Matthew 4:17) preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.”

The Jewish leaders of the day wanted a political kingdom that gave them power or an ecclesiastical kingdom that rewarded their self-righteousness. They failed to enter into participation in God’s kingdom.

Instead, God’s kingdom is among us, welcoming the entry of all who relinquish self-righteousness, cease attempting to escape accountability for offending God, and trust instead in God’s sacrifice as our substitute.

Women Saved Through Childbearing

1 Timothy 2:15 -- But she will be saved through childbearing, if they abide in faith and love and holiness, with self-restraint. -- Berean Literal Bible

This verse has always been a bit of unresolved business in my mind. At first read, it seems to say that women are saved (from sin) by bearing children. That would contradict the many explicit passages teaching that salvation comes through faith alone. A wise interpreter does not let contradictions stand and does not allow ambiguous verses outweigh explicit verses. So we dig and put faith in the knowledge that an explanation exists.

The meaning of "saved" is not explicit. If you ask, "saved from what," you realize that "saved" does not always refer to the salvation of our souls. It can have a more general meaning. 

Similarly, "childbearing" is probably a synecdoche (sin-NEK-tuh-kee), a figure of speech in which a term for a part of something refers to the whole of something (or vice versa). Childbearing probably refers to the whole of rearing children, since the word is followed by a code of lifelong behaviors.

Dr. Andrew Farley has given an explanation that unlocked the verse for me. (The video also explains verse 14.) I would feel comfortable giving this explanation even to people who use it in an attempt to slander Paul and denigrate the scriptures.

The teachings of the pagan religions, especially those of the cult of Diana, had left women who converted to faith in Christ feeling insecure. For example, the cult taught women that focusing on family instead of on career achievement would make them lesser people. Also, Diana was the goddess of fertility and childbearing, so women probably feared that renouncing Diana had removed her protection and made motherhood more dangerous. 

Paul intended to reassure them that God's blessing was still on them if they devoted themselves to crafting the next generation instead of focusing on careers. Faith, love, holiness, and propriety do not save us, but they are the evidence that a sincere conversion produces. 

That reassurance still applies. Society pressures women to abandon family in pursuit of career achievement.

Aside from learning that the passage merely reassures women that they lose nothing by abandoning the mindsets of their former religions, finding this interpretation also gives an example of hermeneutical principles. 

• Words have multiple meanings and levels of meaning.
• Ambiguous passages do not cancel or override explicit passages.
• "Context" in which a verse is interpreted has multiple levels, including sentence, paragraph, book, author, testament, and especially important in this passage, cultural.

The most important hermeneutical principle illustrated for many is that when explanations escape us, we do not choose a doubtful one, conclude that there is a contradiction, or give up. Rather, we keep an open mind, keep digging, and keep gathering background information, even if it takes decades.

Copyrighte 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use. Please give credit where credit is due.

Moral Monsters: Deviants from Objective Morality

From a question on Quora:

If God the Father of life is All-Holy and objectively moral, then wouldn’t the definition of a true monster be anything that is subjectively moral and anti-life or anti-God?

I would start with a dictionary definition of monster. Most definitions are subjective. I like the definition from biology given on Dictionary.com because it implies a standard:

an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure, as from marked malformation or the absence of certain parts or organs; a grossly anomalous fetus or infant, especially one that is not viable.

We can apply this definition to morality. Monster: a personal being having a set of principles, thoughts, or behaviors, from lacking or deviating from objectively moral principles.

I wanted to say that a hypothetical person’s subjective morality could coincide with the objective morality that is based on God’s character. Such a person would not be a monster. However, basing morality on the wrong foundation, personal opinion, would make one a monster because ignoring objective morality requires rejecting God’s sovereignty; and rejecting God’s sovereignty is immoral. So it would be impossible to be subjectively moral without deviating from objective morality.

Is every person that is not objectively moral subjectively moral? One could say that because, if morals are not based on an objective standard, then they are based on a subjective one. Ah, but there are monsters who have no morals at all. They may have a personal code based on what is convenient, profitable, or pleasurable. That is emotional or pragmatic, not principled, so it would be incorrect to call it “morality.”

The grammar describes a true monster as subjectively moral and anti-life or as subjectively moral and anti-God. In this context, and requires that both be true. The construction implies that people who are pro-life but subjectively moral and people who are pro-God but subjectively moral are not monsters.

Furthermore, the anti-life and anti-God positions are subjective morals, so they are redundant. The phrase is like saying a motorcycle is not a car and tires or a car and bumpers when the tires and bumpers are part of the car.

Does it flow from If God the Father of life is All-Holy and objectively moral that subjective morality is monstrous? If objective morality is based on God’s character, specifically, His holiness, then the link that contrasts God’s holiness against subjective morality is indirect. That means that God’s holiness is background information rather than part of the premise.

It is necessary for objective morality to exist in order for subjective morality to be anomalous. There’s no such thing as an anomaly without such a thing as normal. It is also necessary that normality is desired or intended, which requires an agent who desires or assigns a goal or purpose. However, desire or intent, like God’s holiness, is not directly related to whether one meets the objective requirements.

So refining the original statement should include:

• Account for the worst monster, the amoral person.
• Restate anti-life or anti-God as examples of subjective morals (and perhaps be a bit more specific).
• Treat as background or trim information about God being holy (and imposing a requirement that His creatures be objectively moral.
• Use attitudes about God and the sacredness of life as examples rather than as requirements.

A better phrasing would be: God the Father of life requires of moral beings an objective morality based on His holy character. Since objective morality exists and is part of our original, intended design, a moral monster is any person who is amoral or subjectively moral. Examples of subjectively moral principles might include promoting atheism or non-medically-necessary abortion.

The elephant in the room includes a practical application of the definition.

Although some of us aspire to match our morality to God’s objective standard, we all retain subjective morals and fall short even of those. We are all moral monsters. None of us is born with the moral perfection intended in God's children. We are all spiritually deformed and spiritually non-viable. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. 

God took responsibility for allowing us to bring moral monstrosity into the world by providing for redemption at His own expense. If we recognize our monstrosity, agree that we have earned the consequences, and entrust ourselves solely to the One who redeems us from our moral debt, then God will begin the process of transforming us from monsters back into the works of art that He originally designed us to be. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use for non-remunerated purposes, but please remember to give credit where credit is due.

Another Silly Question about God's Origin

From answering a question on Quora:

Does God know where he came from?

The question assumes that God “came from” somewhere. According to Christian scriptures, theology, and philosophers, God created the universe. Without a universe, no “then,” “there,” “source,” or “cause” existed from which God could come. So the question is broken.

Perhaps the asker meant, “What was the source or origin of God?” Again, without time, sequences such as going from non-existence to cause, to creation, to existence are nonsensical. Nevertheless, many Atheists ask the same question differently, asking, “Who created God?”

If God had a creator, who created him? And who created the Creator’s creator? And who created the Creator’s creator’s creator? Once you insist that the Creator had to have a creator, you create an infinite regression. It doesn’t work. If you started at a time infinitely in the past, and then pass through time, you could never get to our “now” because that would take an infinite length of time. In an infinite length of time, no matter how much time passes, there’s still more time that needs to pass before you can get to our “now.” Similarly, if you start with an infinitely precedent creator, you could never get to the current Creator. The assumption that God had a creator creates a mathematical impossibility.

The above analysis brings us to another problem. If God created the universe, then He created all the attributes and artifacts of the universe, including time, which cosmology and physics tell us had a beginning in the Inflationary period that became the Big Bang. If God created time, then He has an existence outside of time. And if God exists outside of time, then saying that He must have had a beginning and a creator is like saying that the number seven must have a color and a temperature. “Beginning” is meaningless without time, so, again, the assumption that God had a beginning creates a practical impossibility.

The question is in the class of questions such as “Why did God do this?” and “Why didn’t God to that?” It requires knowing the mind of God. Such questions require either God revealing His knowledge or reasoning to us, speculating, or reading god’s mind. I’m not a god, and I don’t believe anybody else who uses Quora is a god, either, so reading the memories in God’s mind is out of the question. That leaves us with either revelation or speculation. According to revelation through the Christian scriptures, God is self-existent and created the universe. From that, we can say that God does not "know" the incorrect assumption that He had an origin. If you reject revelation, then giving an authoritative answer is impossible. And the impossibility of giving an answer can only prove, at best, human limitations.

There’s a common practice of posing rhetorical questions as a substitute for actual arguments. Rhetorical questions can be used to hide false assumptions and faulty logic. The person answering the question has to restate the question as a claim and then detect the assumptions and logic and their flaws. So, if the intent is to discourage belief in God, the question is more specious than logical. (I don’t assume that the asker had that intent. I’m just pointing it out because others do use such flawed rhetoric.)

To sum up, the question is a non sequitur, meaning that it assumes facts not in evidence. And the concise answer is, no, God would not “know” something that is impossible and meaningless.

For further background:

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gdeV4Rk9EfL-NyraEGXXwSjDNeMaRoX

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.

Jesus's Teachings Without His Identify? Patronizing Nonsense.

My answer to a question on Quora:

Is there a religion that only believes in Jesus, and not necessarily God? I believe in the things Jesus taught, but not that he would be the son of God. I don't believe in God in general, honestly.

One religion that allows belief in Jesus but not in God would be Atheism. Some atheists completely reject Jesus’s existence because they have an emotional need to refute the existence of God. They claim that Jesus did not exist in order to refute the existence of, specifically, the Christian God. However, other, less biased atheists accept the preponderance of historical evidence that Jesus did exist.

Atheists would protest that Atheism is not a religion because they reject the existence of the supernatural. However, by making a claim about the supernatural, they claim to have information that they could not have in a materialist world. So their claim refutes itself. Furthermore, the claim of Atheism leads to further beliefs. For example, one line of though leads from non-existence of God to the non-value of individual lives and to the Collective being a higher form of organism than the individual. The highest form of organism would be the State. Since, without God, objective morality and individual value do not exist, the State can do anything to individuals. Anything. certain States have done “anything” and do so today. This line of thinking, a part of Marxism, has led to the slaughter of more people in a single century than all the religious wars in history. If that kind of “revelation” and fervor about the supernatural is not “religious,” I don’t know what is.

Many religions pay lip service to Jesus. One relevant religion would be Buddhism. Buddhism, or at least a major branch or it, believes that the ultimate state of being is a freedom from consciousness and pain, resulting in “god” being non existent. That would make Buddhism a sort of a spiritual form of Atheism.

Now, it is a contradiction to say one believes in what Jesus taught while not accepting that He is the Son of God. As CS Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity,

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say…. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Jesus never said, “Worship me because I am God.” He followed one of the great rules of writing prose, Don’t tell them; show them. He made many claims that, against the backdrop of Jewish theology, were claims to divinity. He claimed authority over the Sabbath. He cast out demons by His own authority. He taught by His own authority without ever saying, “Thus says the Lord….” He claimed to have existed before the world and to have shared the glory of God. He claimed to have the power to judge and to forgive sins, which God alone can do. He even applied to Himself the name, I AM, that God had revealed to Moses. And he accepted worship and being called, “My Lord and my God!”

If Jesus was not the Son of God, then He was a liar, so His “teachings” would be morally dangerous. Indeed, by rejecting His divinity, you have already rejected a very large portion of His teachings. And the word for that religion is inconsistent.

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use this for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.

Kingdom of God versus Kingdom of Heaven

From a question on Quora:

Is Matthew 4:17 occurring soon with the Kingdom of Heaven coming on the horizon?

No. The kingdom of heaven is not on the horizon. The kingdom of heaven, as referenced in Matthew 4:17, is here and has been here all along.

Christians rightly look for the return of Jesus Christ and the assertion of God’s rule on Earth, but that is not what Jesus meant by "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We could read all the references to the phrase kingdom of heaven, but we can find a strong clue in Luke 17:20-21. (Before you read it, you need to know that kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonyms. More about that, below.)

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20–21, NASB).

The word translated midst is Greek entos, which means within, among, or in their midst. The statement describes a fact that was already present as Jesus spoke, not somewhere off in a future age. This is consistent with what Jesus said in Matthew 11:11–12:

“Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (NASB).

Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven as existing even before His sacrifice and resurrection. (So if somebody knocks on your door preaching a future kingdom, know that they have been severely misled by a heretical organization. Don’t argue with them because they won’t listen. Just know that biblical Christians don’t preach a kingdom; they preach a living King, Jesus Christ.)

The kingdom that Jesus preached was not God’s political rule or Judgment Day. It was a time of a new type of relationship in the spiritual dimension of God’s kingdom.

I appreciate the question because I learned from looking up the answer. I thought kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God existed at two different times. However, as you can see in the table, they are synonymous. Matthew tends to use one and the other gospel writers use the other. You can see a further discussion of this on the Got Questions website.

(You may need to open the figure in a new window. You can look up the individual verses and read them in their contexts in a couple dozen translations and in the original Greek using Biblehub.com. I use the New American Standard version because it has a reputation as the best word-for-word translation.)

Did you notice Matthew 19:23–24? Jesus used the two terms interchangeably in the same conversation.

The phrase, kingdom of heaven/God, has two meanings. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof. Although God does not visibly assert His sovereignty, all of time, space, heaven and Earth is His kingdom.

And yet, there is a metaphorical sense in which we fail to enter into that kingdom. We are not born into it; blame Adam for that. The Fall made us foreigners, stripping Adam’s descendants of their citizenship and placing them, metaphorically, outside the kingdom.

We enter into the kingdom by repenting from sin, false religion, and self righteousness, and consenting to the gift of everlasting life from the great Giver of gifts. With that gift, we receive citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. This is what Jesus referred to in Matthew 4:17: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

One could divide the history of the kingdom of God into periods and milestone events. The first period lasted from creation to Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. Whether you take Genesis as literal or metaphorical does not matter. Man was created in innocence and introduced decay to all creation and estrangement from God with the first sin.

Before Jesus, the Old Testament sacrifices were inadequate to pay for human sin (Hebrews 10:4, 11), so the relationship between God and any person was tentative. Believers were called servants and friends of God. The Holy Spirit would anoint and be with believers, but that could be lost (for example, 1 Samuel 16:14 and Judges 16:20).

Since Jesus’s perfect, complete sacrifice, believers have had a permanent relationship with God (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 4:30). They have been called children of God, and even little siblings of Jesus himself. In this sense, the kingdom of heaven/God is here, available to all who will enter and become sons and citizens. As Romans 14:17 says, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The next period of the kingdom of heaven will begin with the return of Jesus Christ. God does not completely assert or micromanage His rule over Earth today. When Jesus returns, He will establish His kingdom in every area of life.

The final period will follow Judgment Day. Whereas heaven and Earth are like separate universes today, God will transform and merge them into a single plane of existence.

We will all enter the final period of the kingdom of heaven — some to be judged, and some to rule with God the Son. Which role God will place us in depends on whether we obtain our citizenship in this age. To those who have not entered, the kingdom of heaven is near, yet they remain outside. It behooves us, therefore, to be certain that the gospel we follow is biblical and to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).

For further reading:

• What is the kingdom of God? — God Questions article
• Kingdom of Heaven — Bible Dictionary
• From that time Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." — Commentaries
• The Kingdom of God Cometh not with Observation. (Luke, xvii. , 20. ) — Why the adverb means among or midst rather than within — Augustus Neander

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Feel free to use this for non-remunerated purposes, but please give credit where credit is due.