The History of Time and the Genesis of You

THE HISTORY OF

TIME

...and the Genesis of YOU “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

Peter Hiett A fresh look at Genesis 1:1-2:4a 1

Contents Introduction

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1.

Questions too Big for any Specialist

(Genesis 1:1)

15

2.

The Day You Were Born: your Father’s story and the ramblings of mad scientists and Pharisees

(Genesis 1:1)

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The Deepest Story: not your failure, but God’s success

(Genesis 1:1-2:4a)

39

The Deepest Story: not Darwinism, but the 7th Day

(Genesis 1:1-2:4a)

53

5.

Sabbath

(Genesis 1:1-2:4a)

70

6.

The Abyss

(Genesis 1:1-3)

86

7.

The Abyss in Me

(Genesis 1:1-4)

100

8.

Let There Be Light

(Genesis 1:1-5)

117

9.

Home: we’re not there yet

(Genesis 1:6-10)

131

10. Beauty: road signs for pilgrims

(Genesis 1:9-26)

148

11. Care for Creation and Creation Cares for You

(Genesis 1:24-26)

163

12. How to Make a World with Just a Word

(Genesis 1:16-2:3)

174

3. 4.

Appendix: “Everything Good” and “What the Hell?”

190

Chapter Summaries

206

     

Introduction 2

The Most Embarrassing Chapter in the Bible For me, for much of my life, Genesis one, has been the most embarrassing chapter in all of Scripture. As a kid, I was a science geek. I also happened to love Jesus. He was/ is absolutely beautiful… but dinosaurs are pretty cool too. Some folks told me that they were mutually exclusive, at least for folks with half a brain. By that they meant any serious discussion of dinosaurs (Science), would clash with any serious commitments of faith (Religion). By 1983 I found myself Leading a Young Life Christian outreach program and preparing to graduate Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Colorado with a degree in Geology, (I mention Phi Beta Kappa because I want you to know, I’m not just making up ‘science stuff’). I still remember the graduate level teaching assistant for one of my courses. Having found out that I was planning to go to seminary to study Theology, she pulled me into her office, sat me down and told me that I could go anywhere I wanted in Geology. Then she asked, “Why!?... Why would you go to seminary?” Then, she gave me a little lecture. The gist of it was, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” By 1988 I was “wasted.” I graduated with a Masters of Divinity Degree in Theology and entered the ministry. By that time I was pretty sure of one thing: there were a lot of folks that said the Bible said a bunch of stuff it didn’t say (remember the Bible wasn’t written in English) AND there were even more folks that said science revealed a bunch of stuff it didn’t reveal (remember science observes evidence and postulates theories). “Mad Scientists” and “Pharisees” have thoroughly dominated our perceptions of Genesis Chapter One for the last one hundred years. The Meaning of Genesis Chapter 1… and everything If I were writing this book twenty years ago, I suspect that’s principally what I’d talk about: The translation of certain Hebrew words, the implication of certain gaps in the stratigraphic record etc., etc. Well, I’ll mention a bit of that stuff, so it won’t get in the way. It’s really quite fascinating, but not nearly as fascinating as the meaning of Genesis One. We’ve been so preoccupied with the age of the earth and how to get dinosaurs on an ark, that we’ve missed the point. The point is always, “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Or let me say it another way: God is good, He is making you in His image and He will not fail, even if, especially if we break His body, shed His blood and crucify him on a tree. God is creating you with His Word. He is Love and His Word is the revelation of Love. All Creation is a Love Story written to you. You were created to read that story and fall in Love with the author, your author. In the words of St. Paul, “Creation was subjected to futility…in hope… God consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all.” (Romans 8:20, 11:32) In other words, the Love story isn’t over and at the end of the story, behold everything is “very good.” (Gen. 1:31) Everything filled with Love: Our Creator. God’s Word “does not return void.” It/ He is the Meaning of all things. Meaning: to die for 3

Now I should tell you: The institutions of this world don’t like that truth; our “flesh” doesn’t like that truth—The Truth. We like to think that we write our own story. We like to think that we are our own creator and savior. And our institutions like to sell themselves as necessary for our redemption. To confess that God in Christ Jesus is creator, savior and redeemer—indeed, an entirely successful creator, savior and redeemer—is the ultimate threat to our ego and the institutions of this world. If God writes the story, we don’t. Sadly, what we refer to as “The Church,” is often an institution of this world and thus threatened by the power of God’s Grace. If we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand,” …then we are not an institution’s workmanship created through promises and threats anchored in fear. If God is the Creator that doesn’t fail: Then, the church can’t threaten with ultimate failure. Then, I can’t preach, “Do what I tell you to do or you can no longer be saved.” I can’t pretend I’m the savior, who saves people… from God. I can’t pretend that I love people more than my God, who is Love… loves those very same people When we believe that God is a creator who fails, we become an institution filled with fear and threatening with fear. But when we believe that God is Love and “Love doesn’t fail,” we become a Bride enamored with Grace, who can’t stop singing about her Bridegroom. Well if you sing that song, don’t expect everyone to like it… even the people that claim they do. Several years ago the institution required that I publicly confess that there was a group of people that “could not be saved.” In other words, I was asked to confess that God “could not” make everyone in His Image; that a person’s sin can be more powerful than God’s plan and power to save; that my failure can trump God’s Mercy; that when God speaks, it’s only wishful thinking and not the substrate of all reality; that God speaks his Word and it does not accomplish that for which it was sent. Well, there’s a great deal of mystery here, but I’m convinced that when God said, “let us make mankind (Adam) in our own image and likeness,” He meant it and did not intend to fail. The message of Genesis 1:1-2:4, is that He did not fail. Even when the Word of God was nailed to a tree and the sky grew black and the creation mourned, that Word did not fail… for when it “failed” it won—He won. I think that’s the deepest story. I’ll spare you the details, but I couldn’t bring myself to “confess” that God couldn’t do what He intended to do. It cost me… The Gospel (Good News) will always cost your “me.” But when I lose “me,” I find “me” in God’s story, singing His song. Perhaps we’ve started reading our Bibles in the wrong place. We’ve started reading in Chapter two and three with what “me” has done, instead of reading in Chapter one, which describes what God has done. We’ve started with our failure, rather than God’s success. God’s success--what God has done--is always the deepest story. What God has done (which is what he is doing) is so beautiful it’s worth losing everything to

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behold – perhaps beholding it, is losing everything. “Whoever loses his psyche (life)… will find it. (Matt.16:25)” A New Psyche; A New Paradigm; A New Life You see we all have a “psyche,” a mental map through which we process information. Already, after just a few paragraphs, your mind is filled with conclusions and questions: “Is this guy ‘young earth or old earth?” “Is he a liberal nut job or a close minded conservative?” “Is he a ‘universalist’ or a ‘fundamentalist’?” Maybe, I’m none of those things. Maybe, I’m all of those things. You see, each one of those questions, each label, betrays a set of assumptions that constitute a paradigm. Perhaps we must “lose our paradigm to find it.” I think it was in the movie, the Bad News Bears. The coach lectured the kids saying “Don’t Assume.” He drew it on the chalkboard. “When you assume, you make an “ass” of “u” and “me”: ass-u-me. (I’m sure by “ass” he meant donkey.) Well theologians have been making donkeys out of scientists for quite some time. And scientists have been making donkeys out of theologians for almost as long. Unless we surrender our paradigms and psyches we’ll make donkeys of each other, even God, and never see His Kingdom - the finished creation. Genesis One is the first chapter in the Bible. What if it’s foundational? What if we’ve been reading it through our old psyche and some false paradigms? Well then, our whole house – our whole view of reality - might be crooked… right? It might even keep us from seeing the Kingdom. Well, it would be wrong for me to simply demand a new paradigm. However I can say, “For Christ’s sake, (Matt 16:25) lose the old one.” For the sake of Jesus, let’s ask some questions of our old paradigm. Then, let’s ask Him to construct a new one. Actually, all our life he is constructing a new one as we die to the old ones. I heard someone say, “To seek the Truth, requires one thing: a persistent willingness to admit that you’re wrong.” Jesus is the Truth. I believe He is the One Thing we must assume… or be assumed by. If that makes me an… a donkey, so be it. I will be a “fool” for Him. Philosophically speaking, we all have to be a fool for something.1 We all have to assume something or we could never believe anything. We all have to be a fool for something, and I pick him… or He picks me. So for Christ’s sake “Lose your psyche.” Christ said, “Whoever loses his psyche (translated: life) for my sake, will find it. (Matt. 16:25)” With our psyche (our mental paradigm), we give meaning to all the “facts” in our world. And all the “facts” in our world inform our psyche (our mental paradigm). Scripture tells us that Jesus is the Word; Jesus is the Logos (Greek). Logos means “reason” or “meaning.” The meaning of a story is the plot of that story. So Jesus says, “Lose your psyche for me and you will find it.”… “Lose your psyche and you’ll find my psyche: life.” Genesis One and John One tell us that God created all things with a Word. That Word – The Meaning, The Reason, The Plot, The Point – is Jesus. He is God’s map to reality. He gives all things their meaning. So I’m asking you to surrender your old paradigm to Jesus. Then, ask Jesus to give new meaning to all your “facts.” He gives 5

meaning to creation (science) and He gives meaning to Scripture (theology). He gives meaning to you (Life). He is God’s meaning and that meaning was revealed on a cross. There, He was broken for the love of you. God’s meaning is Love: Love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7).” I’m sorry… perhaps I’m getting too philosophical. I’m trying to say that for most of us, the ideas in this book are a bit of a paradigm shift. Paradigm shifts freak us out, for when they happen, it feels like everything has changed, even though none of the “facts” have changed. I think most people are familiar with this sketch:

At first glance some folks see a show girl and some folks see their grandma. When the paradigm shifts, it gives new meaning to all the “facts.” If the paradigm shifts from grandma to the showgirl, suddenly the “nose” turns into a chin, the mouth turns into a necklace and an old wrinkled eye turns into a young woman’s ear… yet none of the “facts” have changed; their meaning has changed. If we wanted to find out whether this is grandma or the showgirl, we might seek some more facts. A broader perspective, might uncover more facts: a cane in the woman’s hand or perhaps the sound of show tunes in a theatre. Those new facts would give the paradigm new meaning. If the picture is the creation of an artist, the testimony of the artist might be even more helpful. The artist might say, “I was drawing your grandma…you dummy.” And well, that would give new meaning to all the “facts.” As a Christian, I believe that God, the author, has testified: “The meaning of all the facts is Jesus,” (John 1:1-18, Col. 1:1520). That new “testament” gives meaning to all the “facts.” But even so, all the “facts” inform my understanding of the meaning: Jesus. Once I see that it’s grandma, for instance, that new paradigm gives meaning to the “facts” and the “facts” inform the meaning (i.e. “That’s grandma’s nose AND grandma has a big nose.”) Well our “facts” are the creation all around us. And our “facts” are a letter from the artist, that we call 6

Scripture. Recently we’ve uncovered many new “facts” and rediscovered many old ones. They all inform our picture of Jesus and Jesus tells us who we are. I’m trying to say, “Trust Jesus. Surrender your old ideas and let him make them new.” “Let there be Light.” Let there be an Epiphany. Epiphany comes from the Greek word: Epiphaneia. It’s translated “manifestation” or “appearing.” It describes what happens when the light comes on in a dark room. We learned to love Epiphanies when we were children. The light would come on and what we thought was a dragon, was actually the coat rack; what we thought was a monster, was actually the recliner; what we thought meant death, actually meant life. Epiphanies are paradigm shifts from darkness to light. They are wonderful and yet they, themselves, can be terrifying. Sometimes our eyes, minds and psyches have adjusted to the dark. When the light comes on we have to let go of the “meanings” we ascribed to things in the dark; we have to surrender our dark paradigm. Recently a friend said this to me, “You know we all have paradigms and with each paradigm, we have a bag of exceptions (Like the thought, “That’s not a very good ear, it kind of looks like a saggy old eye.” Or, “Why would a monster look like a recliner?”). When the bag of exceptions gets too heavy, we switch to a new paradigm with fewer exceptions.” The “Modern” Paradigm For the last few hundred years we’ve been reading Scripture and Creation through a very “modernistic” paradigm. When we do, God doesn’t look very much like Jesus. Actually, Jesus doesn’t look very much like Jesus! The Jesus, (The Word in the beginning) and The Jesus, (who conquers in the end), don’t look much like Jesus in the gospels and hanging on the cross: “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified” - the full revelation of the Father (1 Cor. 2:1-10), The Meaning of all things (Col. 1:15-20, John 1:1-18)… Well, that’s a pretty big exception. The “modern” mind takes our own perceptions of space and time very seriously and “meaning” not so seriously. We tend to view space and time as reality and everything else as metaphor. We think rocks, houses and calendars are truly real, and things like meaning, truth and love are just metaphors. Therefore, we try to make the meaning of a book like Genesis fit our concepts of space and time, rather than trying to make our concepts of space and time fit the meaning of Genesis. We think space and time are more real than “word” or “meaning.” So we construct a box of space and time, and if the “Word” or “Meaning” doesn’t fit, we call it a metaphor (mad scientists are really good at this). Or we crucify the “Word” trying to get it/Him to fit into our box (Pharisees are really good at this). Well, maybe space and time are the metaphor and nothing is more solid than The Word. After all, Genesis One is the story of the creation of all space and time, with just a Word. The “Post-Modern” (“Pre-Modern”) Paradigm Well, it should be more than a bit fascinating, that scientists, over the last hundred years or so, have come up with a new set of “facts” that are just begging for a paradigm shift. For an old science geek like me, who used to be terribly embarrassed by Genesis 7

chapter One, that’s more than a bit comical. It’s glorious. And yet, so many of my fellow believers are afraid to look. The paradigm shift is freaking them out. They haven’t noticed that the paradigms are shifting right back into the world-view of Scripture. They panic and write books about the dangers of “post-modernism” and “relativism.” Panic sells books. And for some bizarre reason, American Evangelical Christians tend to be “conservative” without thinking through what they are conserving. Why would we want to conserve a modernistic enlightenment view of reality? Modernism is great for building motor cars and bank accounts, but absolutely terrible at building people! Central to modernism is the idea that the only things that are true are things that can be verified by the scientific method. Love, reason, truth, spirit, you… none of these things can be verified by the scientific method. Actually, belief in the scientific method, can’t be verified by the scientific method--it’s a faith statement: the one thing assumed. Modernism is the idolatry of space and time as we perceive them. It’s the belief that everything is relative to “our perception” of space and time…2 Now it get’s downright funny. In the past hundred years or so, scientists using the scientific method, have postulated and validated the fact that space and time are relative and that reality is fundamentally uncertain (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle); that matter doesn’t really matter—which implies that the Scientific Method doesn’t “really” matter (at least not like we thought)… all space, time and matter—all creation—is “relative.” Christians hear the word “relative” and panic about “relativism” and the loss of absolute truth. We need to do a better job of listening – to scientists and to Scripture. Einstein didn’t say that space and time are relative to nothing. Niels Bohr, (The Einstien of Quantum Physics) didn’t say that subatomic particles are relative to nothing. Einstein postulated, what has been verified through experimentation, that space and time are relative to the speed of light. Scripture tells us that God is Light and Jesus is the Light of the world. Niels Bohr postulated, what has been verified through experimentation, that subatomic particles (the stuff that makes up matter in space and time) are somehow relative to an “observer’s” perception, expectation… or “faith.” An “observer” isn’t a machine, but a person – a spirit that comprehends meaning, or is comprehended by meaning. Remember the biblical term for “meaning” is logos. Logos is translated “word,” and means “meaning.” Scripture (John 1 and Genesis 1), tells us that The Light created all things with a Word and that Word is the Light that enlightens all men. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. Space and time are relative to Him, relative to Light and Meaning: the Word. And it gets even better. String Theory, (which is the current best attempt at combining Einstein’s General Relativity and Quantum Physics into a theory of everything), postulates that all reality is the manifestation of vibrations of meaning on one-dimensional superstrings that vibrate in at least eleven dimensions. A word is a “vibration of Meaning” on a string called your vocal chord and in the atmosphere and all around you. “All Creation” is relative to Light, Meaning and Word: For the first time in the past several hundred years, a fellow can take the Bible literally (for lack of a better word) and sound entirely scientific. And oh yeah… scientists now say, what they never ever would have said, space and time (the old idol) appear to have had a beginning and may just have an end. “Science” has no categories for anything “beyond” space and time; for a beginning or and 8

end… to space and time. Jesus said, “I AM the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.” He is the Big Bang! That’s an epiphany. Could it be that “fighting the dragon” we “became the dragon.” (Friedrich Neitsche) I mean could it be that fighting modernism, we Christians became modernists? Have you ever noticed that our picture of Jesus in Genesis (or the Father he reveals) and our picture of the Jesus in The Revelation; the Jesus in the beginning and the end; seems so different than Jesus – I mean the Jesus revealed in the Gospels – the one who touched lepers, ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, suffered and died for our sins, rose from the dead and said, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father.”? Could it be that we have taken our perception of space and time as constant, and “the meaning” as relative… and so crucified “the meaning” to make Him fit into our box... a 4x5 inch box I call my brain? We’ve certainly done that with the End, that is, Jesus in the Revelation (For most modern people, He looks more like John Rambo or the Toxic Avenger, than Jesus of Nazareth –I wrote a book on it, Eternity Now). And I think we’ve also done that with the Beginning, that is, Jesus in Genesis. We’ve been so preoccupied with the age of the earth and dinosaur foot prints, that we’ve lost the meaning: Jesus. Genesis One: The History of time . On the seventh day (Gen. 2:1-3), God is “finished” with all the work that he had done in creation… I think that includes time, at least chronological time. You see it’s my contention that God outlines all of “time” in Genesis 1:1-2:4. That takes care of the old dinosaur problem and a whole lot more… At the end of the sixth day “everything…is very good.” It’s “finished.” Are you very good? Are you finished? Have you ever been finished? Perhaps “Everything…very good” hasn’t happened yet? In fear we think it must have happened. And we messed it up. So God came up with plan B—the whole Jesus on the cross thing. And now if we don’t screw up maybe we can get back to the garden, even if, God fries some of our relatives forever in Hell. Well Jesus is never plan B. And if you pay attention to the text, you’ll see: By Genesis 2:7, God is clearly telling the story of the sixth day for He is making “man” (Adam)…Us. That happens on the sixth day. God doesn’t finish making Adam, until the ultimate Adam, “The image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15) cries “It is finished,” as he hangs from the ancient tree. Scripture tells us that He is the “author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2 KJV) Perhaps we are never finished until we are “finished” in Him, with faith. So perhaps the seventh day isn’t over. Perhaps we’ve yet to come to the End. Perhaps our sinful plan can’t undo God’s good plan Perhaps it hasn’t… and never did… undo His plan Perhaps He was never out of control. Perhaps “Everything” will still be “very good.” 9

Perhaps we’ve yet to see the End and yet to enter the seventh day… except by faith. To enter by faith is to believe the finished work of the cross. It’s to believe the Word, the Logos, the Plot as he cries, “It is finished” and delivers up His Spirit. He is the Beginning and the End. He is the Plot. Faith in Him is Him in you; His Spirit born in you. His Story is History. And His Story becomes your story by grace, revealed as faith. It’s the Genesis of You, Christ in you…until you are finally finished in Him: until you’re Home: The 7th day You may think, “Nice idea, but do the math: seven days. It’s over. I can count.” Yes, but where are you standing? Physicists tell us: time is relative to where you’re standing, how fast you’re moving and the gravity that surrounds you. They tell us that, six days from one position in the Universe can actually be fourteen billion years from another. Some even argue that six days from the standpoint of our earth is like fourteen billion years from the “standpoint” of the Big Bang. So are you telling the story or is God telling the story? You see that’s a physics problem and it’s a theological problem. Well once you let God tell the story, everything changes; everything ends at “very good.” Jesus is very good and he is “the End.” Once you believe the end, every moment in your story becomes new and you are new, transformed by the End in you. Epiphany. Genesis One: The History of You Genesis 1:1-2:4 a isn’t just the beginning. It’s the beginning and the end and everything in between. It’s the Index to Reality. It’s the history of all time and your time. It’s the big picture, start to finish, that tells you who you are and where you fit. It’s your Father in Heaven, telling you who you are and still speaking His Word of Life into your infant heart. You are His child to be filled with His Love.– Matter doesn’t really “matter,” but you do. You are His temple to be filled with His Glory. You are His body to be infused with His blood. You are His bride to be filled with Himself. You are His child and all creation is a womb groaning in anticipation for the revelation of you! (Rom. 8:22) And whether you know it or not, you are groaning in anticipation for the revelation of Him… “Christ in you”… “formed in you” (Gal.4:19)! Genesis one is the History of Time and your place in that time, but it’s also the history of that time and it’s place in you. Christ - The Word of God, The Beginning and the End, The Meaning - formed in you. So… Do you ever feel “formless and void?” Would you like someone to speak wisdom, meaning and truth into your soul? Would you like to hear, “Let there be light?” Do you long for someone to separate the troubled waters? For dry land to appear, bearing fruit? Would you like to discern the seasons and years? Would you like to be made in God’s Image? Would you like to rest - deeply and forever, from the core of your being – rest?

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Well then… it might be valuable to consult the index, ingest the plot and believe that the author of your story is good. If the story is good and the author is good, then even the experience of “formless and void” is transformed by that Good. The confusion and sorrow prepare you for the revelation of grace. The nights crying alone in the dark, allow you to see… as God whispers “now let there be light.” The desperate longing is broken soil prepared for an eternal seed that will bear eternal fruit. Even your disobedience; your aimless wondering; your angry defiance… even the void that is your sin, becomes space for the presence of God who is Mercy; it even becomes space for the revelation of you--his child, in His Image: a vessel of Mercy where once there was emptiness and wrath. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17 NKJV) “He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10)…including time, all time and your time. He is Good. He is The Word God speaks which makes “everything… good” (Gen. 1:31). “He has made everything beautiful in it’s (His) time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecc.3:11). That was written by Solomon three thousand years ago. But we are those who have met the Beginning and the End, by faith. “It is finished,” he cried, enthroned on the cross. And from the throne, as a slaughtered lamb standing, the same voice echoes throughout time, “Behold, I make all things new… write this, for these words are trustworthy and true… It is done! I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End,” (Rev. 21:5-6). That’s an Epiphany. A New Paradigm We need a paradigm shift. For when the paradigm shifts, we get a better glimpse of God and He is so… Good. So good that when we see the “glory of God shining in the face of Christ,” we lose our selves and find our selves in Him – The Image of God. So, would you surrender your psyche? NOT to me, but to Jesus the Word. Ask Him to guide you through the Word written and through the testimony of creation, in order that you might see Him – the Truth. If it makes you feel better, I think your paradigm will shift back to some of the views of the Church Fathers and even some of ancient Jewish rabbis, (if you’re worried about “post-modernism,” try “pre-modernism”). Whatever the case, let’s be honest and let’s be biblical. We can only arrive at the Truth by being truthful. He is the Way. I don’t think the “facts” change. The same clam fossils are in the same sedimentary strata and Scripture is still Scripture – it’s truer than you know. Yet, the paradigm does shift. “It’s not a chorus girl and it’s not an old woman, it’s Jesus.” The paradigm shifts, Jesus shows up and all the facts take on new meaning. Here are some ideas you may end up letting go: • • •

That the earth is young. That the earth is old. That God doesn’t get His Wish. 11

• • • • • • • •

That you are in control. Your understanding of “Hell.” Your understanding of evil. Your understanding of you. Your limitations upon God. That God is distant. That God is mean. That Jesus’ death and resurrection only kind-of worked.

Here are some ideas that may not let you go: • • • • • • • • • •

God is good, all the time. God is in control, all the time. Evil cannot win. God is not worried. You don’t need to worry. Eternity is in your heart. You are far more than you know. God is everywhere working the wonders of Mercy. God is always better than you thought. Jesus is the Idea, the Word that will not let you go.

So for Christ’s sake, may your paradigm shift: May you no longer see only old women or young show girls. May you no longer see only space, time, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. May you no longer see only commandments, memory verses and principles for living. May you always see Jesus, God’s Word. When you look at creation, may you see Jesus. When you look at Scripture, may you see Jesus. When you look into your past, when you look into your future and when you look into the mirror this day, may you see Jesus. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” wrote St. Paul. “[Christ] is the image of the invisible God.” (Gal. 2:20, Col. 1:15) “…God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” (Gen. 1:26) “So shall my Word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to Me void.” (Is.55:11 NKJV) “By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a Word that shall not return: ‘To Me every knee shall bow, and every tongue swear allegiance.’” (Is. 45:23) “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31)

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Epiphany Genesis 1: I think it may be my favorite chapter in the Bible.

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Endnotes 1. If God is a person and not simply some “life force” or interstellar gas, it makes sense that He’d set things up this way: such that we’d have to assume something in this world; such that we’d have to be a fool for something or someone. My wife doesn’t want to be explained. She wants to be known. She doesn’t want me to figure her out. She wants me to be a “fool for her love.” I think that’s called faith. 2. Everything is not relative to “our perception of space and time.” However, and very ironically, everything may be relative to “your perception of space and time” at least in some form. We’ll talk about this much more in body of this book, but according to Quantum Mechanics, to some degree, an “observer” does create something of reality. An observer “creates” subatomic particles, which are the building blocks of all matter. Why an “observer” doesn’t create their entire reality is a mystery for Quantum Physicists… and why we all seem to exist in the same reality is an even greater mystery. It’s like we’re junior creators, being observed by another creator. If that were the case, the only way that we could truly all live together in one creation is if we all “willed” the same reality… perhaps that’s exactly what’s happening. We are all learning to love Love. The will of our creator is Love. His Kingdom is Love. And we are predestined to Love in Freedom. As you read: In the body of this manuscript I quote a fair amount of Scripture and have tried to provide references in parenthesis for those who are interested. Hopefully that won’t be distracting. I suggest tuning the references out, unless something catches your attention and you’d like to investigate further. I would also suggest reading slowly and perhaps a few times. We’re describing pictures on top of pictures; stories on top of stories. The Gospel is being told in all creation, the story of Israel, the story of your life, and of course the life of Christ. Think Big and read slowly.

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Chapter 1

Questions Too Big for Any Specialist Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” That’s a bit different from what I learned in school. Matt Stone attended the same school as me - a bit later - but the same school: Heritage High School in Littleton Colorado. I don’t know where He went to grade school, but his memories sound a lot like mine. Matt Stone and one other fellow are the creators of South Park… you know, the raunchy cartoon everyone loves to boycott. Evolution On a recent episode, Mr./Ms. (He has “identity issues”) Garrison explains the theory of evolution to his/her class. He/she points to a diagram and says: “Now, I for one think that evolution is a bunch of bull crap, but I’ve been told I have to teach it anyway. It was thought of by Charles Darwin, and it goes something like this: “In the beginning, we were all fish. OK? …swimming around in the water. And then one day a couple fish had a retard baby, and the retard baby was different, so it got to live. So retard fish goes on to make more retard babies, and then one day a retard baby fish crawled out of the ocean with it’s mutant fish hands, and it had #%** sex with a squirrel or something and made this retard frog squirrel. And then that had a retard baby, which was a monkey fish frog, and then this monkey fish frog had #%** sex with that monkey, and then that monkey had a mutant retard baby, that $%*#@^! another monkey, and that made you. So there you go. You’re the offspring of five monkeys having #%** sex with a fish squirrel. Congratulations. (I’m sorry… that’s disturbing for some, but a fairly common belief. Mr./Ms. Garrison’s remarks may not be entirely accurate from a scientific perspective, but they’re quit insightful from a philosophical one.) Well, as luck would have it, Mr./Ms. Garrison goes on a date with Richard Dawkins the renowned atheist. Dawkins pulls out the now famous “Flying Spaghetti Monster” argument, (It’s the idea that an inability to disprove something does not imply existence.) Mr./Mrs. Garrison exclaims, “I totally get it now: Evolution explains everything! There’s no great mystery to life, just evolution, and God’s a Spaghetti Monster. Thank you, Richard!” Mr./Ms. Garrison then has Richard Dawkins come explain evolution to his/her class. He explains, “You must understand children, that we are dealing with very large numbers here. So evolution doesn’t even happen by chance. It is, in fact, bound to happen.” Mr./Ms. Garrison chimes in “That’s right, kids. And so, you see, there is no God.” Fourth grader Stan Marsh can’t take it anymore, he interrupts, “Well, there could still be a God.” Then He says: “Couldn’t evolution be the answer to how and not the answer to why?” 15

We can debate that, but it is a rather insightful observation. Of course the powers that be don’t think so. Stan is placed in a corner with a dunce cap on his head. Across the top, in bold letters, is printed: I HAVE FAITH. Faith?

Like I said, Matt Stone, one of the two creators of South Park, went to my high school, (I’ve got that going for me.) So I’ve wondered if Matt had Mr. Roberts in 11th grade like I did. Mr. Roberts taught history not science, but he thought he understood science. Mr. Roberts thought it was his mission to undo the faith of his students. I think he thought, arriving at truth, is all about destroying faith… of course that’s a statement of faith, but I doubt Mr. Roberts understood that. I don’t think I understood it at the time. It was that year, that I had a crisis of faith (in God). One night, I locked myself in the upstairs bathroom of our house in Littleton, dropped to my knees beside the bathtub. Sobbing, I cried out to God, “God, I don’t think I can believe in you any more.” I cried out to God, and I felt an emptiness—a chaos, “formless and void,” in the pit of my stomach. I struggled to put words to it then, but my heart knew: If there was no God, there was no truth and there was no reason, no purpose, no beauty, no goodness, no love, no me. And everything was nothing. . . zero. A cipher. Nothing Jean Mizer was driving behind the Milford Corners school bus one cold February morning when it veered to one side and the door flew open. A boy lurched out and collapsed in the snow, dead. At school, no one seemed to know him. Jean Mizer was a teacher at the Milford Corners School. The principal asked her to inform the boy’s family. When she asked, “Why me?” the principal informed her, “Cliff Evans listed you as his favorite teacher.” His favorite teacher, she thought. He hadn’t spoken two words to her all year. He always sat alone in the back. When she arrived at his home, his stepfather snorted, “He ain’t said nothin’ about anything since I moved in here. If Cliff hadn’t been so dumb, he’d ’ve told us he didn’t feel so good.” Jean Mizer writes: After school I sat in the office and stared blankly at the records spread out before me. I was to read the file and write the obituary for the school paper. The almost bare sheets mocked the effort. Cliff Evans, white, never legally adopted by stepfather, five young half-brothers and sisters. These meager strands of information and the list of D grades were all the records had to offer. . . . As far as I could tell, he had never done one happy, noisy kid thing. He had never been anybody at all. How do you go about making a boy into a zero? The grade-school records showed me. The first and second grade teachers’ annotations read, “Sweet, shy child,” “timid but eager.” Then the third grade note had opened the attack. Some teacher had written in a good, firm hand, “Cliff won’t talk. Uncooperative. Slow learner.” The other academic sheep had followed with “dull,” “slow-witted,” “low IQ.” They became correct. The boy’s IQ score in the ninth grade was listed at 83. But his IQ in the third grade had been 106. The 16

score didn’t go under 100 until the seventh grade. Even the shy, timid, sweet children have resilience. It takes time to break them. . . . I could guess how many times he’d been chosen last to play sides in a game, how many whispered child conversations had excluded him, how many times he hadn’t been asked. I could see and hear the faces that said over and over, “You’re nothing, Cliff Evans.” A child is a believing creature. Cliff undoubtedly believed them. Suddenly it seemed clear to me: When finally there was nothing left at all for Cliff Evans, he collapsed on a snow bank and went away. The doctor might list heart failure as the cause of death, but that wouldn’t change my mind.1

How do you turn a boy into nothing? Well, obviously there are many ways (that are all really one way). School might be one of those ways. School is where you go to learn “truth.” In the western world, we’ve come to believe you learn the truth by taking things apart and looking at the pieces. Truth is what you can objectively observe in a controlled environment, according to the scientific method. So what’s the truth about Cliff Evans? Well, take him apart, dissect him, look at the parts, incinerate the pieces, do a chemical analysis, and you will find calcium, carbon, oxygen, and a lot of water. And that’s the objective truth about Cliff. He’s something like $49.00 worth of chemicals and some water. “Yah,” you say, “but now he’s dead. What about living? What is life?” “Well, life is the replication of complex chemical patterns called DNA” we answer… or have been taught to answer. “The specialists have analyzed the fossil sequence and concluded it happens by chance in a closed system.” A bunch of mutant, monkey fish frogs . . . then you! Does it matter? “Do I matter?” asks Cliff Evans. “What matters is the survival of the fittest.” Then Cliff was picked last in baseball. Then Cliff was graded on a curve, and he was at the bottom. Maybe Cliff was learning the lesson best, indeed taking it to heart. He wasn’t fit to survive. But even if he was fit, why would it matter? Things only matter if they matter to someone who matters. And who do all the “someones” matter to that makes them matter? God, perhaps? Well no. Not if I follow the “reasoning” I learned in school. It can’t even be true that God exists. If the only things that are “true” are things “observed” through the scientific method—that is, matter and energy—God cannot exist, by definition. For God is not matter or energy. How could He be if he supposedly made them both? So God does not exist… And I do not exist. I do not exist for I can’t observe the me that is doing the observing. I can’t verify me. I can’t observe the I that is observing me. If all there is, is matter and energy, then there is no God, no I, no truth, no scientific method . . . for none of those things can be validated with the scientific method, 17

including the scientific method! I might as well step off the bus and cease to exist . . . because I don’t. Nothing. Is there a God? See? I’m just pointing out that an awful lot rides on that question, including our very ability to even ask the question. It’s a very big question, far too big for any specialists like Charles Darwin or Richard Dawkins. Dawkins may know everything about the DNA of a clam but absolutely nothing about what anything means… for technically there is no such thing as “meaning.” Has anyone ever objectively, empirically validated the concept “meaning” in a controlled scientific environment? Can “meaning” even matter? For it’s not matter. Is there a God? The way we modern people try to answer that question is absurd. If you would, imagine that I am God. (It’s something I ask my family to do every now and then.) Just imagine that I’m God and I hold the Universe in my hands. Picture a shoe box, but it’s the Universe… OK? All space, all time, all matter is in the box: the universe. I AM not in the box but holding the box. Now sing: “He’s got the whole world in His hands (4x).” Good class. Now, let me tell you about the universe—the box in my hands: Recent estimates are that the universe is 156 billion light years across. That is, if the universe were not still expanding, it would take light 156 billion years to go from one side to the other. Scientists tell us that we can only see 14 billion light years away, because the universe began 14 billion years ago. That is, we can’t even see the vast majority of the universe, for the light hasn’t even reached us yet. • • • •

The universe is 156 billion light years across. Our solar system is .00126 light years across (the orbit of Pluto). Our solar system is 7.5 trillion miles across. So our solar system is 117.5 quadrillion times smaller in width than our universe.

If the entire universe were the size of planet Earth, our solar system would be about 1/70,000 of an inch wide. It would be about 1/6 as wide as a small bacteria. The solar system: 7.5 trillion miles across, as wide as 1/6 of a small bacteria, if the universe is scaled down to just the size of the earth. But I’m asking you to imagine the universe in this box. Got it? Now imagine that a man in the utterly miniscule speck that is our solar system, on the unimaginably miniscule speck that is our planet, in one particular spot, at one particular time, examines some clam fossils. He is a specialist in fossilized cretaceous mollusks. Then based on what he “empirically” and “objectively” observes, he writes a book stating, “There is no God,” that is, there is no one holding the box. 18

So, all the modern, technologically advanced, scientific people say, “Well, he is an expert . . . so that must be truth.” Absurd That’s absurd, isn’t it? It’s absurd because some questions are way too big for any specialist. Yet some specialist invariably says, “We’ve examined the clam fossils and have concluded that there is no God.” So what do we Christians do? We call in our own specialists who go out to the same spot and analyze the same clam fossils and say, “There’s a lack of transitional forms in the clam sequence; therefore, God exists. Someone’s holding the box.” Then all of us modern, technologically advanced, religious people say, “There is a God because our specialists say so . . . our scientists have concluded: God Exists!” In the words of C. S. Lewis: The statement that there is [a God] and the statement that there is no [God] are neither of them statements that science can make. And real scientists do not usually make them. It is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them. After all, it is really a matter of common sense. Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, “Why is there a universe?” “Why does it go on as it does?” “Has it any meaning?” would remain just as they were?2 In the words of fourth-grader Stan Marsh in South Park, “Couldn’t evolution be the answer to how and not the answer to why?” I heard that Einstein once asked his class, “How much of the universe do you suppose we comprehend?” Someone said, “Five percent.” Einstein said, “I think that’s way too much, but even so, who’s to say God couldn’t exist somewhere in the other 95%?” Well, Christians don’t even believe He’s an object in the other 95%. They believe He’s outside the universe; outside of space and time; outside the box, holding the box. He’s the Creator of the box. Why would we even expect him to be a thing in the box that He created? When people ask, “Is there a God?” theologian Emil Brunner argued that perhaps we ought to answer, “No. ‘there is’ no God! … ‘there is’ a planet Uranus, [likewise, ‘there is’ clam sequence in cretaceous sediment] …But ‘there is’ no God. God is neither an object of scientific observation nor something that we can insert in the treasure of our knowledge, as one mounts a rare stamp in a special place in an album…”3 God is not an “object” of scientific observation in this world.

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Even if you understood every individual part of a Ford motor car, took it apart and analyzed each piece, you still wouldn’t find Henry Ford. And the car would no longer run. You would’ve dissected it. Yet a whole Ford motor car is a beautiful testimony to a person named Henry Ford. God may not be a thing in His world, yet the whole thing can bear testimony to it’s maker. A Testament A composer is not a note in his symphony, but if you have the capacity to hear the symphony and not just individual notes, the symphony bears testimony to the composer and gives meaning to each note. If you specialize in a note, you may never hear the symphony. Imagine if you were at the symphony and commented, “Oh, wasn’t that a wonderful symphony!” and a man says, “There was no symphony. I’m a specialist. I specialize in D flat; I have studied the note D flat. I didn’t hear a symphony.” Some people specialize in calcium, carbon, and oxygen, but perhaps Cliff Evans was more than calcium, carbon, and oxygen. Perhaps he was a testimony to his maker. Perhaps calcium, carbon, and oxygen are not what Cliff Evans is but just what Cliff Evans is made of. If Modern man wants to know a tree he cuts it down and counts its rings. If he wants to know a frog, he cuts it in pieces and analyzes its parts. If he wants to know a wife… well modern men aren’t so good at knowing wives. If he wants to know Cliff Evans, he can dissect him, call in the specialists, analyze the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen… but is that still Cliff Evans? How do you know a tree, a frog, a wife, Cliff Evans, or God? Certain questions are way too big for any specialist: “Is there a God?” “Do I matter?” Do not concede those questions to any specialist or any expert . . . biologist, geologist, pastor, or theologian. They can’t answer the question for you, and they’re not supposed to. So how do you answer the question “Is there a God who made the world?” By looking in the world? By taking it apart and analyzing the pieces? How do you find God in the world that He has made? Well, you can’t . . . unless, of course, God decides to find you in the world that He has made . . . unless, of course, God decides to speak to you through the world He has made, giving you the capacity to hear the symphony. Imagine if I spoke to the people in my box universe: “Hey, people! How’s it going, eh? Hang in there. Love you guys!” Well, everything and everyone everywhere and everywhen would vibrate with the sound of my words. People in the box might say “Did you hear the word: ‘Love you guys…’ Did you hear the word?” Yet my word would not simply be a thing in the box. So people couldn’t say, “Here it is!” or “There it is! I found the Word!... or the One who is speaking.” You wouldn’t “find” the word, but the word would find you.

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That’s all a bit fascinating when you take a look at Scripture. “In the beginning God created.” The Hebrew actually reads, “In the beginning of,” without an object for the preposition. The King James translators simply dropped the preposition, “of”. Other translators, some ancient translators, took the word translated “in the beginning of,” to be a compound word meaning “with first wisdom.” Thus the ancient Jerusalem translation of Gen. 1:1 into Aramaic reads, “With wisdom God created…”4 I don’t know which translation is right, but I do know that God creates with Wisdom… and that Wisdom is also a Word. • • •

Psalm 104 says, “God made all his works with wisdom.” In Genesis 1, God speaks creation into existence. Speaking is breath that carries wisdom encoded in vibrations we call words. In John 1:1, John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

Logos in Greek means: meaning, logic, reason, wisdom, word. John goes on to say that Word contains life, and the Life is the light of men. The Word is logic, meaning, reason, truth, life, and light. And Scripture is clear that God does not only create with His Word; He maintains and sustains all things with this Word. The box is upheld by this Word. So God is continually speaking into the box (His creation). In fact, all creation is like the manifestation of His Word. One Word, One Verse, Uni-Verse Now, that all sounds ridiculous to modern minds, but lately it’s all begun to sound rather like science . . . special relativity, quantum mechanics, string theory: the theory that all particles are like vibrations of meaning on superstrings that exist in at least eleven or twelve dimensions. “Vibrations of meaning” . . . that’s what a word is! Scientists have become so specialized that they’ve analyzed the smallest things that make up all things, and now they say all things are like no things in this world…and that might testify to something out of this world: •

Physicists don’t know what light is, but they say everything is relative to it or even made of it. Scripture says God is light.

•

Scientists don’t know what a person is, but every quantum particle in this universe is dependent on some person (spirit) observing it . . . who can’t be observed. Scientists can’t observe “spirit.” They can only observe bodies, not persons. God is a person and observes all.

•

Scientists don’t know what meaning is, but some say that everything is like the manifestation of meaning – vibrations of meaning on “super-strings”. The Bible says everything is like the manifestation of Word. That Word “was with God” and “the Word is God.” Paul writes, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 21

17:28) Indeed we swim in God, like fish in water. Somebody wrote: “We’re not sure who discovered water, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t fish.” [footnote] Fish don’t say, “Oh, here it is!” or “There it is! I found water!” Yet everywhere they go, they assume it. The Question Assumes the Answer We swim in God. So to even ask the question, is to assume the answer. • • •

If you ask, “Is God real?” you must assume reality. Perhaps, God is Reality. If you ask, “Is God true?” you must assume truth. Scripture claims that God is Truth. If you ask, “Is God good?” I think you’re asking, “Is Good, good?” because God is the Good.

When Richard Dawkins says, “It is true that there is no God,” he is saying, “It is true that there is no truth.” In other words, “My statement has no meaning.” God is truth. It wasn’t until years later, that I realized what I had done. Did you notice? In high school, when I told God: “I don’t think I can believe in you,” I was talking to the One in whom I thought I didn’t believe. You see I had already encountered Him and just by asking the question, I assumed the answer. So “Is there a God?” is not a question evolution can answer, science can answer, or any specialist can answer. Some questions are far too big for any specialist…or maybe even you. So how are we to answer? Maybe we can’t . . . but He can in us. Maybe He’s doing it all the time. Maybe we can’t prove God but He’s proving us: “making us in His image.” Maybe we can’t comprehend God, but He is comprehending us: revealing Himself to us, answering His question in us . . . Every time we ask, “Is it true?” Every time we seek meaning. Every time we yearn for love. Every time we weep for someone like Cliff Evans and ask, “Does he matter?” and every fiber in your being vibrates with the answer: Yes! So how are we to answer? Not by sight (our objective, detached observation), but by faith (our subjective encounter with the living God). Kind of like how we answer the question, “Do you like the symphony?” or “Do you know your wife?” Is there a God? 22

And then this is the choice: 1. God is not, and everything is absurd, including the question; Or… 2. God is, and everything matters, including every boy and every clam. The choice is between “absurd” and “not absurd,” yet to even conceive of the idea of “absurd” means that we’ve conceived of the idea of “not absurd,” that is “truth.” We’ve conceived of “truth?” Perhaps I should say, Truth has conceived us. See? It’s a question with an answer that finds you… or I should say, “has already found you,” for otherwise you couldn’t ask the question. The Question with an Answer that’s Found You You know, a clam fossil can’t answer the question “Is there a God?” Yet once you’ve answered it, even a clam fossil is a testimony to its maker, (a “fact” endued with meaning). Once you’ve answered the question, all of science is a testimony to her maker. I think it’s a tragedy that so many Christians are afraid of science . . . and clam fossils. When my kids were little and we had nothing to do, I used to take them hunting for fossilized Inoceramus clams. You can find them in upper cretaceous limestone beds just down the bike path from our house. Our garage used to be full of them. They’re like five inches across – totally cool. Some people think these clams are a few thousand years old. I think they’re 80 million years old…and much younger than a few thousand years old, but we’ll write more about that later. The first time I took my son Jonathan, I kept showing him what they looked like, but he couldn’t seem to find any. So finally I found a nice one, set it on a ledge, and said, “Hey, buddy, this is a good spot. Come look over here.” Well, pretty soon I heard him yelling, “Oh, wow! Daddy! Daddy! I found one!” Jon cradled that clam in his arms like a treasure. Some people would say, “Listen, Jon, these fossils are tricks played by the Devil, to make you think the world is older than it is, to make you doubt God’s Word.” Some people would say, “Listen, Jon, these fossils prove there is no God.” But I said something like this: Hey, Jon, just think! About 80 million years ago, there was a warm, shallow ocean right in this spot. Giant sea creatures swam in that ocean above this spot, and dinosaurs walked on the beach to the west of this spot. God made it all, and then He made this clam on the bottom of that sea. He buried it here in the mud, and the mud turned to rock. It was here when the dinosaurs became extinct and the mountains pushed up. It was here when God made Adam and Eve; it was here when Jesus walked the earth; it was here while kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell. And when God buried it here in this spot, do you know what He was thinking about? He was thinking about you . . . and the day you would ride your bike down the bike path, 23

climb this hill, find this clam, pick it up, and say, “Wow!” You see, Jon, you must matter to Him… a lot. Jon found the fossil because the Father used the fossil to find Jon’s heart. You may be seeking the Father, but with all creation the Father is seeking your heart. And now you may say, “OK, stop. I see how you can postulate the existence of God. But how do you postulate a God like that with a heart like that—the heart of a Father . . . like you know Him?” The Question with an Answer that’s Finding You God speaks a Word with which He creates and sustains all things. Christians also believe that at the right time, in the right place, that Word “became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) And we met Him. God is not simply an object in the box. Yet at one point, He made Himself an object in the box. I should say He made Himself a person in the box. But, you see, a person is not simply an object in the box (just $49.00 worth of chemicals and some water). He made Himself a person in the box, and when He did, we hated Him. We reduced Him and tried to take Him apart. We dissected Him on a cross. We didn’t know Him and couldn’t know Him, but He knew us. And on that cross He revealed His glory. And we beheld His glory for He sent his Spirit into our hearts crying “Abba, Daddy, Father.” Because of the Word all around you and in your heart, you can recognize the Word hanging on the cross. You can recognize God’s heart and so hear God the Father. You can say, “He’s the meaning, the reason, the way, the truth, the life, the light, the treasure! He is God, and God is Love bleeding grace for me. He is my maker, and now I know Him. Now I found Him because He found me. My Father found me! … He found me, long before I knelt by the bathtub and told Him He wasn’t there. Why would I speak to Him if he wasn’t there? Truth is, He’d been whispering to me every day of my life, in every sunset, in every hug from my Mom, even in sorrow and loss He was shaping my longing for him. Through all these things He was speaking to me finding me “in the box.” Jesus: God in the Box Before my first son Jonathan was born, I used to speak to him in “the box.” I used to speak to him in my wife’s womb. I’d say “Little scooter, I can’t wait to meet you. We painted your room today. We prepared your place today.” I’d sing to him in my wife’s womb. When I’d sing, when I’d speak, everything in Jonathan’s world would move. The 24

umbilical chord, the placenta, the amniotic fluid, it would all vibrate with my word, my song. Jonathan was born almost six weeks early. My wife had a brutal day—a full day of labor. My son Jonathan did as well. When he was finally born, he had a black eye and his head had been squeezed into the shape of a cone. Those contractions must have hurt like hell – they were preparing his lungs to breath air in a new world – they served a glorious purpose but they hurt. Yet even in the pain, the muscles of my wife’s womb would vibrate with the sound of my voice: “Your OK buddy, soon and very soon you’ll be here with us.” When Jon was finally born, they took him from my wife, cleaned him up and wrapped him in a blanket. He would not stop crying. Several nurses held him and he would not stop crying… except for me. They placed him in my arms. The nurse said “talk to him, he knows your voice.” I spoke his name… and he stopped. He knew my voice. He came to know it in the womb. He knew my voice and now he felt my touch. He saw my face, as I told him his story: “I love you, Jonathan.” When those contractions were the worst, I wish that I could’ve been with him, as not only a word, but a word in flesh… like another baby in the womb: one like him – one he could see, touch and understand. I couldn’t. But God can, and God did. God is Jonathan’s true Father. Jonathan is still being born. You have been born into this world of space and time. You are being born out of this world of space and time. The Word of the Father surrounds you and that Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of Grace and Truth: The Word, The Plot, The Beginning and End… with us, Jesus. He comes from “the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18 RSV). He reveals the Father’s heart—broken on a cross, for the love of you—the Father’s Word, to you. When Christ rose from the dead, He said, “I’m going to my Father and your Father.” The question: “Is there a God?” is the same question as “Do I want to be born? Am I willing to be God’s creation—His child? He wants you to want him, not because you discovered him in a chemistry lab; not because you deduced him in a philosophy class; not because you’re terrified that He’ll fry your buns in Hell. He wants you to want Him because you fell in love with His voice, His Word, even in the womb. His word is Jesus. His word is Love. “Is there a God?” It’s the same question as “Do I want to live by faith in His grace?” If there is a Creator of everything and me, then everything and me, is Grace. If there is a Father, than I am a child. Children live by faith in grace. “Is there a God?” “Do I like Grace?” “Do I like Jesus?” They are the same question. Some questions are way too big for any specialist.

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1. “Cipher in the Snow” is a “true story” written by Jean Mizer in 1964. It was made in to a short film by Brigham Young University in 1973. I’ve heard the story in a variety of contexts and read the story most recently at http://www.wiktel.net/dgray/cipher.html. 2.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: MacMillan, 1943), 32.

3.

Emil Brunner, Our Faith, trans. John Rilling, (New York: Scribners, 1954), 1.

4. Gerald L. Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth, (New York: Free Press, 2001) p. 9

~ The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. ~ Albert Einstein There is nothing but God's grace. We walk upon it; we breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the universe. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman's argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out . . . He understands everything, and everything does not seem worth understanding . . . Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. ~ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith In short, to demonstrate the existence of someone who already exists is the most shameless assault. It is an attempt to make him ludicrous. The trouble is that one does not even suspect this, that in dead seriousness one even regards it as a godly undertaking. How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that God exists unless one has already allowed himself to ignore him? A king's existence is demonstrated by way of subjection and submissiveness. Do you want to try and demonstrate that the king exists? Will you do so by offering a string of proofs, a series of arguments? No. If you are serious, you will demonstrate the king's existence by your submission, by the way you live. And so it is with demonstrating God's existence. It is accomplished not by proofs but by worship. Any other way is but a thinker's pious bungling. ~Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard A group was enjoying the music at a Chinese restaurant. Suddenly a soloist struck up a vaguely familiar tune; everyone recognized the melody, but no one could remember its name. So they beckoned to the splendidly clad waiter and asked him to find out what the musician was playing. The waiter waddled across the floor, then returned with a look of triumph on his face and declared in a loud whisper, "Violin!" The scholar's contribution to spirituality! ~ Anthony DeMello, Writings 26

Chapter 2

The Day You Were Born Your Father’s Story and the Ramblings of Mad Scientists and Pharisees Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Following World War II, there were more than two hundred Frenchmen who returned to Paris suffering from amnesia. They had been so psychologically devastated by imprisonment that they had lost the conscious awareness of who they were. In most cases, their identities were quickly found from Red Cross records or with the help of other prisoners. But there were thirty-two men whose identities were impossible to ascertain. There seemed to be no records of them or anyone who knew anything about them. The doctors who were treating these thirty-two men believed their chances for recovery would be slim if not impossible, unless they were connected with former friends or relatives . . . anyone who could tell them their stories. Someone proposed publishing photographs of the men on the front page of newspapers throughout the country and giving a date and time when anyone having information about any of these amnesia victims should come to the Paris Opera House. The plan worked. On the proper day and at the assigned time, a crowd gathered to view these war veterans. In dramatic fashion, the first of the amnesia victims walked onto the stage of the darkened opera house, stood in the spotlight, and slowly turned completely around. Before the hushed audience, he pleadingly and softly inquired, “Does anybody out there know who I am?”1 Ever feel like that? Who am I? Something like 3,500 years ago, an entire nation of amnesiac POW’s and slaves found themselves wandering in a dark wilderness following a wild-eyed, old man and his terrifying God. God spoke through the man named Moses. He had said something about “a land” (Hebrew: “erets”) promised to an ancestor, a land to which they were now going. But they didn’t remember this land, this God, their origin, or their genesis. So in that dark wilderness, the children of Israel longed to know, “Who is this God and who are we?” That’s the question children ask: “Who am I? What’s my story?” Two Accounts My children love to hear stories about when they were born. When they were little and I’d tuck them into bed, they’d say, “Daddy, tell me the story of the day I was born.” So I’d tell them the story: 27

Well, Jonathan, in the beginning we weren’t even sure we could have a baby. Mommy used to cry herself to sleep longing for a baby. It was Sunday morning. I remember it as if it were just last week. We were getting ready to go to church. I was sitting at the table. Mommy was standing at the sink in her blue dress—the one I loved. She paused and then turned and looked at me. She had a smile a mile wide. Her eyes just sparkled and her face was glowing. She said, “I’m pregnant!” Jon, I used to hover over Mommy’s belly and talk to you while you floated in the water inside her. Once I took a marker and drew a smiley face on her tummy. (She had a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t wash it off.) I couldn’t wait to see you! I was playing my guitar too loud. Mommy screamed from the bathroom, “If you keep that up, I’ll go into labor right here!” I kept playing… or at least making noise. All at once I heard Mommy scream. Her water had broken and you were coming early. I drove like a racecar driver all the way to the hospital. We prayed so hard that you would be okay. Mommy was in a lot of pain for a whole day. It seemed like a year. I was sure she wouldn’t want another baby. I could tell: it hurt so bad. But the second she saw you, Jonathan, she said, “Oh, I want another one!” She thought you were the best thing she’d ever seen. Think about those soldiers in the Paris Opera House. What was it they wanted to hear? Question: “Who am I?” Answer: “You are Pierre Baptiste, born August 5, 1925, I.D. #924-34-2738.” No! That’s not the answer to the question. They want to know, “Who am I?” They want stories. Without stories, birthdays have no meaning. Pierre wants to hear someone say something like this: Pierre, sweetheart, remember when Benjamin was born and you wouldn’t stop crying? Remember our picnic in the park? Remember the notes you used to write to me in school? Pierre Baptiste, this is who you are. You are a man who cried when his son was born; a man who loved to drink wine on a blanket in the park below the Eiffel Tower; the man who wrote silly notes to me in school—notes I still have in my dresser drawer. Pierre Baptiste wants to know his story. Stories reveal persons. He wants to know, “Who am I… to you?” Little Jon Hiett wants to know, “Were you happy when I was born? Did Mommy declare me good? Do I matter to you? Tell me my story.” So I’d tell him. He couldn’t 28

comprehend all the facts, but he trusted the author, so he’d listen in wonder. He wouldn’t interrupt me and say, “Hey, how could Mommy’s face glow? Are you suggesting some sort of ambient radiation or electrical discharge?” Imagine if Jonathan came back twenty years later, having become an OB-GYN, and confronted me: Father, I’m so disappointed in you. I’ve obtained my birth records from the John Muir Medical Center, and they read as follows: “Jonathan Jacob Hiett, August 26, 1988, 10:07 PM, 5 lbs. 15 oz., 17 inches, ruptioplacenta, etc., etc.” Dad, there is nothing here about “eyes that sparkle,” “glowing faces,” or the “answers to anyone’s prayers.” Dad, I have lost my faith in you. Richard Dawkins is right: There is no Dad. You don’t even exist. Imagine! Well, it’s hard to imagine, for we all know there are different ways of conveying truth. A father’s story and the hospital records are two very different ways. But let me ask you: Which account is more true? 1. The birth records from John Muir Medical Center? Or… 2. The story I tell my son as I tuck him into bed? Birth Record or Story: Which is more true? Well, the first may stand up in a court of law, yet those facts only matter because they belong to a story—to a mother whose eyes sparkle and skin glows. The facts in the birth record would stand up in court, but the story shapes Jon in my image, fills all his facts with meaning, and gives him life. If one day the kids on the bus say, “Hiett, you’re nobody!” the address of John Muir Hospital and the date of his birth won’t matter. But the story—“Jon, you are the answer to our prayers!”—that might save his life. Maybe it is life. And so the children of Israel, feeling like orphans and amnesiacs as they wander in the wilderness, want to know, “Who am I? What’s the story?” And the Father tells them. He tells them through Moses. The story is written in a book called the Pentateuch. It has five parts; the first part is called Genesis. The Story Verse 1: “In ‘the beginning’”—re’shiyt (in Hebrew). Re’shiyth anticipates a’hariyth— “end.” There’s a beginning and an end. There’s a plot; there’s a plan; there’s meaning. In Greek, you’d say: “there’s logos,” which means wisdom or word. “By the word of the LORD, the heavens were made.” (Psalm 33:6) “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth” (Proverbs 3:19) “All things were made through him, (the logos, the wisdom, the word) and 29

without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3) There is an author, there is a beginning and an end, and there is a plot…It’s a story. Verse 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That’s a Hebrew way of saying God created everything. Verse 2: “the earth” (erets with the definite article), which is normally translated the land, “was formless and void,” perhaps more accurately translated for the Hebrew mind: “The land was an empty wasteland, a wilderness.” It’s a phrase used to describe the place in which the Israelites were wandering at the time. But God was taking them to a “promised erets”—a “promised land”—the land of their origin, the boundaries of which seem to match the boundaries of the Garden of Eden. Some scholars, ancient and modern, argue that verse 1 is about the creation of all things but the ensuing six days are about the creation of the Garden of Eden—the promised land—the homeland in which God had made His people and to which they were now returning.2 Verse 2: “The land was a wilderness, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit (ruach—breath) of God hovered over the face of the waters.” • • •

Like the breath blew on the waters in the Red Sea in the wilderness as Israel was born as a nation. Like the Spirit blew on the waters in the womb of a virgin named Mary and “the Word became flesh.” Like my breath hovered over the waters in the womb of my bride as Jonathan was prepared to be born.

Verse 2: I do think this story is about the creation of all things. In the Ten Commandments, God says He created “heaven and earth” (everything) in six days. “All things” . . . and that would include you. •

I also believe it’s about the birth of the children of Israel. God is telling them who they are and where they are going. The Pentateuch ends as the Israelites leave the dark wilderness, the waters of the Jordan separate, and they walk into a land guarded by an angel with a flaming sword, (Bible students should be foaming at the mouth.). If you’re a believer, “Israel” includes you. You’re grafted into their story, (Romans 9:1-13; 11:17-24).

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I also believe it’s about the incarnation of Christ; the genesis of Jesus; the Word in Flesh. Paul tells us that Adam is a type of Christ, and Christ is the ultimate Adam. He is also beginning and end. He’s the plot, the Word, the wisdom, the life, and the light. And if you’re a believer, you know He includes you. You’re grafted into His story. You are His body. He is formed in you. There is a Genesis of Jesus in you, (1 Cor. 15:45, Gal. 4:19, Gal. 2:20).

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I also believe the story is about you; the genesis and consummation of you. The Word God speaks, is the beginning and end of you. 30

This story is at least about three things . . . and one thing: you. Or three things… and one thing: Jesus. Verse 3: “And God said, ‘Let there be light’”—not created but let. “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Then God separates and calls the separated light day—that kind of day lasts twelve hours. “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” It doesn’t say “the first day” in Hebrew but “a day.” The story continues with God “creating,” “making,” and “letting” for five days. They appear to be rather indeterminate days: “a second day,” “a third day,” etc. until you get to “the sixth day.” In Hebrew the first five days lack a definite article. We definitely know the sixth day, but the first five days are rather fuzzy. Perhaps they overlap. Perhaps this is less of a chronology (Actually all “chronologies” are illusion, for time itself-“chronos,” our time-- is an illusion…at least that’s what physicists say.) Well perhaps this is less of a chronology because it’s far more accurate than a mere chronology, perhaps it’s a “kairology.” Like the Revelation is a “kairology.” (I invented that word in my book on the Revelation: Eternity Now, pg.9) In Greek, “chronos” indicates sequential time, whereas “kairos” indicates event time, fulfilled time, meaningful time. “Meaning full” time must be more real than “sequential” time, for God created time, but He himself is the Meaning. His Word is meaning. He is Meaning and He is Light, and time-chronological time--is relative to light. We’ll talk about this more later. But for now, perhaps the “days” are more like an Index to Reality and less like a Table of Contents. They reveal the meaning of things, not just the date of things. Well it’s not less than a chronology. It’s more. God creates over five indeterminate days, but on “the sixth day”—we know this day. On the sixth day God creates Adam (man: male and female) in His image—the pinnacle of His creation! On the seventh day, He rests. Chapter 2 Verse 4: “These are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created. In the day [singular] the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” That day equals seven days which equals “generations,” which is the same word used to describe twelve hours in verse 2. Isn’t it obvious that these days are a bit different from the days on your calendar or the time on your chronometer, your wristwatch? That doesn’t mean that these days are less real. It could mean they’re more real. God may perceive time a little different than you . . . maybe even a little better than you. Well, the Father’s story is the creation story, history. And the Father’s story becomes Israel’s story. And the Father’s story becomes your story. And the Father’s story is Jesus, His story— The Meaning in all stories. I’m just pointing out that we’re reading an incredible story Birth Record or Story: which is more true? 31

1. The birth records at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek, California? Or… 2. The father’s story of the day his son was born? That’s a hard question . . . because they’re both true in their own way. In Genesis, the Father is telling us our story. But the Father’s story also bears witness to a birth record—a birth record written into the things that have been made. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God. Day to day pours forth speech.” (19:1). Paul writes, “God’s invisible attributes . . . have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” (Romans 1:20). Jesus says, “Look at the birds . . . Consider the lilies.” (Matt. 6:28). The Lord has something to say to you through them. So… Scripture bears witness to science. Sociologists and historians have pointed out that the scientific revolution occurred in the Christian West because the Biblical story endued all creation—all fact—with meaning. So there are no meaningless facts. Because there is an Author who created everything with the Plot, every thing has a story tied to its tail; every thing is a temple at which the Author and His Meaning can be worshipped. Newton, Pascal, Faraday, Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, even Einstein . . . they were worshippers. It wasn’t until the Enlightenment that some popular philosophers and journalists became so enamored with the birth record that they began to say, “We don’t need the Father’s story - just science; just the facts.” Well, theologians call the birth record written into things, General Revelation. In other words, the way God speaks to us through creation they call General Revelation. And the way God speaks to us through Scripture they call Special Revelation. In either case, that which is spoken is the Word, and the One who is speaking is God. So . . . Special Revelation and General Revelation; Scripture and science; The Father’s story and the birth record; . . . should complement each other. So what does it mean when they don’t? 1. Everything is absurd. There is no story, and the record has no meaning. We don’t 32

even know why we’re talking. Or, perhaps… 2. Everything has meaning. There is a story, and the record has meaning. But most of us just aren’t that good at hearing the story or reading the record. In which case some humility is in order, and we ought to learn one extremely valuable phrase: “I don’t know.” That’s called, “speaking the truth.” You can’t arrive at the truth unless you’re willing to be truthful. God is truth, so you can’t find Him with con jobs, smoke screens, and lies. If you don’t know how God could count days before He made the sun, or how dinosaurs could fit on the ark, or how rubidium strontium decays in igneous rock, say, “I don’t know.” You are not saved by what you know but by who knows you. We’ve really struggled with the phrase “I don’t know” ever since the Serpent said, “Hey, do you want to be like God? Do you want to know stuff?” And we chose to know rather than be known. We chose to know about the good, rather than to be known by the good – the ONE who is GOOD. Mad Scientists and Pharisees Well, there are at least two types of people that have a very hard time saying, “I don’t know.” I call them mad scientists and Pharisees. I’m a bit of each. Both make it hard to reconcile science and Scripture; Both change the facts in order to rewrite the story as their own story. Mad scientists distort the scientific record. Pharisees distort the biblical record. Both want control; both want to be God. Mad Scientists Every mad scientist wants to be God . . . like Frankenstein did. They all want to control life or make life, including their own life. They ignore God’s story because they want to write their own story. While I was studying geology at the University of Colorado, I had one professor who was an internationally renowned paleontologist. I heard that he had just left his wife and was shacking up with a grad student. It hit me one day on a field trip: “He’s not an objective observer. It really matters to him whether or not he sees transitional forms in the clam sequence. It really matters because he’s rejecting the Father’s story and trying to write his own story. It’s madness . . . but he’s trying.” Whenever we sin—have an affair; worship alcohol, sex, or things—I think we’re mad scientists trying to rewrite the story of creation, “worshipping and serving the creature rather than the creator.” (Romans 1:25). When science worships itself, it goes insane. If the idolatry of science destroys anything, it destroys itself; it destroys science through madness, for there can be no such thing as reason. “Reason” is not an object of scientific validation… neither is “meaning.” Some claim to “understand” all the facts, but none of the facts are worth understanding, for they can have no meaning. “Meaning” is 33

not an object of scientific validation. Many of the principles in evolutionary theory make real sense, but when evolution worships itself, it goes insane. Sense becomes nonsense, for there can be no “sense,” by definition. No God, by definition. And then in desperation for sense that makes no sense, it distorts the facts to fit it’s own “story,” that is no story. When fully formed new classes, orders, and species of animal, suddenly appear in the fossil record it must conjure up evidence and invent theories far more fanciful than any Pentecostal prayer meeting. When evolution becomes god, the science goes mad.3 Pharisees Mad scientists distort the scientific record, and Pharisees crucify the Father’s story. They reduce the Father’s story to facts. Then they use the facts to write their own story. They “tithe mint, rue, dill, and cumin,” and they don’t even know what the story is about. Ironically, they think the story is about “the survival of the fittest,” making them selves first and seizing control. But the story is about sacrifice—being last and least; surrendering control. In 1632, religious leaders made Galileo recant for saying the earth revolved around the sun1. They twisted scientific facts, and they twisted biblical facts to fit their story—their story of power and control. Today some people have built entire industries around one particular interpretation of the word day in Genesis 1. Perhaps we sometimes twist the facts to defend our institutions by controlling the story. But then it’s no longer the Father’s story filled with wonder. It’s our story. We claim to understand every fact, but the story is no longer wonder-full, it’s dead… and untrue. When I studied geology in college, I was really saddened at what some Christians called science. When I studied theology in seminary, I was shocked at what some Christians called theology. How we “know things” Pharisees are religious scientists—religious mad scientists. They reduce everything to systems, formulas, and laws so that they can comprehend everything. But all they comprehend is boring and dead. They learn the facts but lose the story. •

You can know things less than yourself through science . . . things like bugs, the definition of Hebrew words, and sodium chloride. You dissect them, parse them, or reduce them to know them. (That’s the epistemology of science.) Science teaches you about things less than yourself. When Scientists use science to comprehend things more than themselves, they go mad.

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You can know things less that yourself through science, but you must know things greater than yourself through worship. That is, you reduce yourself and surrender control. (That’s the epistemology of worship.) Theology teaches you about things greater than yourself. When Theologians use theology to make those things less than 34

themselves, they are evil. Mad Scientists make God less than themselves. Pharisees make themselves greater than God. Neither will worship. Pharisees (religious mad scientists) hate surrender, and they don’t worship, because they want to be God. So they try to use facts in the Father’s story to undo the Father’s story and write their own story. Never forget that when the Word—the Plot—became flesh and walked among us, it was the religious people who used the facts in the Father’s story to crucify the Plot. They used the law to crucify the Meaning. They dissected Him on a tree. They stole fruit from the tree of knowledge and they nailed Him—the Plot—to that tree. Whenever we make the story about our knowledge and our accomplishments and not God’s grace, we crucify the Meaning of all things and can’t understand any facts – what they mean. Neither mad scientists nor Pharisees can understand the Father’s story or the meaning of any facts. Even though you must become “large” to get attention in our world; even though you must become an adult to enter the halls of Academia (any academia: secular or religious), you must become like a child to enter the Kingdom; Alice must become small to enter wonderland.4 Now, there are an abundance of ways to reconcile Scripture and science. We’ll look at those in the coming chapters. But no matter what, we must surrender our hearts to the Father if we ever are to know truth . . . or be known by the Truth. To know by being known I’m trying to say: You don’t comprehend God; He must comprehend you. And you don’t comprehend His story, until His story comprehends you. Don’t dissect the story, until you let the story dissect you. Read it. Meditate on it. Ponder it. Let it cut you. Be willing to be wrong, embarrassed, surprised, a fool for the Plot – The Word. Don’t apply the Word so much as let the Word apply you. Don’t read Scripture to find your self; read Scripture to lose yourself . . . in the 35

story. And then you’ll be found by the story. Read Scripture to lose yourself in the plot, and then you’ll be found by the Plot and in the story. That’s how great stories work! That’s why you go to movies! You get lost in the story and then found in the story. In Scripture, the Father is telling you your story. So when God told the children the story of their creation, they were commanded to enter the story; live the story; be known by the story (their story): •

In Exodus 20, God says, “Because in six days I made the heavens and the earth and rested on the seventh, you will work six days and rest on the seventh.” In the Western world, we live a seven day week. For believers, every seventh day is a Sabbath. It’s our story, and it tells us who we are.

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When God gave the Jews the Pentateuch and the story of their deliverance—their Passover, they weren’t just to read the story; they were to experience it; eat it: bitter herbs and a slaughtered lamb. We come to worship and celebrate the Passover because we’re grafted into that story. It tells us who we are.

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When our Passover Lamb Jesus celebrated the Passover, He took bread and broke it saying, “Take and eat. This is my body.” “Hey amnesiacs, do this in remembrance of me.” He took the cup saying, “Take and drink. This is the covenant in my blood.”

He has grafted us into His story. He tells us who we are. He says, “My Father is your Father. My story is your story.” His story is history . . . the history of all things infused with new meaning: the Plot. That includes you! You are not an orphan. Your Father wants to tell you your story. Larry Randolph is a pastor with an amazing prophetic gifting. (I know that’s a bit weird for some, but God is weird – the biblical word for that is “holy.” When people fake holiness it’s nauseating. When you encounter the real thing, it sets your socks on fire.) Years ago at a conference I heard Larry talk about a time when he first started using his gift. A woman he did not know came to him for prophetic prayer. He said, “The Lord wants me to tell you . . .” and then he heard, “May 13th.” He said, “The Lord wants me to tell you . . . May 13th . . . May 13th . . .” The lady just looked at him. It was just a date . . . just a “fact.” Larry wanted God to tell him more, but he heard nothing. Feeling like an idiot, he fumbled around and finally said, “Uh, God remembers your birthday.” And the lady left. Larry said he felt like a moron. Nine months later, the lady found Larry and thanked him for his words: You have no idea what your words meant to me. I was an orphan in seven different homes. Every night I would fall asleep crying, saying over and over, “God doesn’t even remember my birthday.” That night you said those words, I went home and threw myself a birthday party. God knows your birthday, and now He’s telling you your story. It changes the 36

meaning of every fact. When you believe the Gospel, when you take the body broken and blood shed, you ingest the Story. You ingest the Plot, the Meaning, the Logos, the Word. When I tell you a story, you have the right to ask, “Is that true?” But when God tells you a story, creation happens. If you say, “That’s just a manner of speaking,” well, Jesus is God’s manner of speaking. He is also the Truth. You are being created out of chaos, in the image of God your Father, by Grace: Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1.

Tony Campolo, Everything You've Heard is Wrong, (Dallas: Word, 1992), p. 31

2. For more information on this idea see: Dr. John Sailhamer, Genesis Unbound, (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1996) 3. For a fascinating treatment of this topic see: Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1991) 4.

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith (New York: Bantam, 1990), p. 94.

~ The word “story” comes from “storehouse.” So a story is a store or storehouse. Things are actually stored in the story, and what tends to be stored there is its meaning. ~ Michael Meade And its [the modern philosophy’s] despair is this, that it does not really believe that there is any meaning in the universe; therefore it cannot hope to find any romance; its romances will have no plots. A man cannot expect any adventures in the land of anarchy. But a man can expect any number of adventures if he goes traveling in the land of authority. One can find no meanings in a jungle of skepticism; but the man will find more and more meaning who walks through a forest of doctrine and design. Here everything has a story tied to its tail, like the tools or pictures in my father’s house; for it is my father’s house. ~ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy I made up my mind long ago not to understand. If I try to understand anything I shall be false to facts and I have determined to stick to fact. ~ Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. ~ John 5:37-40 My grandfather was lame. Once they asked him to tell a story about his teacher, and he related how his master used to hop and dance while he prayed. My grandfather rose as he spoke and was so swept away by his story that he himself began to hop and dance to show how the master had done. From that hour he was cured of his lameness. ~ Martin Buber God created man because he loves stories. ~ Elie Wiesel

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Chapter 3

The Deepest Story not your failure, but God’s success A few years ago I gave this children’s sermon to the kids at church: Guys, I want to tell you a story, okay? So pay attention. A long time ago, there was a brownstone house. Across the street was a huge park. In the house there lived a boy with red hair and freckles who loved bugs. Okay, time’s up. Let’s pray. Did you like the children’s sermon? No? Why not? You expected a story? That was just a bunch of boring facts. There are lots of brownstone houses and lots of boys with red hair. Who cares? Well, you cared. You paid attention because you thought those facts were part of a story. Actually, those facts are a part of a story -- my story. I’m the kid who liked bugs and my story isn’t over. Did you know your life is a story that God is telling? We like stories. That’s why we pretend we’re in them. We play army or princess or whatever. Your life is more amazing than any story you’ve ever heard. You matter. You just haven’t gotten to the end of the story yet. So your life isn’t just a bunch of facts. Things don’t happen to you by chance. It’s all a part of an incredible story that God is telling. Your Story Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In Chapter 1 we noted that if that’s true, the question, “Does God exist?” is far too big for any specialist. It’s a question science can’t answer. In the last chapter we examined the story: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day (Genesis 1:1-3). There’s a second day, a third day, a fourth day, and a fifth day. God “speaks,” “separates,” “creates,” “makes,” and “lets” light, water, and land, then does the same to a second series of three: “lights,” “waters of life,” and “life on land.” On the sixth day God creates Adam (mankind) in His image. The sixth day is the first of the seven days to carry a definite article in the Hebrew. The previous days are indefinite. Perhaps we don’t know 39

them as well. Perhaps they overlap. At the end of the sixth day, God sees that “everything is very good.” On the seventh day, “It is finished.” Genesis 2:3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the last chapter we noted that there is a beginning and an end, as well as a plot to this story. We realized that the creation account is not just a record of facts but a story. It’s the Father’s story which tells us of our birth. I told you about the day my son Jonathan was born: 1. There is a hospital record of my son’s birth. It’s full of facts. 2. But then there is also the story I told my son about the day he was born. It contains some facts. But more than facts, it contains the deepest meaning. Science is like reading the birth record written into the things that have been made. Genesis 1 is the Father’s story told to His children. It contains facts and the plot, which gives meaning to all facts. Well, God not only tells us our story, but He actually speaks us into existence and sustains us with His Word. In other words, we are characters in the story He is telling. And that raises some fascinating questions like: What kind of story is it? What is its genre? What kind of character am I: a hero, a villain, an extra? What am I, if I’m the product of an author or a narrator—a narrator who’s telling my story? Well… I’m more than fiction and stranger than fiction. Have you seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction? The main character, Harold Crick, goes about his everyday life when all at once he begins to hear a female voice narrating his every move. By some strange fluke of nature, the narrator turns out to be author Karen Eiffel who is writing her next novel. The main character in her novel is in fact Harold Crick. Until this moment Harold really had no “story” only “facts,” only “details” and no plot. Harold is an accountant who lives by the law, the tax law. He counts the strokes of his tooth brush and works for the I.R.S. The Voice begins to narrate these facts: “When other’s minds would fantasize about their upcoming day, Harold just counted brush strokes.” Harold stops brushing his teeth. Finally he yells at the voice, “Shut up! Stupid Voice.” The voice keeps narrating: “Harold found himself exasperated, cursing the heavens in futility.” Harold turns to a psychiatrist for help, but eventually winds up in the office of a literature professor. The professor takes him seriously. “The thing we need to determine conclusively is whether 40

you’re in a comedy or a tragedy. Have you met anyone recently who might loathe the very core of you?” “I’m and IRS agent,” responds Harold. “Sounds like a comedy” replies the professor. You see Harold’s existence had been facts to which he could ascribe meaning, or not… and thus maintain control. His existence had been facts until the voice began to narrate those facts, turning them into a story. Harold wants to know: “What kind of story?” Makes sense, doesn’t it? Questions about Your story A. If your life is part of a story someone else is telling, what kind of story is it? Is it a good story? B. Even if it’s a good story, what kind of character are you? Are you a hero, a villain . . . maybe an extra? An extra is a character not central to the plot. Remember the movie Galaxy Quest? Some actors on the TV show Galaxy Quest discover that an entire alien civilization has been built around their TV show. These “good” aliens abduct the actors and think the actors are their saviors. So the actors are no longer just actors, for the story is no longer fiction, but life. And they’re being asked to save a world. It’s hilarious. One of these actors had been an “extra” in the TV show. His “name” is “Guy.” When tribulation comes; when the bad aliens attack, he panics. He explains, “My character isn’t important enough to have a last name. I’m going to die five minutes in!” The other crew members try to comfort him, but when things really get scary, one of them betrays the truth screaming: “Let’s get out of here before one of those things kills guy!” They all know that only the extras die and stay dead. Finally, “Guy” volunteers for a little “suicide mission.” He tells his friends, “Since I’m just a glorified extra – I’d rather go out a hero than a coward.” One of them comments, “Maybe you’re the plucky comic relief. Did you ever think of that?” What if you’re the plucky comic relief? What if you’re an extra? What if you’re something else? C. And what say do you have in the matter? I mean, do you have “free will”? If you’re a character in an author’s story, what the heck is free will? I mean, isn’t every decision part of the story the author is telling? What if the author were to let you help him tell the story? •

Then your will would only be “free” if it served the plot, right? For only decisions that serve the plot are part of the story the author is telling.

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But your will wouldn’t be “free” if it didn’t serve the plot, right? Your decisions would be futile, empty, and void. You would be choosing nothing 41

and nowhere. Jesus said, “Whatever you [all] ask in my name, I’ll do it for you” (John 14:13). In my name, and who is He? He’s the Plot - the Word of the Author, who is the narrator. What would happen if you argued with the narrator? I remember one of my kid’s Winnie the Pooh videos. In it Pooh questions the narrator, and Tigger exclaims, “That’s the narrator! You don’t argue with the narrator.” In Stranger Than Fiction, Howard crick argued with the narrator. He screamed, “I’m not cursing the heavens! I’m cursing you, you stupid voice!” What would happen if you cursed the voice or argued with the Narrator? In George of the Jungle, (I know. I have great taste in movies.), the bad guys argue with the narrator, and the narrator rewinds the film. If you argue with the narrator, you reject the plot and write yourself out of the story and into nowhere. To argue with the narrator is to un-create yourself—that is, desecrate yourself. In C. S. Lewis’ novel Perelandra, Satan tempts the new Eve, on the planet Venus, to disobey God. She responds: Surely what you are saying is like fruit with no taste! How can I step out of His will save into something that cannot be wished? Shall I start trying not to love Him—or the King—or the beasts? It would be like trying to walk on water or swim through islands. Shall I try not to sleep or to drink or to laugh? I thought your words had a meaning. But now it seems they have none. To walk out of His will is to walk into nowhere.1 In other words, to argue with the narrator would be to un-create yourself -- to walk backwards into chaos and the void. Well then, why would anyone ever want to argue with the narrator? Perhaps we’d like the narrator’s job. We’d like control. We’d like to feel safe. Before Howard Crick hears the narrator’s voice, his life is all facts and no story -no life. He is the walking dead, but at least he feels safe, for he thinks he’s in control. Once he hears the narrator’s voice, all his facts start to have meaning. He begins living in a story: He falls in love, he learns to play guitar, his life becomes a musical and a love story, and he experiences joy… and pain . . . real pain he can’t control. If I was my own author and narrated my own story, it would have no pain, no loss, and no failure. I suppose that it would read like this: Peter woke up, went to the beach, drank ten beers, and then fell asleep. Peter woke up, went to the beach, drank ten beers, and then fell asleep. Peter woke up, went to the beach, drank ten beers, and then fell asleep. Etc., etc., etc. 42

But not even that. I’d write my story with no pain, no loss and no failure. I’d never get thirsty. I’d never get tired. I’d never wake up. I’d never live. My story would have no drama, no meaning, no plot . . . no story, for I would tolerate no pain. In other words, it would have no faith, no hope, and no love. A story of faith must include doubt and loss. A story of hope must include a battle with despair. A story of love must wrestle with not love. “Faith, hope, and love abide” (1 Corinthians 13:13). They are eternal. If God is growing those things in this world, it won’t happen through us writing our own stories for we won’t author our own pain. We won’t create ourselves but only desecrate ourselves. We naturally want to write ourselves out of a real story. We naturally want to sin. It is our nature. The greater the story, the greater the pain… Writing ourselves out of our own story So if I’m part of a truly great story, of course I’ll try to seize control and write myself out of that story unless, of course, I have an immense amount of faith, hope, and love in the plot. We all have pain. And have you heard? Everyone dies. At one point in Stranger Than Fiction, Harold hears the narrator, “Little did he know that events had been set in motion that would lead to his imminent death.” Harold looks up and cries, “What? Why? Hello… Come on!” Ever done that? Well it sends Harold on a quest to find the author of his story. He does. And then begs her to rewrite the story. It’s then that she reveals the plot by letting Harold read the story. She doesn’t put a period at the end… so, he’s not dead, yet. Well, Harold reads the story and discovers that the plot is so good, he begs the author not to rewrite the story and change the meaning. Harold wants to die for the plot . . . or should I say with the plot? We’re all going to die, but if you have faith, hope, and love in the Plot, you won’t try to write yourself out of the story and into nowhere and nothing. And if God is the Author, maybe death isn’t the deepest story. Harold Crick dies with the plot and then lives. That’s the plot. “In the beginning was the Plot (Logos, word), and the Plot was with God, and the Plot was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1-2). “The Plot became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Do you have faith, hope, and love in and for the Plot? Would you die for the Plot? With the Plot? See? It matters, what kind of story is being told. What (or who) is the plot? His-Story 43

Genesis 1 is the Father’s story, and science is like reading the birth record written into the things that have been made. A. If my son Jonathan ever grew to hate me, he might one day go back to California to find the birth record in order to invalidate my story (like a mad scientist or a Pharisee). He might try to control the facts to write him self out of my story if he hated me. But if he hoped in me: B. He might also go back and try to find the birth record, not to write himself out of my story but rather to understand my story and then surrender to my story as his story. The facts would clarify my story. It’s in that spirit that Christendom spawned the scientific revolution. But in the last century, the Father’s story came under attack from some who said, “There is no author, no narrator, no plot, and no story. It’s all facts because the birth record contradicts the Father’s story.” They say the universe is 13 to 15 billion years old according to the birth record, but the Father’s story says that it was created in six days. As the Father’s children, we want to reconcile our Father’s story and the birth record, not to prove our Father exists but to better understand His story -- History. The Birth Record and His Story To some, what I’m about to say may seem like a diversion. But remember that all facts are part of our Father’s story, and a few more facts helped Harold Crick find the author. To others, it may seem like I’m skimming over all the juicy bits, but you can investigate this further on your own and soon we’ll need to get back to the story. There are numerous ways that Christians have attempted to reconcile the Genesis story and the scientific record. Here are just a few. Some defend a young earth and some an old earth. RECONCILING THE GENESIS STORY AND THE SCIENTIFIC RECORD Young Earth 1. “Creation Science” 2. Apparent Age Theory

Old Earth 3. “Theistic Evolution” 4. “Divine Fiat” 5. The Creation of Eden/Israel 6. Day Age Theory Young and Old Earth 7. Relativity

1. Creation Science. This group argues that the universe is just a few thousand years old. They say the seven days are seven twenty-four-hour days. They have produced an industry of “science” to defend that position. In my opinion, it’s pretty poor science and the idea that the seven days are only twenty-four-hour days is rather 44

unbiblical. (Even in Genesis 2:4 it’s obvious “the day” is at least six days… and as we’ll see the seventh day is like a day that isn’t even a “day” – Zech. 14:6-7) 2. Apparent Age Theory. If you asked this group, “Did Adam have a navel?” they’d say, “Yes.” It’s a good question. They argue that God created the world recently, He just created it old, so Adam had a navel, trees had rings, and the Grand Canyon had what looks like millions of years of sedimentary strata. Well, God sure could have done that. However it feels a wee bit deceptive to me; a little out of character. 3. Theistic Evolution. This group argues that God created through evolutionary processes, so Genesis 1 is true but largely metaphorical. There are some textual problems with that position, and some scientific problems. Natural selection is a given, but evolution as such, is a long way from explaining life or even the fossil record. 4. Divine Fiat. Some argue that Genesis 1 refers to days of “Divine Fiat;” God speaks six things on six days. When the things happen is parenthetical and not bound by the six days. This position seems to be supported by the language and vocabulary of the text, yet when God speaks, worlds do spring into existence. His words are not a “manner of speaking” but the substance of reality. 5. The Creation of Eden/Israel. Some think the Creation account (after Gen.1:1-2) is the account of the creation of the land of Eden. Genesis is at least the story of Israel and Eden in some form, yet that’s not all. Exodus 16 and 31 say that in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth. 6. Day Age Theory. These folks argue that the days refer to vast ages and that the story is told from the vantage point of the surface of the earth. They will also argue that the days are indeterminate and they overlap in such a way that they correlate remarkably well with astrophysics and the fossil record. God “creates” (like, out of nothing), “makes” (like a potter makes a pot), and “lets” (like, lets stuff happen). All of which matches the fossil record remarkably well.2 All (or most) of these theories have something to offer. Yet they still leave us with some very big questions about the story. The biggest of all and perhaps the sum of all is this: What went wrong? The creation story ends like this: Genesis 1:31-2:4a And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. . . . a sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. Finished, finished, done, done, done, and all declared very good. Everything He 45

made, very good. Have you read the paper this week? Genocide in Africa, millions dead or homeless through war and natural disaster… This world is plagued with chaos - formless and void. It’s not all very good, and we’re not very good. Nobody lives happily ever after in this world. Everything dies. What happened to His Story? If you’re a Bible student, you might point to Genesis, Chapter 3. It’s true: We wrote ourselves out of the story and became the walking dead. Adam and Eve chose to know the facts; the knowledge of good and evil. They chose the law so they could write their own story and be their own narrator and provide their own plot, which is no plot. Facts without a plot have no meaning, and everything dies. We can’t create ourselves. So “it was good,” we say, “but now it’s over. The seventh day is over. The story has ended. Adam and Eve have been exiled east of Eden, into the wilderness, formless and void. The story’s over.” That’s how we read it . . . like orphans. One morning during World War II, after London had been bombed mercilessly the night before, Leslie Weatherhead found a young boy sitting in some rubble. His clothes were torn and tattered, his face covered with soot and streaked with tears. Weatherhead said, “Son, where are your mother and father?” “Dead, sir.” Weatherhead then asked about relatives. “All dead, sir,” the boy replied. “Where is your home?” The boy pointed down the street at a pile of bombed-out rubble. “Son, who are you?” The boy looked up and said, “I ain’t nobody, nothin’.” Why? Because, all of his stories had come to an end. He had been written out of the story into nowhere, nothin’ . . . like an orphan. Like Adam east of Eden. Like Israel in the wilderness. Like a man in bondage to death Like the Son of Man descended into Hades. What would you tell that boy? What would you hope for that boy? You would desperately try to find a deeper story—some faith, hope, and love. You would find a way to say, “Maybe your story’s not over. Maybe you’ll see your parents again one day. Maybe there’s a greater good. I know this hurts like hell, but maybe heaven is stronger in the end.” We’ve taken control of our stories and tried to write ourselves out of the Father’s story ever since The Fall. It’s called sin, and now we feel like orphans. But, you know, there are often stories within stories. Maybe The Fall is not the deepest story. Maybe your sin is not the deepest story, but more like a story within a story.

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So, what’s the deepest story? There’s one more very challenging question for the reader of Genesis 1: How could a character in God’s story write himself out of that story? I mean, who has more authority -- the character or the author? You or God? Even if you had free will: Could your free will trump God’s free will? Could your hatred overpower His love? Could you turn Him into a fact in your story such that you no longer were a fact in His story -- God’s story --the One “who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of His will”? (Ephesians 1:11) So what’s the deepest story? Your badness . . . or God’s goodness? Several years ago I realized that there was one more way to reconcile the Genesis story and modern science: 7. Relativity. Einstein’s theories of relativity are no longer just theories but tested hypotheses verified through experimentation (unlike evolution). Relativity and quantum mechanics teach us that we should not take space and time so seriously, for they are relative to things like light and even word. It’s something Scripture told us all along. We just didn’t believe it. Gerald Schroeder is a Jewish physicist from MIT who now teaches in Jerusalem. In his books, he reminds us that time is relative to differences in velocity and gravity, and that time is dilated by the expansion of the universe. Therefore, the universe is different ages in different places. To answer the question “How old is the universe?” you must determine the frame of reference -- that is, where the observer is standing. We always assume our own frame of reference, (As if we were God our something). We always assume planet Earth, now and me. But in the beginning, there was no planet Earth. Where would The Author be standing? Schroeder argues that if we, (here and now, on earth), measure the age of the universe at fifteen billion years, but then ask how long fifteen billion years would be from the standpoint of Creation, (that is, from the moment matter formed, from the perspective of the entire universe tuned to the cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang; that is as close as we can get to the standpoint of the Big Bang)… if the universe is fifteen billion years old from earth’s perspective, it’s about six days old from Creation’s perspective.3 Fifteen billion years or so, is literally six days. That’s just physics. I suppose you could argue the details (estimates regarding the mass of the Universe etc.), but it’s very clear that time is relative. It’s relative to the speed of light, and God is light. 15 billion years is literally (physically, actually, really) six days. “And these are the generations of the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 2:4). “A day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day” (2 Peter 3:8). It’s what the Bible said all along. We just didn’t believe it.

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So, I’m Old Earth and Young Earth. I’m even younger than the young-earthers. When I read Schroeder's book, a ton of scientific problems dissolved away, but even better tens ton of theological problems did the same. Because what does this mean? It means the seventh day is not over; the story isn’t over. We’re still being made in God’s image. Actually, according to Schroeder’s calculations, it appears that we are at the end of the sixth day, the edge of the seventh day. Perhaps God will still say, “Behold, it’s all very good” or perhaps even, “It is finished.” Whatever the case, time is relative to Him. The Deepest Story Now, if that’s just science, I should drop it. But it’s not. It’s what the Bible said all along. We just didn’t believe it. After day seven, the next verse in Genesis says, “When no plant of the field was yet in the earth . . . then the Lord God formed man of dust” (Genesis 2:5-7). By Genesis, Chapter 2, we’re back in day six, and God is still making mankind in His image. He doesn’t stop at The Fall. In fact, Jesus in John 5 literally says, “My Father has been working until now and I am working” (5:17). That means His Father had not yet rested in space and time since the beginning of space and time. After the description of the seventh day in Genesis 2:1-3, God never says that He is finished with His work until John 19:30 when Jesus, The Word made flesh, The Plot made flesh, The Ultimate, Eschatos, Adam, Firstborn of All Creation, The Perfect Image of the Invisible Creator, at the end of the sixth day, a Friday, lifts His head as He hangs on the tree of law and cries: “It is finished.” He is the edge of the seventh day. He is the point at which eternity touches time and gives meaning to all things. He is the plot to the deepest story and to your story. He is the Beginning and the End. The deepest story is not dependent on your story. Your story is dependent on the deepest story. The deepest story is not The Fall. The deepest story is not your sin. The deepest story is that God is making you in His image. Jesus is His image, and you are His Temple, Body and Bride. The deepest story is that God is making you in His Image and will not fail. So even though we wrote ourselves out of the story; even though we cursed the voice; even though we crucified the Plot on the tree; even though we tried to make Him just a fact in our story, even that is a story within The Story - The Father’s Story. The Father is still telling our story in space and time. He never stopped. Actually, when we crucified the Plot, we revealed the Plot and that was the Plot. It’s there that we

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get the Plot, fall in love with the Plot and ingest the Plot. It’s there that we surrender our story to His Story. There, we are created in His Image. “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That’s the plot. We die with Him, then, live with Him in the seventh day. He died and rose from the dead saying, “My Father is your Father” (John 15:21). You are not an orphan. You are not an extra. You have His name. At His table, you ingest the Plot: body broken and blood shed. You ingest Mercy. You ingest the Plot and become the Body of the Plot. What kind of story is it? The genre is Gospel. Although you wrote yourself out, He wrote you in with His Blood. That’s Gospel. It’s the deepest Story. That means it’s eternal. I have an amazing friend named Elaine. She had a horrid childhood. Her Father Worshipped Satan and her mother seemed powerless to help. Over the years God has allowed me and my wife to be used by Him in delivering Elaine from some very dark memories and horrific bondage. Late one night, Susan and I prayed with her over one of her first memories as a little child. The way Jesus heals her is that He reveals His presence in these old memories through visions, and then His presence reveals the deepest story: His relentless love. My wife often sees the visions along with Elaine. On this night, because of this memory, Elaine had come to believe she was an orphan, only worse than an orphan… a child of evil. Jesus appeared in a vision and gave new meaning to all the old facts in Elaine’s story. My wife Susan saw Him do this along with Elaine. At one point, she leaned over to me and whispered, “Peter, Jesus has something to give Elaine. It’s a birth record.” I said, “Elaine, Jesus has a present for you. Will you let Him give it to you?” She was terrified that it would be some form of condemnation, but finally, she held out her hand. I asked, “What did He give you, Elaine?” She said, “Oh, it’s only a piece of paper.” I said, “Read it.” In this vision, as we held her and prayed, Elaine looked at the piece of paper. All at once she gasped saying, “It’s a birth certificate… and it’s, like, glowing with light! It’s written in blood!” On the birth certificate was her name. I asked, “Elaine, what’s the date on the birth certificate?” She paused and then exclaimed, “Oh, there isn’t a date . . . It’s eternal!” You see, that means it’s the deepest story—a gift from the seventh day. With her birthright, her birth certificate, in one hand and a flaming sword in the other, Elaine battles the ancient Serpent refusing to believe his lies. She undoes the powers of chaos and the void with the Deepest Story, Our Lord Jesus. I believe you have a birth certificate. And it’s eternal. It’s the deepest story about you. It’s… The Deepest Story in You ***** Sorry: one more movie – none more profound. There is a great little episode of Winnie the Pooh on one of the videos I used to watch with my kids. In the video, 49

Tigger’s “bouncing” gets him in a heap of trouble. He bounces himself right out of the story and into the branch of an enormous tree. He’s terrified. The tree is an illustration that appears next to the words in the book that the narrator is reading on the video. Tigger hears the narrators voice and cries, “For goodness sakes, narrate me down from here.” At that, the narrator laughs, turns the world upside down (the book, on it’s side) and tells Tigger to “let go.” Tigger believes the word on the tree. And so he drops from the tree and stands on the word (the print on the page). The narrator then turns the book and Tigger bounces down the words onto the ground. Through the word the narrator delivers him from peril on the tree and back to earth -- a new heaven and new earth. If you watched that video when you were a little kid and thought, “That’s so cool; I wish it was real,” it is! It is real! We’ve bounced ourselves out of the story and into a tree. The Father tells us to “let go” – surrender control. His Word comes to us on that tree and He delivers us from nowhere to somewhere – His Story. And that’s the new and eternal plot; that’s the story. We bounce ourselves out and He narrates us back in. It’s called the Gospel, and you need to believe it. Why? Because when you believe it, it changes the meaning of every fact in your story, even the meaning of that tree. It changes you… It’s the Word in you. The Deepest Story in you - The image of God. We can write ourselves out of our own story, but not out of God’s Story, The Deepest Story.

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1.

C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (New York: MacMillan, 1944), p. 116.

2. For more on this perspective: Hugh Ross, Creation and Time ((CO Springs: NavPress, 1994) 3. Gerald L. Schroeder, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and biblical Wisdom, (New York: Broadway, 1997). One thought in this book revolutionized my understanding of the “old earth, young earth” debate… and then revolutionized my understanding of Genesis One… and then, most importantly, revolutionized my understanding of the Love and Sovereignty of God. It’s this rather shockingly simple and obvious scientific thought—that, since time is relative and the universe was created before the earth started spinning on it’s axis, we ought to ask this question, “From what perspective is God speaking in Genesis One?” Schroeder calculates that six 24hr. days, from the earth’s perspective is actually 15 ¾ billion years from the “Bible’s perspective,” at the start of day one (p.60). Schroeder then calculates that we now exist close to the boundary between the end of the 6th day and the beginning of the 7th of creation. Scientists continually debate the age of the universe and cosmologists have made all sorts of fascinating discoveries since Schroeder’s book was first written. Yet, I hope you see that Schroeder’s figures don’t need to be accurate for these ideas to be revolutionary. No matter what data is used, we live in a universe where six days from one standpoint is several billion years from another standpoint. And indeed all of time is an instant from the standpoint of light and “God is Light.” This means that we can take the Bible more “literally,” rather than less “literally.” By that, I mean that we can and should “take it” according to the author’s literal intent. We have butchered the Biblical text over the last one hundred years trying to fit Scripture into a modernistic view of space and time. Ironically, that view of space and time was proven to be an illusion just about one hundred years ago. Men like Albert Einstein, Max Plank and Werner Heisenberg, revealed that space and time are relative and realities like light and meaning (logos) are far more substantial-even eternal, that is “immortal.” We can take the Bible at it’s Word (Logos), remembering that “with the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.” Yet, God’s Word cannot be broken and “will not return void.”

~ The master gave his teaching in parables and stories, which his disciples listened to with pleasure—and occasional frustration, for they longed for something deeper. ~ The master was unmoved. To all their objections he would say, “You have yet to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between a human being and truth is a story.” ~ Anthony DeMello Whenever you read a good book, it’s like the AUTHOR is right there, in the room talking to you, which is why I don’t like to read good books. ~ Jack Handy, Deep Thoughts It is one of the greater triumphs of Lucifer that he has managed to make Christians (Christians!) 51

believe that a story is a lie… ~ Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water It will help much towards our understanding of the imagination and its functions in man if we first succeed in regarding aright the imagination of God, in which the imagination of man lives and moves and has its being. ~ [With this in mind] we discover...that where a man would make a machine, or a picture, or a book, God makes the man that makes the book, or the picture, or the machine. Would God give us a drama? He makes a Shakespeare. Or would He construct a drama more immediately His Own? He begins with the building of the stage itself, and that stage is the world....He makes the actors, and they do not act—they are their part. He utters them into the visible to work out their life—His drama....All the processes of the ages are God’s science; all the flow of history is His poetry....Man is but a thought of God. ~ George McDonald She was living in the story as if it were real, and all the pictures were real too. When she had got to the third page and come to the end, she said, “That is the loveliest story I’ve ever read or ever shall read in my whole life. Oh, I wish I could have gone on reading it for ten years. At least I'll read it over again.” ~ But here part of the magic of the Book came into play. You couldn’t turn back. The right-hand pages, the ones ahead, could be turned; the left hand pages could not. ~ “Oh, what a shame!” said Lucy. “I did so want to read it again. Well, at least, I must remember it. Let's see . . . it was about . . . about . . . oh dear, it's all fading away again. And even this last page is going blank. This is a very queer book. How can I have forgotten? It was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill, I know that much. But I can’t remember and what shall I do?” ~ And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician’s book. . . . ~ “Shall I ever be able to read that story again; the one I couldn't remember? Will you tell it to me, Aslan? Oh do, do, do.” ~ “Indeed, yes, I will tell it to you for years and years.” ~ C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader “We cannot walk out of Maleldil’s (God’s) will: but He has given us a way to walk out of our will.” ~ C.S. Lewis Perelandra The text said that “there was evening and there was morning,” it did not say: “the first day,” but said, “one day.” It is because there was not yet time before the world existed. But time begins to exist with the following day. Now what man of intelligence will believe that the first, and the second, and the third day, and the evening and the morning existed without the sun, moon, and stars? ~ Origen, 250 A..D. The beginning of time is called “one day” rather than the “first day”…It follows that we are hereby shown not so much limits, ends, and succession of ages, as distinctions between various states and modes of action. ~ Basil, 370 A.D. The world was created “Oct. 3rd, 4004 B.C.” ~ Bishop Usher, 1650 A.D.

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Chapter 4

The Deepest Story Darwinism and the 7th Day Winners and Losers Seven year old Olive Hoover stands in front of a Television, rewinding a video and reliving a scene time and time again. Regis Philbin announces, “… and the new Miss America is Miss Kansas, Tara Dawn Holland.” Olive Hoover’s dream is to win a beauty Pageant; to compete in the “Little Miss Sunshine” pageant and win. Richard Hoover, highly motivated because he’s a motivational speaker, stands in the front of an auditorium delivering a multi-media presentation. He gives the knowledge we need to create our selves in the image of a winner: . “There are two kinds of people in this world: winners and losers… With my nine step “Refuse to Lose” program, you now have the necessary tools and the insights and the know-how to put your losing habits behind you and to go out and make your dreams come true. No hesitating; no complaining; no excuses. I want you to go out in the world, and I want you to be winners! Thank you.” The camera pans back to the audience: nine high school kids, terribly bored. Two clap half heartedly. Duane Hoover is Olive’s brother and Richard’s son. Along with Grandpa, Mom and a very depressed uncle they are a family, but a very broken family. Duane is lifting weights in his bedroom. Olive, Richard and Duane: these are the opening scenes of the critically acclaimed movie Little Miss Sunshine. Behind Duane, as he “pumps iron,” on his bedroom wall, is a poster of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a Prussian Philosopher who died at the age of thirty-five, having gone insane. In his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he writes: “Lo, I preach to you the superman, the superman is the meaning of the earth…What is good? All that heightens in man the feeling of power, the desire for power, power itself. What is bad? All that comes from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that our strength grows, that an obstacle is overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not universal peace, but war; not virtue, but forcefulness. The weak and ineffective must go under; first principal of our love of humanity. And one should even lend one’s hand to this end. What is more harmful than any vice? Pity for the condition of the ineffective and weak… Christianity.”1 To Nietzsche, the Superman was the next evolutionary step achieved by the “will to power.” Duane is a big fan of Nietzsche. That’s why he’s working out so hard. An even bigger fan of Nietzsche was Adolph Hitler. He ardently believed that the Arian race was the next stage of humanity: the Superman -- Ultimate Man -- “Eschatos” Man. The 53

Nazis took evolutionary theory very seriously, for Friedrich Nietzsche took evolutionary theory very seriously—he criticized Darwin, for he believed he improved upon Darwin.2 Like Karl Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. Like Duane Hoover lifting weights. Like Richard Hoover and his nine steps to becoming a winner. Like Olive Hoover competing in the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Like me in 2nd grade at South Elementary in Littleton, Colorado. In gym class, we always picked teams—“the survival of the fittest.” It usually confirmed I was least fit to survive. In math class, we were graded on a curve. I couldn’t enjoy an A unless several others got a B, C, D, or preferably an F. My joy in math class was dependent on another’s sorrow, Like my sorrow in gym class was the basis of someone else’s joy. If I didn’t remember the lessons, I surely remembered the method. The method was the lesson -- competition. They said it’s what made America strong. They said it even explained life: “the survival of the fittest.” Field Day, gym class, science class, recess . . . We learned the lesson well. In second grade, at recess, Duncan and Matt always played Batman and Robin. (They wanted to be supermen.) Matt always played Robin. He was poor, uncoordinated, and raised by his grandparents. Sometimes he smelled. Routinely someone would yell, “Let’s get Matt and Duncan!” and a mob of about twenty second-grade boys would chase Matt and Duncan behind the backstop, knock them down, and begin mocking them and beating them. As Duncan and Matt began to weep, the crowd began to laugh. Matt and Duncan’s pain was their pleasure. Matt and Duncan’s loss was their victory. Matt and Duncan’s weakness was the measure of their strength. “There are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers.” Unless you identify the losers, how do you know whether or not you’re a winner -- a superman? I remember Matt crying and the crowd laughing, and me . . . frozen in fear, not sure which way to go. What is a winner? Olive, Richard, and Duane Hoover were into Darwinism, like me and all the second-grade boys at South Elementary. I don’t mean by that, that any one of us could 54

have done a good job articulating Darwin’s theories. I mean that each of us was highly influenced by Darwin’s myth. Myths and Archetypes Psychologists like Carl Jung and sociologists like Peter Berger taught that persons and societies are not shaped by laws, governments, and armies but by powerful stories: that is, myths. To say that something is a myth does not mean it’s untrue; it means that it is so powerful it shapes a civilization. Myths are often captured in a picture; an archetype - archetypes through which we interpret, understand, and prescribe meaning to our world. One might argue that for hundreds of years in the western world, this was the dominant archetype:

Yet in the twentieth century another archetype took over:

Now the facts in these two myths may be just the same, but the myth is the way we apply meaning to the facts. It’s the plot. Secular Darwinism claims that all life is the product of random mutations. Technically, it has no plot, for it is technically random and void. Yet in popular society, we give it a plot. We make it a myth. What does this archetype mean? What does the myth tell us? Who we are: The winners in this world. The sperm that made it! We are the top of the food chain…for now. 55

Who the creator is: Technically chance, that is the void. But we like to think it’s us and our willpower. How to make a world: Self-assertion; the “will to power”; the competitive spirit. The Good: Technically, there is no “good.” But in our minds, it’s this: to beat your neighbor; in the words of Conan the Barbarian “To crush your enemies . . . to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of their women.” The Ethic: The First will be first. Blessed are the strong, for they shall conquer the earth. Blessed are the dominant, so destroy your enemies. The Goal: To keep your life. The Judgment: There are two kinds of people: winners and losers. Life Is: Competition. Now, I hope you see that a person can profess a certain myth yet be governed by another. For instance, a person might claim to be a secular Darwinist yet be very kind to “the last and the least.” But over time the myth will have an affect. “As a man thinketh, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7 KJV). I also hope that you see the myth is more than science. Many people agree with various tenets of evolutionary theory and ascribe to the very same facts but don’t buy the myth. The myth is more than scientific fact. The myth is a faith statement; it’s a religion. Somewhere Mary Midgley wrote, “Evolution is the creation myth of our day.” So I stood there in second grade, frozen between two myths -- two archetypes -two religions that gave very different meanings to the facts that I was observing. So, what’s the deepest story?

The Darwin Fish – Or - The Jesus Fish? Darwinism – Or - Creationism? Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 56

God “creates,” “makes,” and “lets” over six days, making all things with a word. Genesis 1:31-2:4 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. That’s a very different archetype than the “survival of the fittest”, and what does it mean? What does the seventh day mean? In the previous chapter we noted that, because of the laws of relativity and time dilation due to the expansion of the universe, physicists now inform us that if the universe is 15 billion years old from our perspective, it’s about six days old from the perspective of the Big Bang. We also noted that Scripture has taught this sort of thing all along: We’re living in the sixth day on the edge of the seventh day. In the next few verses of Genesis, we find ourselves back in the sixth day, still being made in God’s image. Jesus told us in John’s Gospel that His Father had been working all along. God doesn’t finish His work until John 19:30, the end of the sixth day, Friday, when Jesus -the “last Adam” (Eschatos Adam, Uttermost Man, Last man, Superman) cries from the cross, “It is finished!” The cross is the edge of the seventh day; The point at which eternity touches time and gives meaning to all our facts; The point where God reconciles to himself “all things;” The point at which God’s wrath is satisfied and judgment is complete. By faith in Christ at the cross, we can enter God’s rest and walk in the seventh day, even though our flesh is still walking in the sixth day, still being made in God’s image. “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” is the door to the seventh day. In the seventh day, on the other side of the cross, the other side of judgment, God is finished with all His work. He rests from all His work which He has done in creation. It’s all done! He’s satisfied! He’s not angry; He’s not troubled! And behold, everything that He has made is very good. “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning a sixth day. Thus the earth and heavens were finished and all the host of them.” (Genesis 1:31 – 2:1). And now brace yourself for a very big problem. Ready? It appears that in the seventh day, there are no losers. So, what’s a winner?

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Some people need losers to feel like winners. Darwinists need losers to define themselves as winners. But in the seventh day, there are no losers. I mean, there is no hell. Where the hell is it? By hell I mean what people normally mean by hell -- a place where God endlessly tortures people with His wrath, or a place where God eternally separates people from Himself in some sort of endless death. But on the seventh day, everything God made is “very good.” God’s not angry, He’s not mad, He’s not uptight, and He’s not depressed. Justice is satisfied, and no one is paying! Where the hell is hell? Now, you may argue, “Okay, Peter, obviously the seventh day is not in the future but in the past. It came and went.” Well, I don’t know how that can be in light of the things we’ve already discussed (God making man in chapter two, time dilation, etc., etc.). And how do we explain that snake in Genesis 3? He’s BAD. Where did he come from if everything is good? And why did Adam and Eve sin if they were 100% finished in God’s image? And why would you need a garden? Wouldn’t everything be garden? If the seventh day came and went, I don’t know how to explain the rest of Scripture. Throughout Scripture there are series of sevens. And when you get to seven, something amazing happens: Creation, Crucifixion and Revelation. We’re considering Creation. Consider John 12:31-32: Crucifixion. Jesus cries, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” All! …When? . . . He’s speaking about His cross. At the end of the sixth day as he hangs on that cross, He cries “It is finished.” It’s the end of 6, beginning of 7. The creation, the crucifixion, and the Revelation; Beginning (Genesis), middle (the Gospels), and end (The Revelation); I think they all tell the same story.1 Consider The Revelation: Revelation 5, the slaughtered lamb is standing on the throne… as if Jesus is enthroned upon His cross. The slaughtered lamb has seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God. In scripture, seven is the number of completion -- the finished creation. You get the idea that Jesus is a number seven kind of guy. On the throne, He opens the seven seals and gives meaning to all reality. • • •

At the seventh seal seven trumpets sound, seven thunders boom, and seven bowls are poured out. At the seventh trumpet, “the mystery of God is fulfilled,” atonement is made, and “the kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our God.” At the seventh bowl, the wrath of God is finished – completed --done. And then the seventh angel shows John the Bride -- the New Jerusalem coming down.

As the slaughtered Lamb takes the scroll, preparing to open the seven seals and give meaning to all space and time, the elders and the living creatures fall down and sing,

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“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and with your blood you ransomed people for God.” More join the song. Then in verse 13 we read: And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped. “Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth” praising God, and that is good!. . . like everything God had made is good and “all the host of them” are “finished” . . . like the seventh day. Every creature praising God for grace…like people were bad but they’re now good because of that lamb… Every Creature. So where the hell is hell? In Revelation 20, Death and Hades (translated “Hell” in the King James) are thrown into the Lake of Fire. In chapter 21, Death is no more. And Jesus cries from the throne, “Behold, I make all things new . . . these words are faithful and true.” Now, some expect me to tell you why those words aren’t faithful and true, why all doesn’t mean all . . . And why every, isn’t actually every. And why the heavens and earth really aren’t finished in Genesis 2:1. And why all the works of God really aren’t good in Genesis 1:31. But I can’t. How could I? Genesis 1:31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” . . . except, of course, for the people He intended to make in His image but instead perpetually tortures without end in hell......................................... I CAN”T SAY THAT! John 12:32 “I will draw all people to myself”…except of course, the people I endlessly separate from myself in utter torment……………… THAT DOESN’T WORK! Revelation 21:5 “Behold, I make all things new” . . . except, of course, for the last and least whom I maintain in a perpetual state of living death so I can demonstrate my justice for all eternity because my justice is never satisfied and my wrath is never finished………………………................SCRIPTURE WON’T LET ME SAY THAT!!!!! Yet Scripture does testify. (And make no mistake, “Scripture cannot be broken.”) Scripture does testify: God is Holy; Judgment will come; The only way to the Father is through the son; There is a consuming fire; There is a place of outer darkness called Hades; And there is a place where evil is consumed by Fire and Light called Gehenna… But where the hell is hell? Well, if we mean what I think we mean,

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It’s not on the seventh day. Genesis tells us the seventh day is holy, and did you notice there’s no evening or morning on the seventh day? Zechariah (14:7) prophesied a day without daytime or nighttime. The seventh day is holy, and God is holy. His name is “I Am that I Am.” He speaks time itself into existence. The seventh day is God’s day, and it’s holy. God alone is holy. That means it’s different from the other days. I am incapable of explaining it fully, but perhaps it’s something like this:

The line is time. There is a beginning and one day, a 2nd day, a 3rd day, a 4th day, a 5 day, and the 6th day on this timeline, and then the end: “It is finished”—the 7th day— The End of time. You see, in Scripture, forever (aions) has a duration. Chronos (chronological time), our time, comes to an end. And who is the end? Jesus is the End… and the Beginning. (Rev. 21:6) So where is the 7th day? It’s at the End of the timeline. But the End is the Beginning. Hebrews 4:3 “His works were finished from the foundation of the world.” Yet…God works in time even now (John 5:17). So, He IS resting in the 7th day and at work here in the 6th. Well if the 7th day is God’s day, perhaps it’s before and after time… and all around time, at least our time. So where the Hell is Hell? Where is Hades, Sheol, the outer darkness, and the realm of the dead? Well, it’s somewhere on this timeline. And time comes to an End. Then, where is the Lake of Fire? Well Hades gets thrown into the Lake of Fire and “death is no more.” “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).3 The Eternal Fire is God. On Day 7, everything is filled with God, who will “fill all things” (Eph. 4:10). We are surrounded by Fire, for we are surrounded by God. “In Him we live, move, and have our being,”(Acts 17:28). Perhaps we’re surrounded by Heaven. You know… as if the “Kingdom of Heaven were at hand.” Perhaps Day 7 is all around us and Holy Fire is all around us. So where are we? We’re stuck on this line in time, half-baked and battling these old bodies of sin and death, the old me. And yet Scripture tells us that we’re already “seated… in the heavenly places in Christ.” It’s like I already have an eternal birth certificate. It’s like I’m already finished. It’s like there’s a me—a new me—already on the other side of Judgment: The Fire. So where is Jesus? He’s the beginning and the end. And He’s our Judgment. He’s the author and finisher of our faith. He is the Word spoken by the Father that creates and upholds all things and will “fill all things” (Eph. 4:10) So what happened at the cross? The End invaded time. When we come to the cross we come to The End. And we come to the cross because The End has come to us. Jesus has come to us. We die with Him and rise with him to the seventh day, God’s Rest. th

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So what happened at the cross? Everything! For at the cross, eternity invaded time and invaded us. At the cross, God gives meaning to all creation with His Word with which he makes all creation. At the cross God makes you and gives meaning to you. “He who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). At the Cross God revealed His Heart and poured out His Life - Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The very first became very last so the very last could become very first. The winner became the loser so all the losers would become winners. At the cross, Jesus revealed the glory of God. God is Fire. God is Love. God is eternal, unquenchable, unstoppable Grace. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:16a-20) So if Christians have an icon, archetype, or creation myth, it’s not God on a cloud touching Adam’s finger, it’s this:

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The cross of Christ. Body broken and blood shed. This is the Word of God. This is the touch of God. This is the eternal covenant of grace. This is how God makes a world. History is His Story and His Story is History. The great theologian Karl Barth wrote in Church Dogmatics, “The creation is the external basis of the covenant.” In other words, all of creation is like a set or stage to reveal God’s covenant of grace in Jesus on the cross. “The creation is the external basis of the covenant,” and “the covenant is the internal basis of creation.” In other words, God creates all things through Jesus Christ crucified -- His body broken and His blood shed, the sacrifice of grace. We are saved by grace not once, but every moment. Grace creates us, grace redeems us, and grace will bring us home. Grace makes all things new. But make no mistake, everyone has been or will be judged . . . by grace. “It was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.” The cross is the “judgment of this world” (John 12:31). Some may languish in Hades and outer darkness for eons, but at the cross grace descended into Hades and grace is the door. And when Hades is thrown into the Lake of Fire, perhaps some will be destroyed. Yet Jesus said He came to “seek and to save the destroyed” (‘the lost’ and ‘the destroyed’ are one word in Greek - apololos) ” And if God made a fellow of dust and ashes in the first place, who’s to say He can’t do it again? But if He does it, He does it through Jesus every time. “God consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy on all” -- have grace upon all -- have Jesus upon all (Romans 11:32). Well now, that’s quite a paradigm shift for most believers, so I realize you may need to chew on that a bit. (I’ve included and appendix to help you do that). But for now my point is simply that on the seventh day, it appears that there are no losers. So if you need some losers to feel like a winner, you may not like the seventh day. In fact, you may judge yourself right out of the seventh day and right out of the Story the God is telling Like Jonah refusing to preach to Ninevites, judging himself out of the boat and into the sea, the “belly of Hell” (Jonah 2:2 KJV) Like the early workers judged themselves out of the Lord’s vineyard. (Matt. 20:1-16) Like the older brother judged himself out of the party and into that dark field. (Luke 15: 25-32)

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Like the “sons of the kingdom” (like Pharisees and us?) judge themselves out of the banquet and into the darkness, offended by Grace. (Matt. 8:11-12) Whatever you think about the nature of hell, we are to at least hope that “none will perish” and “all will reach repentance.” Why? Because, God does (1 Timothy 2:3-4 and 2 Peter 3:9). So if you find yourself hoping against God, and the thought of everyone being saved isn’t good news to you, but bad news to you; if grace burns you like fire you need to ask yourself why. Do you need an eternity of losers to postulate an eternity of winners? Are you an eternal Darwinist? Jesus is your “scapegoat.” You need no other. If you need someone to be “last,” so you can be “first,” Jesus already foot the bill. Would you keep him “last?” That must be Hell. On the seventh day, there are no losers, and everything is created by grace. That means no one there created themselves -- everyone there is a loser that God makes a winner. In God’s finished creation, there are not two kinds of people. There is only one kind of person: the lost that have been found, that is, losers saved by grace. “For by grace you have been saved through faith and this (faith) is not your own doing; it is the gift of God… lest none should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Your “choice” didn’t save you. Your “free will” didn’t save you. Your will damned you, and God saved you. Jesus is God’s good choice in you; Faith, Hope and Love in you. He is your “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.” (1 Cor. 1:30) You’re made by grace, redeemed by grace, saved by grace and sanctified by grace. If you have a problem with that, you’ll have a problem with the seventh day. It’s all Grace. If you have a problem with Grace, you’ll judge yourself out of the seventh day and into the sixth day (the 666 day)—the Antichrist’s day. If you hate grace, you’ll un-create yourself, for you can only be created by grace. So if you have a problem with grace, ask yourself: “Why!?!?” Do you think that you must create yourself? Are you a Darwinist? I hope you see that a person can profess a certain myth or archetype and be entirely governed by another. You may home school your kids, boycott the Museum of Natural History, memorize all the dictates of “creation science,” but be a Darwinist at heart -- a hard core, religious, anti-Darwinism Darwinist.

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Have you ever seen this bumper sticker?

If you have one, don’t be embarrassed. But did you notice the Jesus fish is eating the Darwin fish? Could anything be more Darwinistic? Is that how Jesus wins? I mean, wouldn’t the Darwin fish be crucifying the Jesus fish? Wouldn’t the Darwin fish be eating the Jesus fish? …like because the Jesus fish said, “Here, take and eat: My body broken for you. My blood shed for you. If you need a loser, let me lose so you can win.”

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So what does our archetype mean? What does our myth tell us?

Who we are: The winners in this world.

Who we are: The losers in this world.

Who the creator is: Us.

Who the Creator is: God.

How to make a world: Self-assertion.

How to make a world: self-sacrifice..

The Good is: to beat your neighbor.

The Good is: to serve your neighbor.

The Ethic: The first will be first and the last will be last.

The Ethic: The first will be last and the last will be first

Blessed are the willful for they shall conquer the earth.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth

Blessed are the dominant.

Blessed are the merciful

Destroy your enemies.

Love your enemies

The Goal: To keep your “life.”

The Goal: To lose your “life.”

The Judgment: Two kinds of people: winners and losers.

The Judgment: God who is one: so we shall be one.

Life is: Competition

Life is: Cooperation.

This is called SIN

This is called LOVE

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See? I think there is another word for that first archetype. I think it’s called “SIN.” And I think there’s another word for that second archetype. I think it’s called “LOVE.” Now, let me ask you: Which explains life: sin or love? Self-assertion or selfsacrifice? The survival of the fittest or the sacrifice of the fittest? Ask any biologist worth their salt, and they’ll tell you the “survival of the fittest” doesn’t explain life. Competition doesn’t explain life. It explains the limitation of life. It explains death. It explains chaos and the void. For what is life? It’s one atom that sacrifices it’s self to make a molecule. And one protein molecule that sacrifices to make a strand of DNA. And one strand of DNA that sacrifices to make a cell. And one cell that sacrifices to make a kidney. And one kidney that sacrifices to serve a body. And one body that sacrifices to make the Church. Life is cooperation not competition. Life is like a dance, in which each entity sacrifices self for the good of the whole. That dance is beauty. That dance is Love. Life is cooperation not competition. If you say, “Competition is natural; survival of the fittest is the way of this world,” well, of course it’s the way of this world. This world has been subjected to death. It is “in bondage to decay, groaning in travail, waiting to obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God,” who have tasted the seventh day (2 Corinthians 5:2-5). This world has been “subjected to futility….” (Romans 8:19) It’s only half made. Don’t attribute creation to the void. Don’t attribute life to death. It’s not that Darwinism isn’t describing something real. It’s just not life. It’s death…and hell. In Little Miss Sunshine, all of the characters are Darwinists. They each are desperately trying to win. Yet each is creating their own private hell. When Olive’s uncle comes to live with them, Duane writes it on a note, “Welcome to hell.” As they all travel across the country, in one orange VW bus, in order to take Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine contest, they can’t hide. They each come face to face with their own failure. And when they see their own failure they crack… and then, they begin to love. The last one to fail is Olive. It turns out that the dance she does for the beauty pageant is one she learned from her drug addict grandpa, who died on the trip. No one checks the dance or the song before the pageant, and seven year old Olive doesn’t know what it is - a striptease to the song “Super Freak.” Olive dances and obviously scandalizes the pageant. As the woman in charge tries to stop her dance, Olive’s father comes to the stage. Not knowing how to remedy the situation and moved with love for his daughter, he joins her dance, sacrificing all dignity so that she won’t lose alone . . . so that she won’t get crucified alone. Then Olive’s brother joins the dance. Soon her uncle and her mother all join the dance. They all lose the contest and gain a family. They lose the beauty pageant and become beautiful. They lose their “lives,” that were hell, and taste a bit of heaven. It was there all along. The dance is Love. Love is Life. And Life is Beautiful.

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So I stood there, about seven years old… the playground at South Elementary… I stood there frozen between a mob of laughing boys, and Matt and Duncan weeping in the dust. I stood there between two archetypes. Where was the life? Where was the dance and the invitation to dance? Where was the very first who made Himself very last? Where was the Superman? Where was Jesus? What’s the deepest story?

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1. Friedrich Nietzsche, as quoted in, K. L Kalla, The mid-Victorian literature and loss of faith, (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1989), 23. 2. See: John Richardson, Nietzsche's New Darwinism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) 3 “The Lake of Fire and Brimstone” can be translated “The Lake of Fire and Divinity,” or “The Lake of Fire that is Divinity,” (“Brimstone” translates the Greek theion, derived from theos, translated “God.”). I discuss this in more detail in Eternity Now. Peter Hiett, Eternity Now: Encountering the Jesus of Revelation, (Nashville: Integrity, 2003)  

~    

We are because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a “higher” answer—but none exists. ~ Stephen J. Gould Strange Christianity, whose most pressing anxiety seems to be that God’s grace might prove to be all too free on this side, that hell, instead of being populated with so many people, might some day prove to be empty! ~ Karl Barth, God Here and Now Holy Church teaches me to believe that all these shall be condemned everlastingly to hell. And given all this, I thought it impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord revealed at this time. And I received no other answer in showing from our Lord God but this: “What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall keep my word in all things and I shall make all things well.” ~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love Christ in Origen’s old words, remains on the Cross so long as one sinner remains in hell. That is not speculation: it is a statement grounded in the very necessity of God’s nature. In a universe of love there can be no chamber of horrors, no hell for any which does not at the same time make it hell for God. He cannot endure that, for that would be the final mockery of his nature. And he will not. ~ Bishop J.A.T. Robinson, In the End God We know, states Barth, “only one certain triumph of hell” — the cross of Golgotha on which Jesus died for our sins — and “this triumph of hell took place in order that it would never again be able to triumph over anyone. . . . We know of only One who was abandoned in this way, and only of One who was lost. This One is Jesus Christ. And he was lost (and found again) in order that none would be lost apart from him” (II/2, p. 498). When we know this One by faith and see what he endured for the sake of the world, then no matter how desperate the situation may be, we will not abandon hope for anyone, not even for ourselves. ~ George Hunsinger, Disruptive Grace 68

When evangelicals rely on a naïve Baconianism, they align themselves with the worst features of the naïve positivism that lingers among some of those who worship at the shrine of modern science. Thus, under the illusion of fostering a Baconian approach to Scripture, creationists seek to convince their audience that they are merely contemplating simple conclusions from the Bible, when they are really contemplating conclusions from the Bible shaped by their pseudounderstandings of how the Bible should be read. . . . Millions of evangelicals think they are defending the Bible by defending creation science, but in reality they are giving ultimate authority to the merely temporal, situated, and contextualized interpretations of the Bible that arose from the mania for science of the early nineteenth century. ~ Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind Beware when fighting the dragon lest you become the dragon. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

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Chapter 5

Sabbath I liked the fried spiders. They were half the size of my hand and tasted a bit like bacon. The water bugs were huge, looked like roaches and tasted like liver. Sareth walked past piles of insects on the tables of vendors all jammed into the crowded Russian Market in Phnom Penh Cambodia. “Ooh Peter, try this one,” he said, “The water bugs taste like liver, but these little roaches are really good.” Australian tourists laughed and took pictures. I was having a blast, reliving the glory days of Junior High when I would impress my friends by eating bugs. Sareth was having fun as well, but his memories weren’t so sweet. He was an entomological culinary expert… but not because of time served in Junior High. For three years, as a young boy, Sareth had survived on bugs as he slaved in work camps and the killing fields of Cambodia. Sareth was about seven, when soldiers raided his home and took him from his family. They said he’d be gone for two or three weeks. That meant three years. It’s estimated the 1.7 million people were slaughtered in the killing fields of Cambodia. Sareth walked us through some of those fields. Human bones and clothing still poked through the dry ground. We saw piles of human skulls. As I bent down and touched the dry bones of some man, woman or child, I thought “this is the world I live in.” We cover it up in America. We usually fight our wars at a distance. Yet, even here, everyone dies and evil is rampant. It’s not covered up in Scripture. I touched the dry bones in a “valley of dry bones.” Chaos: formless and void. In the early 70’s, as the Vietnam War spilled into Cambodia and mixed with the Revolutionary Communist groups already present, the destruction produced chaos and an untold number of fatherless children. Fatherless boys were easy prey for Communist strongmen like Pol Pot, who then turned those boys into killing machines. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. They erased the former calendar and named that day, “Day 1.” So out of the chaos, formless and void: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

These fatherless boys and girls tried to separate the light from the dark: Day 1. They tried to separate the waters of Sheol from the waters of Heaven. They tried to make dry land appear bearing fruit. They tried to determine the signs, seasons, days, and years: the calendar. They tried to make life for themselves. They tried to make themselves in God’s image. They tried to find rest . . . but there was no rest; only more chaos.

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How do we rest? How do you find rest in a world . . . like that? You know, the Jews were commanded to rest, and their world must have been like that. They knew about genocide. Actually, they know about genocide; they know about exile and bondage. You would think that above all, God would tell them to do something about it. Yet “above all,” God commands them to do nothing . . . and to do nothing very well. Exodus 31:12: “Above all you shall keep my Sabbath”—shabath, rest, stop. “Above all you are to be very diligent about doing nothing,” or die. That’s quite a commandment! It’s the fourth of the Big Ten. I think that means we are to pay attention, even now. 1. Exodus 20:8-11: Every seventh day shabath, because “in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” “So remember the Sabbath because I—not you—created you. I’m your Father. I created you. I’m telling you your story.” Sabbath is about God creating all people. 2. In Deuteronomy 5: 12-15, God gives a different reason for the Sabbath. He says, “Observe the Sabbath, to keep it holy, (different)… you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” So, “remember the Sabbath because I—not you—delivered you.” Remember how He did it? At the Red Sea, He told them, “Be still.” At Jericho on the seventh day, the seventh time around, the seven priests bearing seven trumpets blew the trumpets, Israel worshiped, and the walls came down. Sabbath is about God delivering His people. 3. In Exodus 31:12-17, the Lord says through Moses, “Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign . . . that you may know that I [not you], the LORD, sanctify you . . . keep the Sabbath…as a covenant forever”—an eternal covenant. Jesus the Messiah forms that covenant with His body and blood. You know, He said that He is “Lord of the Sabbath.” (Luke 6:5) Remember we said the creation story is about (1) all people, (2) Israel—the Church (ekklesia: those called out)—the people of God, and (3) Jesus. It’s at least about 3 things and you. Well anyway: “Remember the Sabbath because I—not you—sanctify you. I make you holy (sanctified). I complete you. I finish you.” Sabbath is about God sanctifying His people in Christ 71

It’s in those verses above (Ex. 31:14-15), that God says, “Keep the Sabbath!” or be “cut off” and “put to death” How do you like that commandment? “KEEP THE SABBATH OR DIE!” And it’s not just in body; we’re to obey from the heart. So right now, all you readers, everyone reading this book, you…yeah you: REST!!! Be still and know that He is God! Do it now, dang it . . . right now! Have deep, deep inner peace . . . OR DIE! REST OR DIE!!!!!!!” That’s kind of un-restful, huh? It’s like a law that could kill you . . . or show you you’re already dead. Hebrews 4:11: “Strive to enter his rest.” That sounds like “work to rest.” Working to rest? It was Thursday night, actually 3:00 a.m. Friday morning, I was soaking in a hot bath because I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t rest. It had been a thirty-four-hour day since I awoke in Bangkok and went to bed in Denver. My body would not rest, and my heart would not rest. • Thursday was the third anniversary of my father’s death. I’ve felt a bit like an orphan since he died. • I was also wrestling with some attitudes in my heart that my friend Andrew had asked me about while in Cambodia. I couldn’t separate the light from the dark in me. • I was wide awake and couldn’t rest and had to write a sermon on Genesis 2:1-4; a sermon on rest. A sermon on stopping, and I couldn’t stop. How do we stop? In the beginning, God spoke His Word into the chaos. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

He separated light from darkness: one day. He separated the waters below and above: a second day. He made dry land, homeland, bearing fruit: a third day. He made the seasons and times: a fourth day. He made the waters living with life: a fifth day. He made man, male and female: the sixth day. And He blessed them. The Father is telling us the story of our birth. Genesis 1:27-28a, 31-2:3 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them . . . . And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested 72

from all his work which he had done in creation.

On the seventh day, everything is very good. He’s finished, finished, done, done, done (He repeats it several times), rested, rested, shabbath, shabbath . . . sabbathed from all His work. For on the seventh day, everything is very good. God the Father is content, satisfied, pleased and delighted in all He has made. And that would include you. He’s not angry, frustrated, or upset. God declares the seventh day “holy.” But where is it? By chapter 2, Scripture is describing the sixth day. And thousands of years later, man is still being made in God’s image. The seventh day can hardly be the Garden of Eden, for not all is good there. Why would you need a garden, unless outside there was “not garden”? Surely that snake is not “all good.” Surely Adam and Eve are not yet made in God’s image, for the snake tempts them to make themselves in God’s image. So where’s the seventh day? When’s the seventh day? Maybe we haven’t arrived quite yet. As we discovered in the last chapter, physics indicates that from the standpoint of the beginning, the universe is about six days old. Not seems like six days old, but because of the laws of relativity is actually six days old. So maybe the seventh day is in the future. Yet Hebrews 4:3 tells us: “God’s works were finished from the foundation of the world.” That would be even before Day 1! Every other day in the story has an “evening and morning.” But the seventh day has no evening and morning. It’s a “unique,” different, holy day (Zech. 14:7). It’s like it has no duration. So maybe God is eternally resting even while He’s always working in time. Well Jesus says His Father “has been working until now” . . . now being 2,000 years ago, just a little before Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished.” Jesus is “the End.” And Scripture testifies that the “end of the ages;” “end of the aions;” “end of the evers,” has come upon us in Christ (1 Cor.10:11). “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” is the door to the seventh day. So last time we drew this picture; maybe it’s like this:

At the beginning of time is the Big Bang, there are six days, and then there is the end—the judgment—the Day of the Lord—the seventh day. Jesus is the judgment and the end . . . and also the beginning, the source, the root. Maybe Day 7 is all around the timeline. At the cross, the seventh day is revealed, and God gives meaning to all things through His Word. Perhaps Day 7 is an eternal reality, while days 1 through 6 are 73

temporal realities. Chronological time, our time, is a created reality. That would mean that time exists inside the seventh day; like “in God we live and move and have our being;” like “the kingdom of Heaven is really at hand.” Whatever the case, our time exists in God’s time, God’s eternity. What I’m trying to say is that we are surrounded by the seventh day, surrounded by Heaven, and surrounded by God, like a baby in a womb is surrounded by its mother though it has not yet seen the face of its mother. After I tried to explain this at church one weekend, I talked to a friend of mine who sometimes sees visions. She said, “Peter, I didn’t understand what you were talking about when you drew that line and then the seventh day. So I prayed, ‘Lord, what is Peter talking about?’” (By the way, that’s a prayer I highly recommend.) She then said, “Peter, I looked up, and I saw Jesus lying on the communion table.” (He is the body and the blood, you know.) “He was lying on the communion table—and this is weird—but He was, like, giving birth . . . to us. But we weren’t yet born; we were being born.” And I said, “Oh, that’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Jesus said we must be “born from above,” (John 3:3) and we are being born from above. So life is not a test like an algebra test, but like being born is a test. God is not waiting to see if we’ll pass or fail. He’s testing us like gold or silver is tested and purified. It’s not to determine “if” there is good; the test delivers the good and destroys the “not good.” He’s preparing us for eternity and “an immeasurable weight of glory.” Being born is a test! It’s hard to think of anything more traumatic. Actually, I’ve blocked it out entirely. I was safe, warm, and comfortable when my entire world closed in on me - expelled me. I died to my old world and was born into the new. A doctor took a knife and cut away, what I thought was most precious, what I thought was a part of me, the most important part of me: the chord that bought life to me in the womb and the placenta with which I was attached to that womb - my world. I was judged. I was cut. One day our flesh will be cut away; this old world will be cut away… and we will remain. It was a test! As that old world pressed in on me, it forced fluid from my lungs. I exhaled my old world and inhaled oxygen in a new world. I used that oxygen to exhale terror. I cried out in shock and pain … but my father laughed. He spoke. It was a voice I had heard even in the womb. He held me in his arms. He looked me in the face. He spoke… and I rested. When my son was born, he was battered and bruised, crying his lungs out. They put him in my arms still howling. I spoke his name and immediately… He stopped. Well, by the power of “incorruptible seed,” we are being born out of this womb of a world, out of the confines of space and time as we know it; born out of this world and into the new creation: the seventh day—God’s Sabbath day. That’s our hope, and God doesn’t want us to forget it. So He commands the Sabbath as if to say, “Yes, Israel, I know the journey is hard. The whole earth groans in travail. So every seventh day, hear my word, even in the womb. Hear my word and remember: I create you, and it is finished. 74

I deliver you, and it is finished. I sanctify you, and it is finished. Rest in that knowledge . . . or die. If a baby refuses to be born, it will die… or never live. Rest in that knowledge . . . or you’ll stay dead. Maybe we haven’t even begun to live and we don’t yet even know what life really is. Adam and Eve “died,” but I wonder if they were ever fully alive? Whatever the case, We’re being born out of time and into Eternity Well, I’ve asked you to think of time as a line. But now I’d like you to picture it as a space – the space in which we live. Perhaps you could think of it as our world, our earth. Perhaps you could even think of the timeline as lying on the surface of the earth. (That is how we measure time. One rotation of the earth, we call a day… but the seventh day is different, holy). So, in the picture below, think of the space above the line as Heaven or the 7th day and the line as the surface of our earth, the edge of our space and time. So the space above the line is the seventh day. Below the line is the sixth day—the 666 Day: sin, exile, bondage, death, Sheol – our time. Our time comes to an End, just as this old earth will come to an End. This also is the 7th day. Remember that the creation story is about at least three things: the first Adam (that is, all humanity), Israel (the people of God), and Jesus (the last Adam—the Eschatos Adam); it’s about three things and you. We know that these three things happened in the following order1… at least according to our knowledge of time:

1) God took something of Himself (His Breath) and breathed it into earth and made Adam. But Adam fell. “The day you eat you will die,” says God: sin, exile, bondage, death, and eventually Sheol, which begins here, in this world. Adams line sinks into the earth. [doted line]. 75

2) Then God took something of Himself (His Word) and sent it to old Adam and made Israel. But Israel rebelled and failed to enter the promised rest: sin, exile, bondage, death, and a valley of dry bones. Israel’s line sinks into the earth [dashed line]. 3) Then God took Himself and wrapped Himself in Israelite flesh and the body of Adam. His name is Jesus. At the cross, God “made him to be sin, who knew no sin.” (2 Cor. 5:21) and He descended into death and Hades and rose victorious on the third day. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. “Christ the firstfruits” (1 Cor. 15:23). “Firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15) “All the promises of God find their Yes in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:20) He is the door to the seventh day. Jesus descends in to the depths of the earth and rises from the dead. [solid line]. “The substance” of the Sabbath belongs to Him (Col. 2:17). Jesus is the Substance of the Sabbath Adam (mankind fell) and did not enter the 7th day. Israel fell and did not enter the promised rest: Hebrews 3 and 4: For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? . . . For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.” Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.

All of Israel fell in the wilderness because they did not believe the Father’s story and so wrote themselves out of the story and into the valley of dry bones. And yet there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. “Today,” “now,” you can enter God’s rest. How? By faith which is, in fact, the faithfulness of Jesus. We enter God’s rest because God’s rest has entered us.

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When we are saved, Jesus—the imperishable seed, the meaning of all things, the plot—descends into our sin, exile, bondage, death and hell, and leads us to His rest. We die with Him and rise with Him. We are the people of God “called out,” the ekklesia, the church. [red line descending to blue and rising].

In Jesus, we are written back into the Father’s story. In Jesus, we believe and enter God’s rest. Now, Scripture reveals that Jesus “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.” (1 Peter 3:19); that, "the gospel was preached even to those who are dead.” (1 Peter 4:6) So perhaps the line should go all the way down. “He descended into the lower parts of the earth and ascended far above the heavens that he might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:9). So maybe the line should go something like this [red line descending all the way]:

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. . . or even something like this:

According to Revelation 13:8 KJV, Jesus is “the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.” And Scripture tells us that Christ is the “end of the ages.” He rose on the third day, yet somehow that’s the last day. Well that’s a lot to digest. And I’m not saying that I’ve got it all figured out, but it sure fills me with hope… especially in the valley of dry bones. Do you remember what God told Ezekiel? “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.’” (Ez. 37:11). People in “Hell” have no hope, but that doesn’t mean that Hope no longer has them. God tells Ezekiel to prophecy (that’s breath and word) saying, 78

“Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live.” (Ez. 37:12-14). That’s the “whole house of Israel!” Even Judas and the Pharisees are included in the “whole house of Israel.” Perhaps that’s why Paul wrote, “And in this way all Israel will be saved.” (Romans 8:32). But that’s not all of “all.” Six verses later He writes, “For God consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all…For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 8:32,36). Paul also wrote, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive…that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead?” (1 Cor. 15: 22, 28-29) And Paul wrote, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:18-19). Maybe Jesus meant what he said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5). Because of those verses and many more: • Some argue that eventually all will respond to the Gospel, even in “Hell.” • Some say they won’t or can’t. • Some say it’s an incredible mystery we cannot fully understand. (see: appendix) Well, I’m definitely saying this: Today—now—enter His rest. Stop wandering in death. And don’t fall by the same example—same sort—of disobedience, which I think, in reality, is every sort of disobedience. Disobedience 1) Adam and Even fell because they didn’t believe the Father’s story and tried to create themselves. 2) Israel fell because they didn’t believe the Father’s story and tried to deliver themselves. 3) Jesus believed the Father’s Story. He is the Father’s Story. The Khmer Rouge were fallen because they didn’t believe the Father’s story. They may have never heard the Father’s story. If we don’t believe that God creates us, delivers us, and sanctifies us, we’ll try to create ourselves, deliver ourselves, and sanctify ourselves; we’ll eat forbidden fruit; we’ll make golden calves to worship, and sacrifice our children to idols. we’ll consume, take, rape, and kill, trying to obtain the blessing – the blessing we can only receive by grace from our Father in Heaven. When my children were little and didn’t believe my blessing, they were 79

nightmares. I remember one evening in our minivan, Elizabeth was just mean to everyone and mean to me. With Elizabeth, spankings usually didn’t work. So when we got to the restaurant I sent everyone inside except Elizabeth. I sat her in the front seat next to me, stared her down, “Elizabeth, what’s gotten into you?” She stared me down, then said, “I know, but I’m not telling you!” She was so cute, and yet terrifying. I loved on her for a while, and finally she cracked. In the deepest agony, in one unbroken stream she sobbed, “Daddy, when you visited my kindergarten class, Kelly told me that you told her that you didn’t really love me but her.” At that she just lost it: convulsions, sobbing and tears. It just killed her to confess her fear. But having died to her ego, she collapsed in my arms. I let her cry for awhile, then, I lifted her face and said, “Elizabeth, does Kelly have a daddy?” She answered, “Yes . . . he just moved away.” So I held Elizabeth and then said something like this: “Oh, honey, I will always love you. That doesn’t change. Don’t ever doubt my love for you again. It hurts when you doubt my love. But when you doubt, come to me and let me tell you again that I love you. I love you.” When my children don’t believe the father’s love, they act out. When I don’t believe the Father’s love, I act out. I have to create myself, save myself, and sanctify myself. I have to judge myself, justify myself, defend myself, and position myself. I get very busy with myself, and I can only see myself. I get trapped in myself, in death and hell, unable to love and unable to rest. Soren Kierkegaard wrote: The greatest danger for a child, where religion is concerned, is not that his father or teacher should be an unbeliever, not even his being a hypocrite. No, the danger lies in their being pious and God-fearing, and in the child being convinced thereof, but that he should nevertheless notice that deep within there lies hidden a terrible unrest. The danger is that the child is provoked to draw a conclusion about God, that God is not infinite love.2 Children, if you don’t believe your Father’s love story; if you don’t believe He is unfailing love and unending mercy; if you do believe He will withhold something on the seventh day or be secretly displeased with you on the seventh day, never satisfied with you, never utterly delighting in you on the seventh day; if you don’t believe that all things will be very good on the seventh day; if you think He does not truly rest . . . you will never enter His rest, and you’ll fall by the same sort of disobedience as the Israelites, Adam and Eve, and the Khmer Rouge. But believe the Father’s story—the Gospel—and then you enter His rest and move from His rest, created, delivered, and sanctified by grace through faith in the Father’s blessing. Then you move, dance, and sing not because you have to, but because it is your nature. A literal translation of Genesis 2:3 is, “God rested from all His work that God created to do,” which sounds just like Ephesians 2:9: “Good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. We are His workmanship created in Christ 80

Jesus.” Jesus is the Father’s Blessing He is the Fathers’ Word Receive Him and rest Lately I’ve been missing my father’s blessing. He told me my story. He told me who I am. In his arms as a child, I always found rest. He died a few years ago. A friend emailed me. She writes: I was praying and God told me that the problems that you are facing . . . are harder for you to deal with now because you don’t have your dad to talk to… My heart was filled with God’s great compassion for you and I began to weep. God then said, “You do not need to weep, for I am Peter’s Father and I will never leave him. I am always there to listen to Peter’s struggles and I will help him separate the truth from the lies, to see the good and renounce the evil. I have always been the source of Peter’s help; Peter’s dad spoke my words of wisdom and knowledge and poured my love into Peter’s life. I am God and my name is I AM. I read that word and for a moment I rested. I’ve carried a letter in the back of my Bible, since Dec. 7, 1996. It ends like this: So now, my dear super son, I wish for you for Christmas, not any improvement anywhere but a sense of deep joy in what you are and are doing and an ability to relax and give the Lord all your worries and anxieties. I have so much more to say, but that will be in another note. Meanwhile, what a son you are! All my love and affection, Dad How could Dad write that: “Not any improvement but a deep sense of joy”? How could Dad write that when he knew I was a basket-case with a busload of issues? And my Dad knew what they were! He even acknowledges them in his letter and wants them to go away: “worries, anxieties…” How could Dad write that? Well, I think he saw me through the seventh day. Good Dads are like that. Your Father in Heaven is a Good Dad. Jesus stood on a mountain and the Father said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” “I wish not any improvement but only a deep sense of joy: rest.” Well, Jesus actually needed no improvement! He trusted His father implicitly… but I do need improvement. How can I hear God say that? Not by my works; Not because of my ability to make myself in His image; but because His image has placed himself in me - Because I’ve been stopped by his Word and now I’m hidden in his Word and because His Word is in me. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God.” (Gal. 2:20, italics KJV) Jesus is in me. Jesus has been spoken into me. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for,” and Jesus is the substance of the 81

Sabbath in me—the image of God created in me. I enter God’s rest because God’s rest has entered me. So Friday morning at 3:00 a.m., in chaos, restless and confused, I prayed, “Father, in Jesus’ name: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Separate the light and darkness in me: judge me. Separate the chaotic waters below from the waters of mercy above. Make your land appear bearing fruit. Speak your seasons that I may move in the rhythm of your time. Make the waters living with life. Make me in your image in Jesus.

7. Help me to believe and rest.” My body was dead tired, but my heart began to rest in the seventh day. God creates me, saves me, and sanctifies me, in Jesus… by Jesus in me. In Cambodia, I got to serve Jesus. A few months before, my friend Andrew, along with my friend Paul, had preached the gospel while Sareth interpreted. They had preached in a region that had been the last hold out of the Khmer Rouge. They preached on an Army base where a few hundred had invited Christ to make his home in them. Within a few months a few hundred believers became 10,000, and no one had to say, “Evangelize your neighbor.” They just wanted to. In the Killing Fields they long for the Father’s blessing. And for them, Sharing that blessing wasn’t work, they just wanted to… like a song you like to sing, or a dance you enjoy dancing – work, but not work. According to Isaiah (40:28), God never “grows weary.” It’s like He’s always resting even if He’s working. I suppose that heaven is God’s rest, and our eternal rest, but we do stuff in heaven, right? Perhaps it looks like “work,” but it doesn’t feel like work. If you’re resting in your heart, but moving with your body, I think we call it “play”… or singing, dancing, partying, - work but not work… that’s heaven; Heaven on earth; Heaven in a valley of dry bones. Well like I said, in Cambodia, I got to serve Jesus; I got to serve those Cambodians their first communion. We gathered for worship. I suppose that’s work, but good worship doesn’t feel like “work.” We gathered for worship and took the body broken and blood shed. It’s a party, a feast, the Great Banquet… and it’s more nourishing than bugs. Jesus is the father’s blessing; the substance of the Sabbath; our food—rest that nourishes our “work.” Jesus declared, “It is finished” at the end of the sixth day. And Jesus rose the first day of the new week. The early Church began celebrating the Sabbath on the first day of the week to remind them that we work out of rest, out of grace, out of the finished work of creation, salvation, and sanctification. The Father’s blessing: Jesus.

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We don’t work to rest We work from rest We stop. Then, we sing, dance and party. Then we live our lives to the glory of the Lord because we want to. Because we believe the Father’s Blessing. SO HOW DO WE STOP?!? Just one more story: The only time that I ever saw Jarek Conelly sit still. Several years ago, I performed the wedding ceremony between Jarek’s mother Janielle and her fiancé Andy Connelly. Jarek was about four and obviously Janielle’s son from a former relationship, for Jarek was chocolate brown, but Janielle and Andy were very white. Jarek had really been fatherless for a time, and I think he felt it. He knew it, for Jarek was always restless, always moving, always busy, and usually in trouble. During the ceremony, Jarek was Jarek. He was everywhere. He wouldn’t stop; he wouldn’t sit still. By the time of the vows, he’d gone from the front as ring bearer to the front row as prisoner quarantined by relatives. As Janielle and Andy said their vows, Jarek squirmed. I was moving on to the rings when Andy stopped me mid-sentence, turned around toward Jarek making a ruckus in his front row seat. And while everyone watched, he said, “Jarek.” Jarek froze. His eyes went wide; pinned to his seat. He knew he’d been bad. “Jarek,” Andy said, “I love you with all my heart. I will always be your daddy and you will always be my son.” And that’s when I saw it: Jarek Connelly totally still, shabbath—the Sabbath. The word that Andy spoke was the Covenant Word: “I create you, I save you, I sanctify you, and I give you rest. I am your Father.” We were bad. And we wouldn’t stop. The children of Adam and the children of Israel had nailed God in Flesh to a tree. The sky grew black. The earth shook in horror. And He spoke. God spoke. At our very worst, He spoke the very best. His Word on the tree: “Father, forgive.” And there we stop… and begin. We can’t stop. He stops us. So go to worship on the first day of the week. Go hungry. Admit that you’ve been bad. Listen to the word. And watch as someone speaks the Word: “This is my body given to you. This is my blood, of the covenant, poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me. Eat. Drink.” Stop. Then Live.

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1. In the Evangelical Universalist, by Gregory MacDonald (Eugene OR: Cascade Books, 2006), pg.66, there is a diagram that is very similar to this. For reasons that will unfold (I hope), I expand on that idea and try to add the elements of eternity and temporality. The diagram certainly isn’t perfect, yet it is a bit fascinating: We measure time by the rotation of the earth. If the timeline forms a circle, it simulates the rotation of the earth and temporality is enclosed in that circle--just as in the biblical view temporality and Hades are enclosed in this earth, while eternity exists in the heavens above. Temporality then floats in Eternity like the earth floats in space. And time moves in circles. Time moves in circles, just as one week leads to another week. This may give the impression that temporality, chronological time, does not end. However in Scripture it does. (In Scripture, all things come to an End—Christ, Jesus. This is made explicit in a literal translation of Rev. 10:7: At the seventh trumpet, “chronos” is no more.) In our little diagram, time ends at the end of the time line. If the line is a circle, time ends when the circle is flooded with the 7th day: Eternity; the Consuming Fire; the Glory of God; The One who will fill all things. Leaving the timeline at death (like the thief on the cross); coming to the End of the Line; And the Second Coming are all the same event. They are the boundary of time and eternity—the Judgment. 2. Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, (Farmington, PA: The Plough Publishing House, 1999), p. xv

~ All evil stems from this: men do not know how to handle solitude. ~ Blaise Pascal Our hearts are restless until they rest in you. ~ Saint Augustine The death and resurrection of Jesus were themselves the great eschatological event, revealing God’s covenant faithfulness, his way of putting the world to rights: the word for ‘reveal’ is apokalypso, from which of course we get ‘apocalypse’. Saul was already living in the time of the end, even though the previous dimension of time was still carrying on all around him. The Present Age and the Age to Come overlapped, and he was caught in the middle, or rather, liberated in the middle, liberated to serve the same God in a new way, with a new knowledge to which he had before been blind. . . . He wasn't just living in the last days. He was living in the first days - of a whole new world order. As with the cross, the resurrection permeates Paul’s thinking and writing; and it isn’t by any means just the future resurrection, to which of course Paul looks forward. It is the resurrection of Jesus, to which he looks back. ~ N.T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said And this was seen in the ninth showing where more is said of this matter. And in spite of all our feelings, weal and woe, God wants us to understand and believe that we are more truly in heaven than on earth. ~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love Eternal life is now. We’re surrounded by it, like the fish in the ocean, but we have no notion about 84

it at all. ~ Anthony De Mello God forbid that anyone should say that God loved anyone in time, for with him nothing has passed away and also nothing is future, and he loved all the saints before the world was made, as he foresaw. When it happens that he makes manifest in time what he foresaw in eternity, people think that God has acquired a new love. And in the same way, when he is angry or does a kind action, it is we who are changed, whereas he remains unchangeable, just as the sun’s rays hurt weak eyes and do good to healthy ones, although the sun’s rays remain unchangeable in themselves. ~ Saint Augustine Here you should pay careful attention and rightly understand, if you can, that God in his first eternal glance, if we could assume that there was one, considered all things to see how they were to take place, and saw in this glance when and how he was to create the creatures and when the Son was to become man and suffer… He saw that you will urgently call upon him tomorrow and earnestly pray, and God will not answer the call and prayer tomorrow, for he has already answered it in his eternity before you ever became man. But if your prayer is not wholehearted and is not sincere, God will not refuse you now, for he has refused you already in his eternity. ~ Meister Eckhart Some of us believe that God is all mighty and has power to do everything, and that he is all wisdom and knows how to do everything, but that he is all love and is willing to do everything— there we stop. And it seems to me that this ignorance is what most hinders those who love God. ~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love Opsias de genomenes. Heaven is Miller Time. Heaven is the party in the streaming sunlight of the world’s final afternoon. Heaven is when all the rednecks, and all the wood-butchers, and all the plumbers who never showed up—all the losers who never got anything right and all the winners who just gave up on winning—simply waltz up to the bar of judgment with full pay envelopes and get down to the serious drinking that makes the new creation go round. It is a bash that has happened, that insists upon happening, and that is happening now—and by the sweetness of its cassation, it drowns out all the party poopers in the world. ~ Heaven is, in short, fun. And if you don’t like that, Buster (hetaire), you can just go to…well, you’ll just have to use your imagination. ~ You’ll need it: this is the only bar in town. ~ Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment

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Chapter 6

The Abyss Genesis 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Everything wonderful! A few years ago I was able to take a couple of amazing trips. After speaking on The Revelation for a group of missionaries in the Czech Republic, I had the opportunity to walk through the remains of the Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau. A short time later I travelled to Cambodia and ate bugs with Sareth. One Sunday after I returned I began my message with a slide show. I set the show to music: one song. As we watched the slides, Louis Armstrong crooned his famous song, “What a wonderful world.” I see trees of green, red roses too I see them bloom for me and you And I think to myself what a wonderful world. As he sang we watched images from Auschwitz and Birkenau where two million people (mostly jews) were systematically exterminated. And we watched images from the killing fields and Tual Sleng Prison. Between 1976 and 1979 (while I was playing soccer and dating my new girlfriend), something like 12,000 people were imprisoned and tortured in Tuol Sleng tortured by fatherless children between the ages of ten and fifteen who had been trained in evil by the Khmer Rouge. Of the 12,000 imprisoned, seven survived. Most of the rest were taken to the fields, where they were murdered as loudspeakers in the trees blared music, to drown out the sound of the screaming. Something like 1.7 million, were murdered in Cambodia, 30% of the population. As the slideshow drew to a close, I sang: “And I think to myself . . . What the hell is going on?” We don’t normally ask stuff like that in church. But if we ask it at all, isn’t that the very best place to ask? What the Hell? What the Hell is going on? (Maybe the question is the answer) Maybe Hell is going on. People have turned Tuol Sleng and Auschwitz into museums. I like that, because I think we don’t take evil very seriously. Or maybe a better way to say that is that we all deny evil—we take it so seriously that we deny it. But Tuol Sleng and Auschwitz are happening right now—in places like Sudan; even in Denver—perhaps not a million at once, but a little girl here, a little boy there. We 86

read about some cases but probably not the worst. There are people I know that have suffered as much or maybe more than those in Auschwitz or Tuol Sleng. Years ago I prayed, “God, would you be more real to me?” In other words, “Jesus, I want to see you.” The next week I met Elaine. She’d been moved here by some folks in the graduate program at Colorado Christian University. They helped her relocate and hide her tracks. Elaine wanted to meet me because she heard that I might believe her story and be willing to pray. Elaine’s father had been very involved in a satanic coven. What was done to her is more horrifying than Auschwitz and Tuol Sleng. I probably wouldn’t believe these things ever happened, except for the fact that I now have seen too much and encountered too much to deny it’s reality: My wife will experience the same visions that Elaine experiences when we pray for her; I’ve been wakened to things choking me in the night; I’ve seen the demonic manifest and I’ve witnessed the beauty and power of Jesus as he reveals his victory at the cross and in our lives. And yet… the evil that came against Jesus on that cross is so horrifying, I’ve wanted to deny it… but couldn’t. I used to ask people to come help us pray—the “spiritual people.” Some would say: “It can’t be true. She must have made up the story,” or if not that, then, “Well, it’s her fault. She chose it . . . chose evil.” We all want to deny evil. I remember walking through the rooms in Birkenau at Auschwitz praying, “Thank you, God, for the memorial that is this place, so we can not deny this place. And surely if it happened to six million people here, we can’t deny it may have happened to a little girl in a garage in America.” Evil in people; Evil in our world!? When Susan, my wife, was seventeen years old, she woke out of a sound sleep. The room was dark and she smelled death. In terror, she looked at the foot of her bed to see a figure appear, blacker than the darkness, like a shadow in the very fabric of reality. It lifted its empty arms and said, “You’re mine.” …What is that? What the hell is that? Who made that? What is evil? Trying to answer those questions is what theologians call “Theodicy:” the study of the problem of evil. At least for Americans, it seems to be the biggest obstacle to faith. Who made evil? People say, “How could I believe in an all-powerful, all-loving, good God when six million Jews were exterminated in Germany and two million Cambodians were slaughtered in the Killing Fields?” If God made everything, and all that God makes is good, where did evil come from? American Christians love what is known as the “free will defense.” That is, we “chose or choose evil.” “That’s where it comes from,” folks say. “We have free will.” So those who are blessed are those who have chosen well, and those who are cursed are those who have chosen poorly. So eternally speaking, the strong-willed 87

survive, and life is a test to see whose will is up to snuff. “There’s evil in the world as a result of our own free will.” That’s what folks usually say. The great philosopher Jack Handy from Saturday Night Live on NBC once said: Sometimes when it’s raining and my children ask, “Daddy, why is it raining?” I like to tell them, “Because God is crying.” And when they ask, “Why is God crying?” I say, “Because you’re bad.” So do you laugh? Do you not laugh? You’re trying to figure that out, aren’t you? Because it’s kind of true . . . but kind of not true. God knows the future. Right? He knows the End at the Beginning. Right? So even if we had “free will,” he knew what we’d do with it. Why would he create beings that he knew would make him cry? …then call them bad? Free Will? Maybe free will helps explain the perpetuation of some evil, but what about natural disasters and babies born with birth defects? Christians often say, “That may not be the result of your choice today, but it is the result of Adam and Eve’s choice long ago.” Well, that may be true. Adam and Eve were guilty, but why didn’t God just kill them and start over? Or never make them at all? How could “man” explain the origin of evil? How could “man” choose evil unless there was evil to choose? Why was there a garden, if the whole world was a garden? It sounds like there was evil outside the garden. Why did God put a poison tree smack dab in the middle of the garden? Who let the snake into the garden? Who made “man”- Adam and Eve? Because they’re defective; they are really poor choosers. Good Will? If Adam and Eve had “free will,” they sure didn’t have “good will.” That is, they could make random decisions but not good decisions. How could they? They didn’t have knowledge of good and evil—which isn’t very “free.” And if they had a “free will” they didn’t know what to do with it. They could go to 7-11 and pick Pepsi or Coke (a dog can do that). But they couldn’t call one thing good and another thing evil. As we’ve seen, it’s not yet the end of the sixth day. Adam and Eve are not yet fully made in God’s image, so the snake can tempt them to make themselves in God’s image…because they’re not yet completed in God’s image. (Do you know anyone that is? Anyone without sin? Adam and Eve are half-baked. Do you know anyone “halfbaked”?) Well, you’ve got to wonder: What was God thinking - letting two, half-baked, naked people run around a garden with a poison tree planted smack dab in the middle and 88

an evil serpent on the loose? You see, the idea that evil is simply the result of our bad choice or choices must not be the deepest story, either then or now. And if Adam and Eve had “free will,” it must not have been very good free will. Their free will was what got them in trouble. By the end of Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve are not free but dead and doomed to die because of their choice. If they had a free will, they lost it: dead in their trespasses and sins; in bondage to the devil; by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Eph. 2:1-3) Joshua (which is the Hebrew pronunciation of “Jesus”) says to the children of Israel, “Choose this day whom you shall serve.” The story of the Old Testament is that ultimately all choose evil… or can only choose evil. Joshua says as much five verses later, “You are not able, to serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:19).1 The Apostle Paul writes, “None is righteous, no not one . . . no one seeks for God, no one does good . . . no not one.” (Romans 3:10-11) By the time we get to Friday afternoon on the sixth day, where the Messiah hangs on the poison tree on the hill of shame, it’s clear: All of fallen humanity has chosen evil and rejected the Good who is crucified before them. So we’ve all chosen evil, but we didn’t create evil. Where does the snake come from? Where does evil come from? Well, a snake is a critter made by God. But what about “the satan” (the adversary) that inhabited the snake? Where does it come from? Where does evil come from? And what’s the deepest story? Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void [nothing and empty, unreal and waste], and darkness . . . What is darkness? Well, it is . . . not. It is a no-thing, no light, an absence, nothing. “Nothing” is so hard to talk about, because it’s not there. And yet, as soon as you call it “nothing,” you turn it into “something.” But, of course, it’s really nothing. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. The deep is the Hebrew word Tehom. The Psalmist writes, “From Tehom you will raise me.” (Psalm 71:20) When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into the Greek in Jesus’ day, they translated this word as Abussos. Abussos is abyss in English. In the Revelation, the king of the abyss is Apollyon or Abaddon, “destruction.” The abyss is where the devil is bound for one thousand years. Maybe that is where the snake comes from, or at least the evil in the snake. In Strong’s Lexicon, the last definition of Tehom is Sheol. Sheol is often 89

translated as “Hell.” “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of Hell.” Maybe that’s where evil comes from: the abyss. But who made it and what is it? Let me ask it this way: How do you make darkness? Technically, you can’t . . . because it’s not there, for it is . . . not, nothing, no light. It’s not a substance but an absence. How do you make darkness? Well, I think this is the best I could do: Imagine if I turned on a spotlight – a spotlight shining on me. “Let there be light!” Imagine that. And imagine the shadow. What if I pointed at the shadow and asked: do you see it? Do you see the shadow? Do you see the darkness? If you were to answer “yes,” you’d be wrong. No one ever “sees a shadow. What you “see” is the light and a place where there is less light. You perceive an absence of light, because you see the light around the absence of light – the shadow. But a shadow is what is not. Now imagine if I danced in that spotlight and I asked, “Did you see the shadow move?” Correct answer, “No, it’s not there.” You would have seen the absence of light move. Isn’t that weird? My shadow would look alive. Is it alive? NO. It’s the shadow of the living. My shadow looks like a living person. Is it a person? NO. It’s the shadow of a person. Imagine that shadow. And check this out. It would’ve been there, even before you “saw” it, or thought you “saw” it. Imagine if I turned off the light: the shadow would still be there. I mean, the less light would still be there . . . that is, the dark part. The whole room is shadow, you just can’t perceive the shadow until you’ve seen the light. The light defines the shadow, reveals the shadow and judges the shadow. What if the whole world is in a shadow? Well, you wouldn't know it until you saw the light. What if there is a light brighter than the sun? Then our whole world might be in a shadow. What if your whole world is in a shadow, a complete shadow? What would you be? Blind… and you wouldn’t know it. People would talk about dark and light, but you would have no idea what they were saying. Jesus said a lot of folks were blind in His day. They thought they could see, but they were blind. They didn’t see the light. Light defines darkness, reveals it and judges it. For light is the substance and 90

darkness is its absence. Light defines darkness, but darkness does not define light nor comprehend light. “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it.” (John 1:3 NASB) Without light, there could be no dark. Physicists say even space and time are somehow dependent on light, so without light there would be no space or time for the dark. So even though the darkness cannot comprehend the light, it is dependent upon the Light. Well, my point is: I really can’t create darkness, because it’s not actually there. I can only create an absence of light. Darkness is a negation, a no-thing, a no light. I can’t create the dark; I can only cast a shadow in the light. But now, what if I was the light? Not holding the spotlight, but actually the spotlight. How then, could I, the light, cast a shadow? Light can’t make shadows. Light can only reveal shadows, which are an absence of light. If I was the light, I couldn’t make a shadow . . . unless I, the light, made something like Peter Hiett (in the flesh), who would then cast a shadow in my light. (That is, the light could only make a shadow by making something that’s not, in itself, light.) If you were the sun, you could never make the night . . . unless you made the earth, which would cast a shadow called night. But now, what if I, the light, decided to fill someone like Peter Hiett? What if I, the light, decided to fill the earth with my glory? What if I, the light, decided to fill all things? Well then, there would be no more shadows, only the knowledge of shadows; the knowledge of light and dark, but no more dark. What if one day we have a knowledge of good and evil, but no more evil? Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world? Check out these Bible verses: •

“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5).

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Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).

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Paul wrote in Ephesians 4 and 5, “He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things . . . . At one time, you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.”

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In Revelation 21, the bride is a city, and the city radiates the glory of God. Verse 23: “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the lamb.”

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Revelation 22:5: “And night will be no more.” And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world!”

So: If God is light, evil must be darkness— not light. If God is the way, evil must be lost-ness—not the way. If God is truth, evil must be lies—the untruth. If God is life, evil must be death—not life. 91

If God is creator, evil must be desecrator. If God is love, evil must be its negation—not love. If God is “I AM,” evil must be “I am not.” If God is substance, evil must be absence—like no thing. So asking, “Does God create evil?” must be like asking, “Does God create nothing?” Well, if a shadow is that which a light cannot make, perhaps evil is that which God does not will. To say that God wills evil is to say God wills that which He does not will, which is to say nothing. Evil is that which God does not will and does not make. So, of course, God does not will evil, but He wills for us to encounter evil. He wills for us to encounter that which He does not will. He wills for us to encounter Not God, for how else could we ever choose God? How else could we ever love God in freedom in His image as He loves us, freely with a good will? God is creating in us a good and free will “God alone is good,” said Jesus. If we are to ever choose the good, perhaps we need a knowledge of the not good. To choose the good, perhaps we need a knowledge of the not good but the presence of the good in order to will the good. If God wanted to create beings in His image, beings that aren’t Him yet choose Him, He would need to make space that’s not Him and then fill that space with Him. He would need to make a void filled with nothing. The void wouldn’t be evil, but the nothingness—the darkness—would. Like a wound in His side, the side of the light of the world. Like a womb in His belly, waiting to be filled with light. Absolute Evil? In the Bible, there is darkness and then there is “outer darkness.” Perhaps there is utter darkness. You know, people can be a mix of light and dark, good and evil. It’s like we live on the border—borderland—of light and dark, good and evil. That’s where we live: between heaven above and the depths below – the grey. But then there’s pure evil. And that brings up another question: What is Satan? Because of some rather obscure references in Ezekiel 28, most have concluded that he is a fallen angel, created good by God but fallen. It seems clear that there are fallen angels, or spirits, called demons (II Peter 2:4). But in I John 3:8, John writes that 92

the devil sins from the beginning. In John 8:44, Jesus says, “The devil was a murderer from the beginning.” That sounds like he never was good, but bad from the beginning. “A murderer from the beginning,” John writes, “and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” That’s why I’ve wondered if he’s like the shadow on the wall, but not simply the absence of visible light, the complete absence of the Light that is God. That absence seems like a real substance, for it is our real adversary. It, Looks like life, but it’s the shadow of life. Looks like a person, but it’s the shadow of person. Looks like creation, but it’s the shadow cast by creation. Looks like a somebody, but he’s a nobody. My friend Elaine grew up being told that no one was more powerful or real than Satan. Once in a vision, Satan appeared to my wife and to Elaine with the name “somebody,” written across his forehead. He had used this to tempt my friend as she cried “somebody help me.” In the vision, Jesus revealed the lie. I asked Jesus, “Is he a ‘somebody’?” My wife and Elaine heard Jesus answer. “No, he is a ‘nobody.’” If a person, (a “somebody”), is dust and the breath of God, I think satan must not be a somebody, but a nobody. And if that’s the case, no matter what Mick Jagger sings, “sympathy for the devil,” is entirely unnecessary. Well what exactly satan is or isn’t, I really don’t know. Jesus revealed that to me as well. However I do know that he was utterly defeated at the cross. Satan was defeated at the cross even though Jesus is still revealing His victory in space and time; even though Jesus is still throwing satan into the lake of fire that is Divinity… and asking us to help.2 Once at Elaine’s house in a vision as we were praying, she watched Satan shrink into a little man screaming on her coffee table. In the vision, Jesus walked over, picked him up, put him in His pocket, smiled at Elaine, and walked away. My wife heard Jesus say, “With your fear you put flesh on the evil one.” Perhaps, with “fear of nothing,” we give “the power of something.” Please don’t think I’m saying there is no Satan. There is. But maybe he is absolutely empty. Maybe he is void. With fear you put flesh on the evil one. That kind of fear is faith in the devil. Maybe we deny evil because we take it too seriously. We deny it because we’re so frightened by it. We think the shadow is equal to the light, that the absence is equal to the substance. Turn on the light! Call on Jesus in every dark place and every dark place in you. Call on Jesus, and “one little word shall fell him,” [Martin Luther] like one little match fells the darkness. And all the darkness in this world cannot extinguish the glory of the one little flame! Well, no matter what Satan is or isn’t, evil is a darkness. And then, What is sin?

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Sin must be faith in the devil; putting flesh upon evil. It’s choosing the void. It’s choosing the darkness or the state of already having chosen the darkness. John writes, “The whole world is in the power of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19) That means, “The whole world is in darkness. That means everyone of the world is like…blind. So what’s wrong with the world? Everyone’s blind! So what must be done? Do we need to panic? Do we need to fear? No! Should we yell at blind people? The Church has panicked and done a lot of yelling at blind people: “You stupid, blind people, you need to try harder to see! Choose to see! Decide to love!” That’s what the law is about: yelling at blind people. Maybe it helps reveal that we’re blind, but it can’t make anyone see. Should we panic, fear, or yell at blind people? No. But we could use some light. Genesis 1:1-3 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering (Heb.“merakhefet” brooding) over the face of the waters. “Broods,” like the mother eagle “broods” over her chicks in Deuteronomy 32:11; like God broods or hovers over Israel in the dark wilderness. The Spirit broods over Auschwitz and Birkenau; over Tuol Sleng and the killing fields; over my friend Elaine and my seventeen-year-old girlfriend Susan. It’s like in a theatre when the play is about to begin, when the story is about to be told, when something big is about to be revealed, they dim the lights. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Let there be Light. God is light, and Jesus is the light of the world. The light is not created; the light is revealed. “The light shines in the darkness.” It’s dark because God is going to show us the light. That’s why kids play with matches in dark basements and ramshackle forts. In broad daylight, no one looks at the sun or can look at the sun. But in a pitch black cave, basement or abyss, if someone lights a match, all eyes will immediately be riveted upon that light. Remember in Genesis 15 when God makes His covenant with Abraham? “A dread and great darkness” falls on Abraham. Then in the darkness he sees a light—a flaming torch and a firepot. They pass between the pieces of slaughtered animals broken to make the covenant. Remember when the Israelites came to Mt. Sinai and God declared His covenant? 94

The mountain was wrapped in darkness that revealed a heavenly fire. And when Jesus hung on the poison tree atop the hill of shame, remember the sky grey black? And there God revealed His covenant of grace; His love; His heart; His nature; His substance: the Light of the world, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. “The light shines in the darkness.” And on that cross, the Light descended into the abyss—every abyss—that He might fill all things with Himself. As I walked through the barracks of Birkenau at Auschwitz, I knew He was there and had been there revealing His covenant love to His people in the midst of dread and great darkness. As I walked through Tuol Sleng and the killing fields, I knew He was there. I hate those places, and yet I love Jesus most in those places, for His glory is revealed in those places. I found out that Tuol Sleng means “hill of guilt (or shame),” and that Sleng is also the name of a poison tree in Cambodia. Tuol Sleng is a poison tree on the hill of shame: Calvary. Jesus suffered in Tuol Sleng, for He bears the sins of the world. Jesus suffered in Tuol Sleng and will be glorified in Tuol Sleng. He will be glorified in Auschwitz and Tual Sleng, just like He’s glorified in my friend Elaine. He has revealed Himself in her places of unspeakable pain. And there I’ve seen Him more gloriously than any place in this world, save Calvary. It is Calvary. When He reveals Himself, He bears all her sin, sorrow, and shame. Wherever sin “increased,” He reveals the glory of His Grace. And in those darkest of places, He is always weeping . . . not because Elaine is bad (like Jack Handy insinuated, remember?) He’s not weeping because she’s bad, but because she’s suffered the bad. She’s suffered the bad and He chooses to suffer with her and for her, sorry for her, weeping for her, weeping with her, so that she can laugh forever with Him. So that having known the “bad,” she might forever love the Good in freedom. Jesus is Good. Saviors are glorified where people most need saving. I’m convinced that all her sorrows will turn into Joys, for which, we would be eternally jealous… except it will be heaven… and we’ll have treasures of our own. The light shines in the darkness—the abyss. Much to her surprise, one day, Elaine discovered that Elaine means light. She’s a house that contains the Light. She’s a lighthouse. Surrender your darkness to Jesus, and so you… are. Well like I was saying, my girlfriend Susan, woke in darkness and dread to see this shadow darker than her darkened room. She had been coming to youth group with me, but she was undecided on the whole Jesus thing. 95

She smelled death, the shadow reached for her, and she heard the words, “You’re mine.” Immediately the eyes of her heart fixed on Jesus. For in that dread and dark, Jesus looked pretty good. She whispered, “Jesus, Jesus . . .” And when she did, the shadow shrunk back into nothing as she heard an agonizing shriek like the evil one was being burned by the fire of unapproachable light. She rolled over and grabbed her Bible. The page fell open to these words: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Well, that was the night my bride gave her life to Jesus. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.” The light shines in the darkness. Darkness was over the face of the abyss, and God said, “Let there be light.” So on the night Jesus was delivered up, on that darkest of all nights, in the midst of the deepest dread, Jesus took bread and broke it saying, “This is my body. Take and eat.” And He took the cup, and having given thanks he said, “This is the new covenant in my blood. Drink of it, all of you.” Do you see? …Do you see the Light brighter than a billion suns. Why is there evil in this world? maybe …so that you would see Jesus and love Jesus, freely and eternally. Pray: “Lord God, I surrender my darkness. Let there be light in me; Jesus in me.” And it was so.

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1. Through Moses God tells the Israelites the same thing: “Choose life,” (Deut. 30:19) After he says that, He tells Moses that they won’t. (Deut. 31:16). However, just a few verse earlier in 30:11, God tells the people that the commandment is “not to hard,” for the “word” is in their mouth. In Romans 10:5-9, Paul reveals that that “Word” is Christ Jesus. A “good choice” in you, is Christ in you. Joshua tells the people that they are “not able,” (Joshua 24:17) right after he says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Do you see? The only way you can serve the Lord is to be part of Joshua/Jesus’ house. For that to happen, you must be wed to Joshua or adopted into his family. It’s only through the Spirit of Christ in you that you can make a “good choice.” 2. In one of these vision episodes, I once got very frustrated with Jesus and had Elaine ask Jesus, “Why don’t you just throw satan into the Lake of Fire?” She did. Jesus answered, “I am, all the time.” I realized we were witnessing that very thing that very moment. Perhaps all of time, is about witnessing creation; which is witnessing the void being filled by God; which is witnessing satan cast into the Lake of Fire that is Divinity; which is witnessing the victory of Jesus upon the cross.

~ In Jesus (with whom are always present the other two Persons of the Trinity, since the three are indivisibly one) is all reality—outside of him is no thing. Sin is a denial, a refusal, of the providence of God. Sin is the deprivation of goodness. Therefore sin is a choice of departure from God, and his care of us in the totality of his goodness, into nothingness. “Evil is not a substance,” wrote Augustine. “The whole difficulty of understanding Hell is that the thing to be understood is so nearly Nothing,” wrote C. S. Lewis. God made his creation very good, “so we must conclude that if things are deprived of all good, they cease altogether to be” (Augustine, Confessions VII:12). ~ John Nelson Doubtless there is an event, X, in the future, by reference to which we may say that we are at present in a category of Not-X, but until X occurs, the category of Not-X is without reality. Only X can give reality to Not-X; that is to say, Not-Being depends for its reality upon Being. ~ Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker “Nothing will ever close that wound,” he answered, with a sigh. “It must eat into her heart! Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil.” . . . We were not in the outer darkness; had we been, we could not have been with her; we should have been timelessly, spacelessly, absolutely apart. The darkness knows neither the light nor itself; only the light knows itself and the darkness also. None but God hates evil and understands it. ~ George MacDonald, Lilith God is everything that is good, it seems to me, and the goodness that is in everything is God. . . I looked attentively, seeing and recognizing what I observed with quiet awe, and I thought, “What is sin?” For I saw truly that God does everything, no matter how small. And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck, but everything by God’s wise providence…Therefore I was obliged to accept that everything which is done is well done, because our Lord God does everything; for in that instant the actions of human beings were not shown, but only those of God 97

within human beings; for he is in the centre of everything and he does everything, and I was sure he never sins. And here I saw that sin is really not something which is done … ~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love Evil is like a shadow - it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it. ~ Shakti Gawain Darkness in Scripture is the place of chaos, where the blessing of creation becomes an accursed disintegration. It is the formlessness and void, the tohu wabohu, the deep-and-dark that requires the divine light and the divine word to form and fill it (Gen. 1:2-5). This is the darkness in which God came to “cut” his covenant with Abraham, moving as a light through dismembered animals. This was how it would be when the covenant promises would be fulfilled in reality, when the “light of the world” passed through an even deeper darkness on the cross, as God taking to himself the consequences of a violated bond of fellowship with him. ~ It is also the darkness foreshadowed in Egypt, the darkness that the angel of death penetrated to slay the firstborn in those covenant-less homes where no lamb’s blood of sacrifice had been applied. So the angel of death moved over the Roman gibbet where Christ, our Passover Lamb, was sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7): “At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ ” ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson On this shadow side the creature is contiguous to nothingness, for this “not” is at once the expression and frontier of the positive will, election and activity of God. When the creature crosses the frontier from the one side, and it is invaded from the other, nothingness achieves actuality in the creaturely world. . . . Nothingness is that which God does not will. . . . This being which is alien and adverse to grace and therefore without it, is that of nothingness. . . And this is evil in the Christian sense, namely, what is alien and adverse to grace . . . . The grace of God is the basis and norm of all being, the source and criterion of all good. Measured by this standard, as the negation of God’s grace, nothingness is intrinsically evil. ~ If our thought is conditioned by the obedience of Christian faith, we have only one freedom, namely, to regard nothingness as finally destroyed and to make a new beginning in remembrance of the One who has destroyed it. ~ From a Christian standpoint “to be serious” can only mean to take seriously the fact that Jesus is Victor. If Jesus is Victor, the last word must always be secretly the first, namely, that nothingness has no perpetuity. ~ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics In those famous dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena, God is reported to have said to her, “I am He who is; you are she who is not.” Have you ever experienced your is-not-ness? ~Anthony De Mello It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void. ~Simon Weil All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind, because there are more plans than it looked for. . . . There seems no plan because it is all plan: there seems no centre because it is all centre. Blessed be He! ~ Yet this seeming also is the end and final cause for which he spreads out time so long and Heaven so deep; lest if we never met the dark, and the road that leads now hither, and the question to which no answer is imaginable, we should have in our minds no likeness of 98

the Abyss of the Father, into which if a creature drop down his thoughts for ever he shall hear no echo return to him. Blessed, blessed, blessed be He! ~ C. S. Lewis, Perelandra

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Chapter 7

The Abyss in me Palm Sunday is a day absolutely drenched in irony. All over Christendom, folks wave palm branches declaring, “Jesus is King!” and remember the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem. On that day, the crowds lined the road into Jerusalem chanting, “Hosanna!” It was a word of praise said to a king. Literally, it means, “Save us, please!” But in just five days, the crowd chants, “Crucify him!” And all of Christ’s disciples desert him. Jesus is riding a donkey into the Abyss. The Abyss On Palm Sunday, as the crowd chants, “Hosanna,” Luke records that Jesus is weeping - weeping because the people are blind to what makes peace. They are blind to Him and so their city Jerusalem will be utterly destroyed. (19:41-44) John records that the crowd came that day because they saw Lazarus raised from the dead (12:18) . . . raised not to eternal life but to more of this life. They came because they thought Jesus would: ü make their lives work: that is, save their flesh and fill their empty stomachs with fish and loaves; ü make their world work: that is, save the old kingdom of Israel, overthrow the Romans, and establish Israel as a world power. ü They thought Jesus would save their dark little universe. They thought they saw Him in His glory. But in five days they would all abandon Him. “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”—no glory there… that’s what they thought. In the Revelation, every creature in Heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea praises the slaughtered lamb on the throne, praises the glory of “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Palm Sunday people wave palm branches, cry “Hosanna,” read the book, get the T-shirt, and are utterly blind to the glory of God. The Glory of God John records that as Jesus entered the city that day, He said, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified.” (12:23) Then He talks about death saying, “Whoever loves his life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” A voice booms from Heaven, and Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth [and He was speaking of His cross], will draw all people to myself.” He then teaches that He is the light. But they cannot perceive the light. They’re 100

blind. They think they see, but they’re blind. John 3:19: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” This is the judgment—the light come into the world—judgment. Judgment Judgment is “krisis” in Greek. It’s where we get our word crisis. It means to separate; judgment; separation. Now our text: Genesis 1:1-4 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep [tehom; abyss]. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. In a world of grey, we need the light separated from the darkness. But God must do it. Is that judgment good news or bad news? In Leviticus (20:24-26), we read that Israel is to separate clean from unclean, holy from unholy: “separate,” same word as used in Genesis 1. The veil in the temple “separated” the Holy of Holies from all else. (Ex. 26:33) Isaiah prophesies that our iniquities have made a “separation” between us and God. (59:1-2) God “separates” the light from the dark. All that same word: badal (Hebrew). Last time we started asking the questions, “What is the dark? Why the dark? And what purpose does it serve?” Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning . . .” Transliterated from the Hebrew, Genesis 1:1 is, “In the beginning of . . .” which leads us to ask the question, “In the beginning of what?” Well, maybe it’s all beginnings, and the beginning of all beginnings—all things: The universe, this world and you.

The Universe You realize that for thousands of years, since Aristotle, intellectuals have argued that the cosmos has no beginning . . . and that matter, space, and time are eternal. So Carl Sagan used to proclaim on PBS in the 1970’s, “The cosmos is all there is, was, or ever shall be.” That’s a bit of a travesty, because just sixty years before, Albert Einstein had postulated the laws of special and general relativity showing that matter, space, and time are not at all constant but are relative to light or the speed of light. Einstein’s theories clearly pointed to an expanding universe. [footnote: or contracting universe] At the time, this so disturbed Einstein that he postulated a “cosmological constant” in order to adjust his calculations and hang onto the myth that the universe is 101

“all there is, was, or ever shall be.” Later Einstein admitted this was the greatest blunder of his career. By the late 1920’s, Edwin Hubble had produced empirical evidence that the universe was expanding; that, in fact, it had a beginning—the Big Bang. The Big Bang is so hard to talk about because it’s the beginning of space and time themselves. So you can’t say, “Before the Big Bang,” for that implies time. And you can’t say, “Outside the Big Bang,” for that implies space. Space and time themselves sprang into existence out of nothing . . . or out of something so beyond (before, after, inside and outside) all our somethings that it appears to be nothing; something utterly different; in Biblical lingo, something holy. And that’s rather fascinating, because for thousands of years theologians have been arguing that the universe was created by the Holy One. But not just made by The Holy One, “created” by the Holy One ex-nihilo, which means “out of nothing.” Yet that nothing, that no-thing, must not be less than something, like a void or a shadow. That nothing must be more than some-thing, like the Creator of all things, the Holy One. In the 16th century, the Jewish rabbi, Isaac Luria, explained creation more as an explosion of nothing in the something, rather than rather than an explosion of something in the nothing. He taught that in the beginning, there was only “Ayn Sof” (it means “the boundless one”), only God—the simple, supernal, infinite light that was all existence with no beginning and no end. Yet in order to create, God (the “Ayn Sof”) had to in some way withdraw His presence (“tzintzum” in Hebrew). He had to withdraw to make space, a void in which He could create.1 So “in the beginning of,” all there was or is, is God. He is “I AM that I AM.” He is “Isness” and “Amness” and “Beingness.” And Scripture reveals that He is Holy, He is Good, and He is Light. He is Love . . . not just loving, but Love. He is all, and that’s not nothing. That’s something! Now this will stretch your brain, but work with me: Imagine what we can’t imagine. Imagine reality (that is God) before the Big Bang. Imagine that He is everything in the “box” below and that there is nothing other than the “box” below. He is everything and everything is Him.

Now, if I draw anything else in this box, on this box, or outside of this box at any time, it must only be “analogous” to this “box.” That’s because all prepositions (like on, in, out, at, before and after) assume space and time…and God has not yet created space 102

and time. Having said that, imagine this: “In the beginning of, God created the heavens and the earth.” The Big Bang is like this:

Do you get the picture? The Big Bang - the creation - is not an explosion of somethingness in the nothingness, but more like an explosion of nothingness in the somethingness; not an explosion of fullness in the emptiness, but an explosion of emptiness in the fullness; not an explosion of light in the dark, but an explosion of dark in the light. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and darkness was on the face of the deep—the tehom—the abyss.” John writes, “God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) Yet Scripture says, “In him we live, move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) And in us who are in God, there is darkness, isn’t there? So the preposition “in” may be part of the problem. Or, perhaps we need to think of our situation this way: We are partly in God and partly not in God; part light and part dark; part somethingness and part nothingness; part good and part evil. In the last chapter we said evil is a darkness. You know that visible light is only one form of light in an immense spectrum of light.2 Well, evil is like an absence, not simply of visible light, but of the light that is God. And sin is choosing the absence or trying to fill the absence with more absence. It’s idolizing the absence: the void. If we surrender the void and look for the light, I think that’s called hope, faith, or even love. But we can’t surrender the void with the void. Even to surrender the void we must be empowered by God. So verse 2b: “The Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters.” The Spirit testifies to the Light: the Light of the world, Jesus. It’s the Spirit that causes us to hope even from the depths of the Abyss… Well hold that thought. As we were saying, “in the beginning of,” darkness was on the face of the tehom. Creation was an explosion of nothingness in the somethingness, like an explosion of “not God” in God, like a womb in God; like a wound in God—a sacrifice of God. 103

I’m trying to say, “It must have ‘hurt’ God to make the universe, the world, and you.” Space for Pain And Space for Love Remember Eve was created from Adam’s wounded side. The Church, the Bride of Christ, is created from Christ’s wounded side - the last Adam’s wounded side. It must “hurt” God to make us and to love us. And if we are to be made in His image, perhaps we must taste that pain to know His joy. “You will be sorrowful (John 16:20-21),” said Jesus, “but your sorrow will turn in to joy. When a woman is giving birth she has sorrow…but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish.” “In the beginning, God.” That’s it. Before space was made, there was only God. Not some dark, cold, nothingness, but light and life itself. And what did God do at the beginning? He made space. He made space within Himself for others to be. The very act of creation itself was sacrificial. God made space—for others to exist. Isn’t that beautiful? My co-pastor Aram Haroutunian, wrote that. Yet what’s the nature of that space? Well, it must be like a womb in God or a wound in God. If you’re a parent, you’ve felt that wound. You made space in your life for children. You made space in your life for pain. But you made the space in hope . . . that one day they’d return your love in your image. If you’ve ever loved someone, you’ve felt that wound. You made space in your life for another: a will that doesn’t necessarily will what you will. You made space in your life for another, which is space for pain, but you made the space in hope of love. God subjected the creation to futility in hope. So in the beginning, God (who is Light) made a void in which there was darkness. And then God spoke a word into that void. His Word, The Seed, He spoke it into the void, like a womb. He said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. In other words, “Let there be Me in the void.” And there was Jesus. He poured Himself into the void. He poured His Glory into the Darkness. Or He is pouring His Glory into the darkness. “God is light.” (1 John 1:5) And Jesus is “the light of the world.” (John 8:12) Those medieval rabbis taught that the light withdrew to make space, and then a beam of light entered that space and made matter. And once again a beam made vessels, and some vessels fell . . . Make of that what you will, but it does sound Biblical and almost scientific. Scientists say that at first the universe was a dark soupy plasma, like dark water. Then as electrons bound to nuclei, photons broke free from matter, and light became visible. Whatever the case, the Universe has been infused with light. And in that Universe, floats our world.

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Take a look at your world floating in space. Do you see the light? Well, actually no… not really. Scientists have been trying to “see it” for decades, and they can’t even tell you what it is: A wave? A particle? It’s like it has a mind of its own. You don’t see light; you see everything else by light. You really can’t “see” light. (Well,…with one exception: we can see “the Light of the world.” John 1:18: He has made “the Light” known.) But now check this out: In the picture, the space where you think there is no light; where you “see” no light; what we perceive as black, nothing, and empty space is actually full of light. And what we do “see” in this picture is not full of light – our world. In other words, you perceive light bouncing off of what is not light. You see the skin of darkness, for where is darkness? It’s underneath the surface of the earth. It’s in the depths of those oceans. It’s in the dark waters—the abyss. We think space is dark, lifeless, empty, and void, and the earth is light, living, full, and solid. It’s matter, and we think matter is what matters.

But perhaps space is light, life, full, and solid—like heaven, and the earth is dark, dead, empty, and void—like hell, Sheol, Tehom, the Abyss.

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Perhaps the earth is like a bubble of dark nothingness floating in a sea of light somethingness. If that’s the case, we live on the skin of this dark bubble between light and dark, heaven and hell, being and non-being, life and death. In what we’ve been told is the antiquated primitive pre-modern cosmology of Scripture, our situation is something like this:

• •

• • • •

Above us is light, and below us is dark. We exist in between, some light and some dark. Above are the “waters” of life that rain down from heaven, and below are the “waters” of chaos, the depths of the sea. We exist in the “expanse” or “firmament” that separates the “waters from the waters” (Gen. 1:6) Above us is the breath, wind, Spirit of God, and below us is dust. We exist in between, like spirit in dust. (Gen. 2:7) Above is heaven and below is Hades. Remember Jesus descended into the depths of the earth and ascended far above the heavens. (Eph. 4:9-10) Above is life and below is death. Above is fullness and below is emptiness.

A few hundred years ago, in the worldview of our forefather’s, this picture of reality made Hell as large as Heaven. (That was never the biblical view, but it may be our view.) Now most of us tend to believe the world isn’t flat but round. So if we gain a larger perspective and extend the lines in the previous diagram, this is what we get:

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Then, we exist on the skin of a dark bubble of nothingness floating in a sea of somethingness. What we think is full is empty; what we think is something is nothing; what we think is real is not really real. We stand on nothing upside down. Modern people say, “How stupid! We’ve been to space and we now know that space is empty because there is no matter there. And the depths of the earth are most full, because matter is so dense down there.” Well, I’m not sure how much of the language in Scripture is to be taken as analogy and how much is not analogy (I suspect less than we think), but did you know scientists are now not only saying that space and time are relative to light, but that matter really doesn’t matter? So what seems to be full is really empty. And what seems to be most empty is profoundly full. I think we all learned in school that atoms are mostly empty. In a hydrogen atom, if the nucleus (a proton and neutron) were the size of a basketball, then the electron would be circling about twenty miles away. The atom is almost entirely empty. Now physicists tell us that those particles in an atom are not actually there… only potentially there and that the perception of an “observer” somehow determines their very existence. In the world of physics that’s old news. A little while ago I watched a rather funky movie with some rather strange ideas. However, they did interview some well known physicists. One in particular caught my attention: Professor Emeritus at Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, William Teller Ph.D. He said: Most people think that the vacuum (space) is empty. But for internal selfconsistency of quantum mechanics and relativity theory, there is required to be the equivalent of 1094 grams of mass energy (per cm3)… Now, that’s a huge number, but what does it mean practically? Practically, if I can assume that the universe is flat (different that the earth being flat)— and more and more astronomical data is showing it’s pretty darn flat—if I can assume that, then if I take the volume, or take the vacuum (empty space) within a single hydrogen atom, that’s about 10-23 cubic centimeters. If I take that amount of vacuum, and I take the latent energy in that, there is a trillion times more energy there than in all of the mass of all of the stars and all of the planets out to 20 billion light years. That’s big.3 107

Did you get that? Do you see what that means? What we think is empty is profoundly full, and what we think is most full is really most empty. Empty space is profoundly full. And the densest matter is least full and most empty. To put it in Bible lingo: •

The heavens are profoundly full. Psalm 8:1: “You, (Oh Lord) have set your glory in the heavens.” The heavens are profoundly full, and the depths of the earth are most empty. Empty is full, and full is empty.

•

Faith, hope, and love are profoundly full and solid. They “abide.” (1 Cor.13:13) Houses, cars, and bank accounts are empty, void and passing away.

•

Things not seen are eternal, and things seen are transient and fading away. (2 Cor. 4:18)

•

Like Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life, and the flesh counts for nothing” (John 6:63 NIV).

•

Breath, wind, spirit are most substantive and most real, while matter or dust is more non-substantive and most unreal.

And what are we? What is Adam? He is breath and dust; spirit and flesh; unseen and seen; light and dark; good and evil; fullness and emptiness. For now, he exists in the separation, the judgment, the expanse in between. Adam and Eve tried to fill the emptiness themselves and only made more emptiness. They judged themselves with themselves. They tried to separate the light and the dark, the good and the evil, and they only made more evil. By taking the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; by taking “the law” in the power of the flesh, they tried to create themselves with themselves and only desecrated themselves. Adam and Eve “R” Us.

The Universe, the World and You… that is “us” •

“In the beginning of” the universe, there is darkness and an abyss. •

In the beginning of our world, there is darkness and an abyss. •

In the beginning of us, there is darkness and something like an abyss. And maybe we’re only just now “in the beginning.” The Abyss in Me

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If I could see the abyss in me; if we could see the emptiness in ourselves, perhaps we could fill it. You can “see” your stomach, and you can fill it with bread or wine. A bride can “see” her womb and fill it with her groom—his seed. Perhaps I’m beginning to “feel” the emptiness and sometimes, even beginning to “see” what it is? We are becoming “hungry” for the food that is Jesus. We are the Bride of Christ beginning to yearn for our Groom and the Word that is seed. But our emptiness isn’t a physical stomach or a physical womb. Our emptiness is ourselves: our lives, our psyche (in Greek), our flesh, our ego, our pride, our Sin. We are empty. And we’re blind and terribly confused, for we’ve thought that darkness is light and light is darkness. We can’t separate them. We’ve thought empty is full and full is empty. We can’t judge them. In fact, for most, emptiness is the only fullness they know and darkness is the only light they see. So when we get a glimpse of the darkness in us it repulses us, but when we get a glimpse of the light it terrifies us even more. For light destroys darkness… and that’s what we think we are. So when the crowd chanted, “Hosanna! Save us, King Jesus!” what did they want saved? Answer: darkness - their old selves, their lives, their psyches, their flesh, their ego, their pride, their Sin, their temple, their city, their country, their world, their universe . . . their emptiness, their void, their Hell. And when the crowd chanted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” what did they want destroyed? Answer: The Light - All being and the ground of all being, The New Creation, their deepest longing, their bridegroom, their substance and sustenance, their new selves… everything that’s anything. That chant is evil. It’s the lure of the void; the power of the abyss. 109

So on Palm Sunday in front of the crowd (John 12), Jesus prophesies His death and says, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” A voice booms from heaven revealing that God will “glorify” His name through Jesus, and then Jesus says, “Now is the judgment of this world.” (12:31) John writes, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light (3:19).” John also writes, “In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness (John 1:4-5).” Every Jew knew that the life was in the blood (Lev. 17:11). When they nailed Jesus to the tree, His blood; His Life; the Light of men; the Light of the world, spilled out into that darkness. The Gory of God spilled out into the Abyss. God is love, and love spilled out is grace. God is light, and light spilled out is Jesus. “He is the radiance of the glory of God.” (Heb. 1:3) At the cross, the glory of God invaded the Abyss. Memorize this fact: All creation is made by grace. If you want to BE, it can only be by grace, God’s grace. How else could it be? You can’t create yourself, except with your self… which is the self you can’t create or the self that is in fact an illusion. You can’t make you. Until you’re at peace with that; until you agree with your creator, you’re trapped in the Abyss God does not create “ex-nihilo” - out of nothing. God creates “ex-Theo” - out of Himself with grace: body broken and blood shed, the Word of God, the Light of the world shining in the darkness, Jesus Christ and Him crucified.4 All creation is made with God’s grace. So God’s grace is the judgment. To reject His grace is to choose desecration and the void. To receive His grace is to be created in His image. “From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace (John 1:16).” Grace. And as we were saying earlier, it’s even grace that causes you to surrender the void; Grace that causes you to see Grace and choose Grace. God is Grace and Jesus makes him known. Jesus bled. And then a thief said “Remember me.” Then a hated Roman Centurion confessed, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” So what are we saying? The light reveals my darkness, judges my darkness, and then fills my darkness: Grace. 1. The cross of Christ reveals my darkness like light defines shadows. In light of the cross, I see my arrogance, self-centeredness, and pride. I wake up in the middle of the night all stressed. I pray for an hour, and I realize I’ve prayed for no one but myself! Even my good deeds are void. 2. The cross reveals my darkness and judges my darkness . . . like the Word (the sword) that separates soul from spirit; that separates my life (my soul) from God’s life (the Spirit). On Good Friday the world rejected God’s life, revealing the judgment: All humanity is dead, blind, and empty. 110

3. The cross reveals my darkness, judges my darkness, and then fills my darkness with light. Scripture tells us that Christ, the radiance of God’s glory, descended into the lower parts of the earth and ascended that He might fill all things—the universe. And Scripture tells us that the whole earth will be filled with the glory of God— the world. (Psalm 72:19, Isaiah 6:3) The universe, the earth, Jerusalem, and the temple will all be filled with glory. And we are being prepared for “an immeasurable weight of glory,” (2 Cor. 4:17)—Me! One the cross, Jesus gives up His blood; His life. And on the cross He gives up His spirit. (Luke 23:46, John 19:30) “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.” - The Holy Spirit. “When we cry ‘Abba Father’ it is the Spirit himself (Romans 8:15-16).” On Pentecost the fire descended; light descended; the Spirit descended and filled the temple; the city; the people of God. We are to “be filled” and to keep on being filled with the Spirit. (Eph. 5:18). We are to be filled with “all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:19) We are like the first fruits of an entire new creation! (James 1:18) The Glory of God in Me So why don’t we always come to the cross, surrender our emptiness, and receive His fullness? The cross hurts. It hurts our flesh, that is, our emptiness. The cross reveals it, judges it, and then fills it. Emptiness that is full is no longer empty. And darkness that is lit is no longer dark. I think we hide our emptiness because we think our emptiness is us; that our flesh is us; that our sins, fears, lusts, and shame are us. Flesh –“R”—Us. You think your flesh is you, and in a way it is. Yet it’s only the beginning of you. It’s the emptiness, the void, the tehom, the abyss – the space in which you are being formed. Evil tells you that the absence is who you are, but it’s only the beginning of who you are. Evil demons will tell you that if you confess your sin to Jesus, that is, surrender your flesh at the cross, you’ll die. That’s partly true. You’ll die, yet you’ll only be dying to your emptiness, for your emptiness will be filled with His fullness. You will lose your life (which is your emptiness), yet you’ll find your life (which is His fullness). Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20) Well, it still looked like Paul—same shape, same form—yet he was an entirely different substance. The Glory of God that is Me I have a friend who is an artist and a sculptor of bronze. When Kent makes a sculpture, he forms it with one substance, then empties it of that substance and replaces it with another substance. II Peter tells us that heaven and earth will be melted with fire, and we await a new heaven and earth in which righteousness dwells: a new substance. (2 Peter 3:7) Well, when Kent makes one of his bronze sculptures, in the beginning he 111

painstakingly carves the figure in wax. Then he encases the wax in a ceramic mold (that’s an earthen vessel). Then he takes the earthen vessel and places it in a fiery kiln. The fire hardens the ceramic clay and melts the wax, leaving a void in the earthen vessel. Paul writes, “We have this treasure in earthen vessel to show that the transcendent power belongs to God.” (2 Cor. 4:7) Well, then Kent takes that empty earthen vessel, the mold, and fills it with liquid bronze. I have a picture of him doing it: fiery brilliant liquid bronze into an empty earthen vessel. It’s permanent. It glows with light . . . burnished bronze like Jesus in Revelation. “His eyes… like a flame of fire. His feet…like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace (Rev. 1:15).” Kent told me that when the bronze solidifies, the earthen vessel (the mold) cracks and is thrown away. What if our body really is a dirt bag; an “earthen vessel”? What if our flesh is like that wax—wax that God will melt away? What if our selfishness, arrogance, and sin form a void? It would be a unique void of unique sins which you now recognize as your self. What if God were to fill that void with Himself? You’d lose your life and then find it. It would still look like you, yet be an entirely new you—shaped like you but made of Him. And He is grace. That makes sense: Your absence gets filled with His presence; your nonsense with His good sense; your dark with His light; your lies with His truth; your death with His life; you nothing with His something. The form of your void becomes the form of His creation. “Where sin increased grace abounded all the more.” So every sin is transformed into His glory; every place of shame is filled with His grace. So the shape of your sin in this world becomes the shape of your glory (His grace) for all time. St. Paul’s glory is to say, “Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me, a murdering Pharisee!” And St. Peter will say, “Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me, a boastful coward!” And you will say, “That’s nothin’! Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me! Let me tell you about it!” And you will each be solid gold, like gleaming bronze, brilliant in glory, in the image of God and the brightness of His glory. “The substance belongs to Christ.” (Col. 2:17) It is the glory of God and you will be full of it: Many persons one substance, in the image of God You know, Jesus came to help us die to ourselves. In Psalm 22, which He quoted on the cross, Jesus says, “My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast.” Jesus came to die for us and die with us, that we might be filled with Him—the radiance of God’s glory, the sun of righteousness, the bright and morning star. Even now His Spirit is hovering over the abyss. So surrender your sin, surrender your emptiness, surrender your self, surrender your world, lose your life. For all this darkness and emptiness, the void you encounter in your world and in your heart, it’s not the end of you; it’s just the beginning. In the beginning . . . the earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God separated the light from the darkness.” 112

In the beginning . . . Jesus took bread and broke it, separated it, saying, “This is my body which is given for you.” Likewise He took the cup saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” It’s poured from his cup into your cup. Why the darkness, emptiness and void? Because you are an earthen cup, a holy grail, prepared to be filled with the glory that is God. ***** A short time after speaking on this topic at church, a friend sent me this letter. In it she shares about an experience in healing prayer: In prayer, God had brought to my memory a deep wound from my childhood about being unwanted. My mother, in fact, had no problem telling me that I was unwanted from as early as I can remember. My Mom had a "nervous breakdown" after she found out she was pregnant with me, which I later came to understand, knowing my mother as I do, was a euphemism for a major temper tantrum. She would always tell me how she asked my sister and 2 brothers how they would like a new baby brother or sister and they all said "No!" My Mom, sister, and brothers told this story every year in front of everyone--nieces, nephews, even my own children--at our annual family reunions and would always laugh about it… I guess they all felt like it was some kind of joke or something and I would always reply wryly, "Well, you pay for your mistakes, don't you?"… I was an overachiever and was the only one in my family to attend college (thus, the quip, "you pay for your mistakes"). The lies and shame of "No one wants you! You are a mistake!" persisted in my life for many years and chewed away deeply at how I looked at myself, others, and, of course, God. In our prayer time, Kaye (my healing prayer minister) asked God if it was true that I wasn't wanted, and that I was a mistake. And He showed me the most amazing thing. What I saw was the Holy Spirit preparing a place for me. It was a dark orb and He hovered over it and touched it here and there. Wherever He had been, the dark orb was covered with light, pure, white, and intense. I was off to the side watching Him. I came to understand that this was my mother's egg and that He was preparing this place just for me. In that place of watching, I cannot describe to you the intensity of everything. First, there was this indescribable peace. Then trust. I just knew that everything I saw was supposed to BE. There was no question or doubt and I freely consented to the Holy Spirit. But the most amazing thing was what I understood about the creativity and purpose of the Holy Spirit. His single intent was to glorify God, to glorify Jesus. And this intention was motivated by this intense love, so much so that His love for God and Christ naturally extended to me. In other words, He was not using me to glorify them. The extension of His love to me glorified us all. 113

His love was so pure and intense and single-minded (a kind of "intense intent") that I knew He was telling me that I was not a mistake, that He intended me, that He created me with love and purpose (which is different than for a purpose), and in that act and my trusting consent, God would be glorified. But He loved me, too. Not a word was spoken, yet I knew, I understood, and I believed the truth. It is no surprise to me that, after that prayer experience, I went home with my children for our family reunion and no one told the story of how I am unwanted in my family. That was the first time ever in my memory that this story was not told. And it was no surprise to me that in your preaching in Genesis, the creation of the earth looked remarkably like my own creation--a void covered with light, surrounded by substance. With the same intent as He created the earth, He created each one of us. In Romans 8:20, Paul tells us that it was God that subjected all creation to futility (chaos) in hope. In 11:32, He sums up his theological arguments in Romans--Which includes the topics of election, predestination, vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy--He sums up his arguments with this statement: “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.” That disobedience is the Abyss. That Mercy is the Glory of God. When you first catch a glimpse of the “abyss in me,” (or you) it’s terrifying. When you first catch a glimpse of God’s Glory it’s even more terrifying. For the Glory reveals, judges and consumes that abyss— the abyss that you thought was you. You are a vessel of wrath; a vessel of “formless and void;” a vessel of the nothingness that the creator fills with His Somethingness; nothingness that He consumes with Himself-- the ‘Consuming Fire.’ You are an old “vessel of wrath” (We “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, Eph. 2:3.”) You are an “old vessel of wrath” that has become a “vessel of Mercy.” When you see the abyss and you sense the wrath, don’t panic. Don’t hide the abyss from the wrath, for the wrath is the leading edge of Mercy… filling the void. Don’t panic. This is the birthplace of the Messiah. This is forgiveness. You are being filled with Grace, and even the process is Grace. God is Grace. He is Love…poured out. “It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void” wrote Simone Weil. We have been saved by Grace through Faith, and this Faith is not of ourselves that none should boast. Salvation is Faith in Grace. Salvation is the “courage to accept acceptance (Paul Tillich).” Salvation is accepting that you have been created: Grace. We are created by Grace through Faith

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1. Rabbi Isaac Luria, “Tzimtzum,” (1534-1572). This has been posted on the inter-net at: http://www.tabick.abel.co.uk/tzimtzum.html. It is an excerpt from: Hayyim Vital (1542-1620), 'Etz Hayyim ('The Tree of Life'), from Gate 1, Branch 2 (Warsaw:1891), p.22. I also found Rabbi Jonathan Spira-Savett’s short explanation of Luria’s teaching in his short article, Rosh Hashanah: Creating the world, Repairing the world, to be quite helpful. This little article is posted at: http://lib2.znate.ru/docs/index-300512.html?page=8 2. Scripture says we are to walk by faith and not by sight. So the light of God is not simply visible light to be perceived with our physical eyes. And faith is like the eyes of the heart which perceive the Light that is God. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23) 3. Dr. William Teller, in and interview for the special features in the DVD version of the movie, What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole, (Beverly Hills: 20th Century Fox, 2004), Disc 3, Side B. 4. Technically, a literal translation of Genesis 1:1 (“In the beginning of the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void.”) does not describe an ex-nihilo creation. Literally and theologically, our origin is not the void, but the Father. 5. Jesus said “Behold I make all things new.” (Rev. 21:5 RSV) I suppose that means all things, but not no things, not nothings – like evil; darkness; death; lies; the void. “Death shall be no more.” (Rev. 21:4). Your sin, your old man will be no more. Evil will be no more. I suppose the Abyss will be no more. I suppose he won’t make no things new OR maybe he will… by turning no things in to some thing and that’s called grace. George McDonald writes, “Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil."

~ Know that before emanations were produced and creatures were created, there was a simple supernal light that filled all existence; and there was no empty space, like a completely empty space or vacuum, but all was filled with that simple infinite light (or, light of the Ayn Sof, the Infinite One). It had no aspect of beginning or end, rather all was one simple light equally distributed, and this is called the light of the Ayn Sof. When it arose in [the Ayn Sof’s] simple will to create worlds . . . The Ayn Sof then concentrated (tzimtzem) Itself in the central point in the actual centre of that light. It concentrated the light and removed it on all sides from around the central point. Then there was an empty space, a complete vacuum, from that actual central point, like this. ~ Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572) Originally, there was only Ayn Sof, the Infinite—all of reality was God. In order for the universe to exist, God had to withdraw from some part of that reality. This metaphorical withdrawal (tzimtzum) left a “place” devoid of God’s presence, where the cosmos could come into being. God did not abandon this empty space, but projected a beam of light, which became a mass without form inside that space. From that mass, all levels of reality came into existence. God at that point injected another ray of light, which began to create “vessels”; these represent facets of God’s activity and God’s qualities, and each contains a portion of that light from Ayn Sof. 115

~ Rabbi Jonathan Spira-Savett Now, with a certainty which never after deserted him, he saw the planets—the ‘earths’ he called them in his thought—as mere holes or gaps in the living heaven—excluded and rejected wastes of heavy matter and murky air, formed not by addition to, but by subtraction from, the surrounding brightness. And yet, he thought, beyond the solar system the brightness ends. Is that the real void, the real death? Unless. . . he groped for the idea. . . Unless visible light is also a hole or gap, a mere diminution of something else, Something that is to bright unchanging heaven as heaven is to the dark, heavy earths. ~ C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known by Jesus Christ. ~ Blaise Pascal “A damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth 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.” “Then no one can ever reach them?” “Only the Greatest of all can make Himself small enough to enter Hell. . . .Only One has descended into Hell.” “And will He ever do so again?” “It was not once long ago that He did it. Time does not work that way when once we have left the Earth. All moments that have been or shall be were, or are, present in the moment of His descending. There is no spirit in prison to whom He did not preach.” ~ C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce In those famous dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena, God is reported to have said to her, “I am He who is; you are she who is not.” Have you ever experienced your is-not-ness? ~Anthony De Mello It is grace that forms the void inside of us and it is grace alone that can fill the void. ~Simon Weil

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Chapter 8

Let There Be Light My Coffin Preaching, to a church, stresses me out and fills me with fear. So a few years ago I preached the first ten minutes of the Easter message from the inside of a coffin. It was a “loaner coffin.” The mortuary would loan it to families for funerals and then after would replace it with a cheaper substitute for burial—it was authentic. During the offertory, a rather somber offertory for Easter, six pall bearers carried the coffin in to the sanctuary and set it on the darkened stage. After a pregnant pause folks could hear my voice coming from my wireless microphone and through the church sound system. This is awesome. Nobody can see me. Nobody knows I’m even here. I’m, invisible. “Yes, we are, my precious.” Mmmm . . . more chips. [I was snacking on chips and folks could hear the munch.] I should have gotten one of these high-tech isolation chambers long ago. All those people . . . stress me out. They think I’m a dork, I know it. Some of them think I’m, like, all holy or something. I bet they’d hate me if they really saw me… Crap! I have to preach to them. Sometimes I just hate my job. But I can’t let anybody know that, because I’m supposed to “rejoice in the Lord always.” I better have another beer. [I popped a pop-top] I can’t talk about God . . . that’s insane. I want to run away. Well, I’d better get my act together. It’s Easter. I’ve got responsibilities. I want to stay here . . . I could die out there . . . it’s safe here . . . it’s dark in here . . . really, really dark in here… and lonely . . . really lonely . . . lonely as hell. I opened the casket lid, then let it slam shut the moment I saw all the people. Then slowly, acting shocked and embarrassed I climbed out. Oh, golly, I’m sorry. I lost track of time. I was just going over my notes in this . . . ah . . . new . . . ah . . . “Sermon Preparation Chamber.” I must have dozed off… and someone moved it?!? I prayed, then, began to Preach: Well, it’s Easter Sunday. Easter is an old Anglo-Saxon word for the pagan festival of the vernal equinox when the sun crossed the equator into the northern hemisphere such that there was more light than dark in each day. When the Church arrived in England, they took over the old pagan name, because Christ’s resurrection is the victory of light over darkness. 117

That victory is eternal. Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep [the abyss]. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

There’s something rather attractive about the dark, isn’t there? I mean, light and life can cause some pain. If only you could manufacture some sort of protective wooden box for your soul . . . if only you could construct some sort of stone enclosure for your heart where you could hide it in the dark . . . “Hiding in my room, safe within my room, (Simon and Garfunkel) I touch no one and no one touches me; I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.” It’s dead. Life hurts . . . and life is love. Remember what C. S. Lewis wrote? To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.1

In his book The Great Divorce, through the character of an angel Lewis writes: Hell is a state of mind-ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind-is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakable remains…A damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessantly . . . their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open . . . their eyes to see. “Then no one can ever reach them?” (someone asks) And the angel replied, “Only the Greatest of all can make Himself small enough to enter Hell. . . . Only One has descended into Hell.”2 Well, life and love are painful, and we hide ourselves in our own hell because it’s easier to just not see. 118

On Paul Harvey news, Lucille Goodyear reported trouble driving home from work. She says, “It used to be easy . . . no traffic problems, no mad rat race. But now, wow! “Cars coming from all directions!” She says it’s been that way ever since she got her new glasses…Easier to just not see. Remember the character “Gollum” in The Lord of the Rings? He has a ring of power that makes him invisible. He murdered his brother to get it and now he hides it and himself, his shame, in the deep dark. The light is pain because it burns his shame. He hides his darkness in more darkness. Tolkien chose the name “Gollum” as a reference to the Hebrew word “Golem.” It means unformed, unfinished substance. The Psalmist wrote: “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance (my ‘golem’).” (Psalm 139:15-16) If we’re still being made in God’s image; being begotten again; born again, perhaps we’re ‘golem.’ We lust for power in order to hide our shame… we hide in this womb of a world…and the longer we hide the deeper we sink into hell. We refuse to be born into the light and have turned this womb of a world into our coffin. I have several friends that were ritually abused as children. I’ve come to believe their stories. It’s too horrid for details here. But one was placed in a coffin with a dead man. One was placed in a freezer with a corpse. Almost all were imprisoned in dark closets or basements and now evil tells them that that’s where they belong; that’s where they’re safe, for they are shame and fear and the light will destroy them. Evil uses the same lie on each of us, even if our means of hiding are not the same. We all want power to hide. Sometimes it’s sex, drugs and Rock and Roll… usually it’s religion. We all hide from light, and what we hide is our shame. We hide in fear, like Adam and Eve in fig leaves and trees; hiding in the “knowledge of good and evil”—the law. We think that knowledge of law is power; that religion is power to cover our shame and make our ‘golem’ invisible to God. The most attractive way to hide a golem, a dark heart, is to hide it with religion. That’s what the Pharisees did. Jesus said they were like white-washed tombs. We hide our darkness by acting a part, impersonating ourselves. And there in that hiding place we’re cut off and alone. In denial and lies, we hide our darkness in more darkness, which only makes the darkness grow. That darkness is death. We hide our death in death. That’s why some try to kill themselves. They’re so afraid of death they seize control with death, which is only more death. We hide our fear of death in death. We hide our darkness in deeper darkness. So in summary, why do we hate the light? Because it exposes our death . . . which we pretend is life. On Easter I picked up a spotlight and shined it on the congregation. “You don’t like this light shining in your eyes, do you?” Everyone clinched their eyes. “It burns doesn’t it?” “So how do we hide from the light? We shut our eyes. All we have to do is shut our eyes.” “The light burns… so we don’t believe it’s good” 119

Genesis 1:2-4 Darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. God saw that it was beautiful. God says, “Let there be,” not “there must be.” It’s not like He’s shining the light in your face whether you want it or not. He wants you to let there be light. He wants you to want Him. He is the light. I think that’s why He doesn’t normally overpower us with bright lights and mindboggling miracles. He wants us to want Him. I think we call that “faith.” He wants us to “walk by faith and not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7) That must mean there’s more light than just visible light and we must see that light with the “eyes of our heart” (Eph. 1:18) that is “faith.” So you may be physically blind yet see better than anyone. Well, God says, “Let there be light,” and He sees that the light is good. He wants you to “let there be light” because you see that the light is good. Let there be light I ran an experiment on the congregation. I said, “Turn to your neighbor. Close your eyes. Now, give your neighbor a high five. And if it didn’t work, (keeping your eyes closed) try harder. Swing harder! Try harder!” Church got ugly, real fast. You know, giving someone a high five is good. It’s a way to communicate joy and even love. But the harder people tried to be good, the less it was good and the more it got bad. So I said, “OK, try this: Open your eyes, turn to your neighbor, and try again.” And we saw that it was good. God tells us to be good, and I think we each want to be good. But we walk in darkness and can’t see the good. So the harder we try to be good, the more we’re bad. Much of the time the Church just makes it worse, because we stand around yelling at blind people: “You’re not good! Try harder! Try harder!” But we’re not supposed to yell; we’re supposed to shine the light. So if you’re new to the whole Christian thing, I want to apologize on behalf of the church. I’m sorry that we’ve been doing so much yelling and so little shining the light. Light can burn, but light is good. So, “let there be light.” But what is light? Scientists are utterly baffled by light. It behaves like a particle (mass) and it behaves like a wave (energy). And whether it behaves like a particle or a wave depends on what you’re thinking. It’s like light can read your mind. Well, maybe light isn’t simply a particle or a wave, mass or energy. Maybe light is a person: not a what but a who. Remember that Scripture says, “God is light,” and “Jesus is the light of the world.” So when God says, “Let there be light,” He’s saying, “Let there be me in the darkness.” God is Light

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As we already discussed, “The light shines in the darkness.” But thankfully that light doesn’t shine at full strength—not at first. Scripture reveals that Jesus “emptied” Himself when He came into this world. (Phil. 2:7) You realize that if you stare at the sun in full strength, it will fry your eyes. And you won’t be able to see its glory at all. However, you can stare at a single flame in the dark and see that it’s good—beautiful. The light shines in the darkness. Jesus is the Light of the World In this world, there was never ever a place darker than the edge of Mt. Zion at the Hill of the Skull, 2,000 years ago on a Friday between high noon and 3:00. The darkness does not get deeper than the moment in which the creation rejects and crucifies its Creator. And yet, in that moment, the light shines more wondrously than anywhere else in all creation. And if we see Him there, perhaps we can see Him everywhere. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” As we crucified Him, the life spilled out; the blood spilled out; the light was revealed. And what is the light? The light is steadfast love; unending mercy; absolute, unquenchable grace. And who is the light? The light is God, and God is love. And Jesus the Christ, the radiance of God’s glory, He has made Him known. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. All the darkness in the world cannot overcome the light of a single flame. That’s because darkness is an absence, and light is a substance. Evil is an absence, and goodness is substance. God is substance. This is the creation story in the Gospel of John: John 1:1-5, 9-14, 16-18 RSV In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. . . .The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. . .And from his fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses (“Try harder! Try harder!); grace and truth came through Jesus Chris (The Light). No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. Well, to say, “Let there be light” is to say, “Let there be Jesus.” And can you see? He’s good.

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The Light is good “The light shines in the darkness.” On the cross, Jesus emptied Himself and bore our sin, experienced our shame, suffered our isolation, and descended into our death. See it? “The light shines in the darkness.” The light is good. Yet we worry that the darkness wins. In this world the good doesn’t seem to win. We think the darkness wins, so we make a “covenant with death.” We trust death, climb into our coffins, and hide from light and life and love. We think death wins, for we only see as far as the edge of the grave. But death doesn’t win! Death, darkness, lies, and evil always and forever lose. As Jesus dies He cries out, “It is finished!” The earth shakes, the veil rips and tombs are opened. And on the third day, Jesus’ tomb is opened and the Light walks out. And now He tells you in Revelation 21:4-6: Death shall be no more . . . “Behold, I make all things new. . . . It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” In other words, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The Light always wins. Even when He loses, He wins; especially when He loses, He wins. “Where sin increased grace abounded all the more (Romans 5:20).” On the cross, Jesus didn’t just descend into one tomb, one grave; on the cross, Jesus descended into Hell. I think He descended into every tomb, every grave. I think that’s every Hell. Like Paul wrote, “He who descended is he who ascended far above the heavens that he might fill all things.” Did you get that? All things. In The Great Divorce, the angel says, Only One has descended into Hell." “And will He ever do so again?” asks the traveler. “It was not once long ago that He did it. Time does not work that way when once we have left the Earth. All moments that have been or shall be were, or are, present in the moment of His descending. There is no spirit in prison to whom He did not preach.” Do you realize that the gospel “has been preached to every creature under heaven.”? If Scripture is true, it has. (Col. 1:23) So light doesn’t just shine in some darkness 2,000 years ago on a Friday; light shines in your darkness now. So if you don’t see the light, what’s the problem? Perhaps you don’t trust that the light is good. So… Perhaps you won’t agree with God and say, “Let there be light.” Perhaps the eyes of your heart are shut, because Perhaps you’re too afraid to open them. You think the light will only burn and never heal. You think the darkness wins. But “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.” The darkness is temporal. 122

The Light is eternal. There is at least one more amazing thing about light. Turn on a light and time how long it takes to get from the bulb to the wall. Did you notice? It’s fast. It was moving at 186,000 miles per second! And no matter how many times you measure it; no matter how fast you’re moving when you measure it, it will still move at 186,000 miles a second relative to you. Albert Einstein discovered that the speed of light is a constant. Now, that’s totally counter-intuitive, but it means this: If the speed of light is a constant, space and time are not constant. Time is relative. So as I move relative to you, time slows down for me and speeds up for you. If I were to travel into space at 130,000 miles per second and then return in ten years, ten years would have passed for me, but twenty years would have passed for you. You’d be ten years older than me. Theoretically, if I could travel at the speed of light, time for me would stop. It would always be NOW. And all your life would be eternally present to me—past, present, and future—NOW. I’d see your whole life in the eternal NOW. I can’t travel at the speed of light. But light can and does. In The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene writes, “Light does not get old. A photon that emerged from the Big Bang is the same age today as it was then.” A photon is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Light is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). So when He looks at you, He sees all of you: yesterday, today, and forever. And when He forgives you, it’s all of you. He’s never surprised by you. Light is eternal. God is eternal. Love is eternal. Jesus is eternal. So when He gives you His life, it’s eternal. God said to Moses, “My name is I AM THAT I AM (Ex. 3:14 KJV).” Jesus said to some Pharisees, “Before Abraham was, I AM (John 8:58).” And Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life (John 6:54).” When we come to the cross, we come to eternity. The cross is the point where eternity invades all temporality and fills it with life, with meaning and with plot. So when Jesus cries “It is finished,” I think He means all is finished: all time is finished, all creation is finished, all atonement is finished, and all of you is finished—in the End. He is the End. So, when He died on the cross for your sins… Which sins did He die for? Was it only the ones you’ve confessed up till now? So you worry that if He knew this or 123

that about your past the deal would be off? If you hide a sin in the past, you just build a coffin for yourself now. You close your eyes to the light and climb in . . . even though He has forgiven all your sins in the past. Is it only our sins in the past that He’s forgiven? Such that you have to worry about failing in the future? If you do worry, you only build a coffin for yourself now and then climb in . . . even though He has already died for the sins you’ll commit tomorrow. He already knows: If you fail tomorrow, He won’t say, “Oh no!—I forgot that one.” “There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” writes Paul. (Romans 8:1) I think He means no condemnation. Remember? You are already “seated in the heavenly places with Christ.” (Eph. 2:6) So when God forgives your sins, He forgives all your sins. And when the Light descends into darkness, He descends into all your darkness. He is the end of all darkness and all time. Grace is Eternal Grace never comes to an end, because it is the End; Jesus is the End. Time comes to an end. (Rev. 10:6 KJV) “The Ages” come to an end. (1 Cor. 10:11) Death comes to an end. (Rev. 21:4) The Wrath of God comes to an end. (Rev. 15:1) But Grace that is Mercy that is Love never comes to an End. (Lam. 3:22) It burns away evil, and as it does so, it is known as wrath. But when the darkness is gone, there is no evil left to burn. Creatures filled with fire are not burned by the fire. (Daniel 3) God is Fire (Hebrews 12:23) and He will fill all things. (Eph. 1:23, 4:10) And then we’ll see: What we once called wrath was the burning edge of Mercy. God is Mercy. God is the End. Jesus is the End. “Jesus is the Beginning and the End.” (Rev. 22:13) He is the End and the Beginning of You. And that means all darkness is Easter just waiting to happen. And all your darkness is Easter just waiting to happen. In every dark corner of your life, Jesus is waiting for you to open your eyes because you have come to believe that the Light is good. Open your eyes and look at Him. Your scars are on His body. Your wounds are on His hands, feet, and side. He has descended into your every sorrow, every wound and born them in endless mercy. Easter is everywhere just waiting to happen So Mary went to the tomb on Easter morning. It was the darkest corner of her life. There was no darker place in all the world. It was Jesus’ tomb and her tomb: the death of her hopes and dreams—the death of God. But she went to that place and in that place she 124

saw the Light. She saw Jesus… there. Remember the story? He was risen . . . but Mary was still in the grave. He was there . . . but Mary couldn’t see Him. The eyes of her heart were shut in pain, shame, and fear. She thought He was the gardener until He said, “Mary” and opened her eyes. The Light shone in her darkness, and everything changed. He then showed His wounds to the disciples. They saw that the light is good and said, “Let there be light!” That place of greatest pain, shame, and fear became the place of unspeakable glory: The cross of Christ. Julian of Norwich writes that Jesus revealed this to her: “Since I have turned the greatest possible harm into good, it is my will that you should know from this that I shall turn all lesser evil into good.” When the light shines in the darkness, it turns evil into good. “When anything is exposed by the light, it becomes… light (Eph. 5:13-14).” Light turns our pain, shame, and fear into the revelation of God’s mercy. He turns sin into grace. He turns grief into Gospel. He turns darkness into light. Light reveals meaning, and Jesus is the meaning of all things. If you thought you had no Father, shine the light. You’ll see God is your Father. If you thought you had no husband, shine the light. You’ll see Jesus is your husband. If you thought you were alone, shine the light. You’ll see His Spirit is in you. If you thought you were forsaken, shine the light. You’ll see He will never forsake you. If you thought you were nobody, shine the light. You’ll see you are God’s Body. If you thought darkness wins, shine the light. You’ll see the Light works all things for good. If you thought you were darkness, shine the light. You’ll see that you are “light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8).” He changes the meaning of your past, so you’re no longer stuck in shame. He changes the meaning of your future, so you’re no longer imprisoned in fear. For some reason, along with my wife, God has given me the incredible privilege of praying for some severely abused friends. Time and time again in prayer, through visions, he takes them back to lies, placed within them through abuse in the past. Each time, the key to there healing is to open their eyes and see Him, The Light, in that place of darkness, fear and pain. Each time He’s there, in the coffin, in the box, in the closet, in the basement, in the abyss. And each time the battle is with shame. Each time the battle is for faith to open the eyes and see the light of Glory and Mercy. Each time the Spirit must grant that faith. But when that happens, even though the events remain the same, they entirely change. Good Friday becomes Easter. That Hell no longer means they’re 125

unloved, that Hell becomes a demonstration of Love, for Jesus bears it with them and for them, because he so relentlessly loves them. In fact it’s no longer their Hell, it becomes Jesus’ Hell and they taste His sufferings—sufferings which He bears for all humanity. They know Him as none other. But through knowing Him NOW, He changes the meaning of the past…or better reveals the meaning of the past. NOW, He opens their eyes to the past and He is the meaning of the past. NOW He opens their eyes to the future and He is the future. Free from the past, no longer terrified of the future, they’re free to live NOW. Life is NOW. Light is Eternal, which means that for Light, it is always NOW. Light is “I AM.” NOW is where Light is; where eternity is. The present is the moment that eternity touches time and gives it meaning. NOW is where I know God. God is light, and God is person. I can know about a person in the past, and I can imagine a person in the future, but I can only know a person NOW in the present. Knowing Him NOW, He may reveal his light in all my time: past, present and future, but I know Him NOW. He is NOW. “Behold now is the favorable time, now is the day of Salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2) Jesus prayed, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) When I know Jesus now, I have eternal life now. The Spirit’s hovering over my darkness; the Light has already descended into my darkness. To know Him now, I only have to speak to Him now; see Him now, with the eyes of my heart. He died so that no matter where I am, I can talk to Him, be with Him, now… even in the darkest darkness. Talk to Him NOW. Years ago at a conference in Canada I told God that I was leaving the ministry. I’d had it. He didn’t talk to me and He didn’t care about me… I thought. But that day He spoke to me. I heard Him. It was during a little prayer time at the end of a lecture, holding hands with a huge Pentecostal Native American man and a little old Roman Catholic lady (The Church). As soon as we started to pray I heard the words, the only time I’ve ever heard words in my head. He said, “Peter, you don’t love my bride very much do you?” In an instant, I realized that I had gone into the ministry because I hated The Church. When I was a young man, I watched my Father tried on “the floor of the Presbytery,” the governing body in his denomination. My Father was a Pastor. I loved him dearly. He was more like Jesus, at least in my mind, than any man I’ve ever known. They slandered him and removed him and I think I secretly vowed to vindicate him and never let it happen to me. On the floor in a hotel ballroom in Canada, my Father in Heaven, revealed to me my heart--the abyss in my heart. I’d gone into the ministry to “show ‘em,” “get even with ‘em,” and protect me. I was ministering out of my own coffin. “Peter you don’t love my bride very much, do you?” And yet there was no condemnation. It was the deepest compassion. He felt “sorry” for me. He “hurt” for me. I 126

closed the eyes in my head and opened the eyes of my heart. I lay on the floor and wept and wept and wept… and it was profoundly sweet. The Light was Good. That evening, my Roman Catholic friend prayed for me again. To make a long story short, I found myself literally pinned to the floor. I couldn’t get up, and it felt like a million volts of electricity coursed through my body. I said to this little old Roman Catholic lady who was praying for me, “Jesus just called me a dork!” (This time I didn’t ‘hear the words,’ but I knew what He was saying.) “A dork” …She said, “Oh, He wouldn’t call you that!” But I believe He did. He was speaking my language. He was saying, “Stop being a dork and doubting my love for you.” For in that moment, the veil was ripped; light was everywhere. I thanked Him for everything, for I saw that He was everywhere in my life working and had been everywhere in my life working—everywhere working: wherever I thought of Him, sought Him, desired Him it was Him. And even in, perhaps especially in, my darkness He was there… working. He was in my coffin… with me, Emmanuel, all along. He called me using my bad motives, for perhaps bad motives were the only motives available at the time. Yet my bad motives formed a space for His good motive: Grace. My coffin was a womb; my coffin of sorrow only prepared me for a resurrection of Joy. In fact, I experienced so much Joy in those moments pinned to the floor, I actually thought, I might die. The light was so brilliant I remember thinking, “I may die. If He reveals more, I will die.” And yet my heart said “Let there be Light!” For I knew it would be the death of death; death consumed by life. I knew: The Light is Good. Well He didn’t kill me… and yet He did, and still is. The very thing that happened to my father happened to me, and in a very miraculous and parallel sort of way. My Dad’s passed on, and I’m in new church now, as He was in a new church then. And this happened by accident—accident on my part—but not on God’s part: For a year and a half my new church met in the very room in which my father was tried and I silently vowed to never let it happen to me. Every Sunday night, for over a year, I stood in the very same spot I saw my father tried and from that very spot I’d preach the Gospel of Grace: The Light shining from my personal abyss—my good Friday, turning into Easter. God is filling “my time” with new and deeper meaning; He is redeeming my time; He is filling my story with His Story—History… or opening my eyes to see His story already in my story… or my story in His. My coffin is a womb. Yet I still have to battle the darkness. All the things I said in the coffin at the start of the Easter service are still basically true today . . . except I’ve learned not to say them to myself in the dark. I’m learning to say them to Jesus, the Light in my dark. So I speak to Him NOW, wherever I am NOW, especially in the coffin … • • • • • • •

I tell Him, “They think I’m a dork,” and He says, “They thought I was a dork too.” I tell Him, “I’m ashamed of my past,” and He says, “You’re forgiven.” I tell Him, “I’m scared of the future,” and He says, “Peter, I’m your future.” I tell Him, “I can’t do it,” and He says, “I know, but I can.” I tell Him, “I want to get drunk on a beach,” and He says, “I know. Be filled with my Spirit. I tell Him, “I’m lonely,” and He says, “Let’s be lonely together.” I tell Him, “They kicked me out!” and He reminds me, “They will put you out of the 127

• •

synagogues. Indeed the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think He is offering service to God.” (John 16:2) I tell Him, “I’m getting crucified!” He tells me, “See? I’m making you like myself.” “My story is your story, little brother.” I say, “I hate my job,” and I think He says, “I know. In a garden I did too. But your job is my job. Every real job is my job.” …And then I love my job, and it’s not a job but a calling. All my sorrow is being and will be resurrected as Joy… our Joy. So I step out of the coffin, NOW. My coffin is a womb.

I walk with Him; I talk with Him. I die with Him and rise with Him. I’m born with Him. “No longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”—the Light in me. “My outer nature is wasting away; my inner nature is being renewed every day.” (Gal. 2:20, 2 Cor. 4:16) One day they’ll actually lay this old body in a coffin. But I don’t need to fear that day. I’ve already been through it a thousand times. And it’s not the end; it’s just the beginning. In the beginning . . . darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” Each of you has a coffin. I just told you about mine. Don’t stay in yours. The Spirit is hovering over the darkness. The Light has already descended into the darkness. The Light is good. Say: “Let there be light . . . in my coffin.”

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1.

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1960),

169. 2.

C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, (New York: MacMillian, 1946), 69, 123-124.

~ Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past... ! ~Job 14:13 Deep, deep down, underground in a cave, isolated, alone, by the dark water lived old Gollum. He was a Gollum as dark as darkness… In his hiding place he had a ring--a ring of power. If you slipped it on, you were invisible, only in full sunlight to be seen, and then only as a shadow. When he was very, very hungry wearing the ring, he might even venture into torchlight, which made his eyes blink and smart, but he would be safe. Oh yes, quite safe. No one would see him till he had his finger on their throat. Quite safe. “Yes,” he whispered to himself. “It won’t see us will it, my precious? No.” ~ J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed [Hebrew: Golem]. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. ~ Psalm 139:15-16 (NKJV) ..again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” ~ Hebrews 4:6-7 Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. ~ Albert Einstein, at Niels Bohr’s funeral Time is relative to motion and at the speed of light, time as an inexorable flow of successive events ceases to exist at all. At the speed of light, everything is caught up in an eternal now. The temporal is caught up in the eternal. ~ Tony Campolo, A Reasonable Faith The riddle of the present is the deepest of all the riddles of time. Again, there is no answer except from that which comprises all time and lies beyond it—the eternal. Whenever we say “now” or “today,” we stop the flux of time for us. We accept the present and do not care that it is gone in the moment that we accept it. We live in it and it is renewed for us in every new “present.” This is possible because every moment of time reaches into the eternal. It is the eternal that stops the flux of time for us. It is the eternal “now” which provides for us a temporal “now.” We live so long as “it is still today”—in the words of the letter to the Hebrews. Not everybody, and nobody all the time, is aware of this “eternal now” in the temporal “now.” But sometimes it breaks 129

powerfully into our consciousness and gives us the certainty of the eternal, of a dimension of time which cuts into time and gives us our time. ~ Paul Tillich, The Eternal NOW The humans live in time, but our Enemy [God] destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity… Our business is to get them away from the eternal and from the Present. . . . We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the Future every real gift which is offered them in the Present. ~ C. S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters Eternal life is now. We’re surrounded by it, like the fish in the ocean, but we have no notion about it at all. ~ Anthony De Mello, Awareness . . . His love never allows our time to be lost. ~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love Everything belongs; God uses everything. There are no dead-ends. There is no wasted energy. Everything is recycled. Sin history and salvation history are two sides of one coin. . . . St. Augustine says, “In my deepest wound I see your glory and it dazzles me.” ~Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs Time does not exist, Barth concludes, apart from eternity's embrace. Eternity embraces time on all sides, preceding, accompanying, and fulfilling it. To say that God is eternal means that God is "the One who is and rules before time, in time, and again after time, the One who is not conditioned by time, but conditions it absolutely in his freedom" (II/1, p. 619). . . . God's eternity is so to speak the companion of time, or rather it is itself accompanied by time in such a way that in this occurrence time acquires its hidden center, and therefore both backwards and forwards its significance, its content, its source and its goal, but also continually its significant present. Because, in this occurrence, eternity assumes the form of a temporal present, all time, without ceasing to be time, is no more empty time, or without eternity. It has become new. This means that in and with this present, eternity creates in time real past and real future, distinguishes between them, and is itself the bridge and way from the one to the other. Jesus Christ is the way." (II/1, p. 627) The real future that eternity creates in time is the future of eternal life in communion with God. The real past, in turn, is the past of sin and death as abolished in the cross of Christ. This old reality of sin and death is "continually opposed" by the new reality of eternal life, even as the new reality "comes breaking in triumphantly" again and again (II/1, p. 628). Jesus Christ stands between the old reality and the new. "In him the equilibrium between them has been upset and ended. He is the way from the one to the other and the way is irreversible. He is the turning." (II/1, p. 628). ~ George Hunsinger, Disruptive Grace, p. 205, 207

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Chapter 9

Home “Are we there yet?” Genesis 1:6-10 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. God separates the waters above from the waters below. He judges between heaven and hell. And then God separates the waters below. He separates tehom, the waters of chaos, and “dry land” or “ground” appears (yabbashah). “Yabbashah” is a Hebrew word used just fourteen times in Scripture, but in critical places. God calls yabbashah “eretz.” Sometimes that Hebrew word is translated “earth,” like it is here in the ESV, but usually it’s translated “land.” And the Hebrew mind automatically thinks Israel: “Eretz Israel.” Old Testament scholar John Sailhamer argues that this is the way early Jewish interpreters understood these verses, such that Genesis 1:1 states that God created all things, but Genesis 1:2-2:3 are not about the creation of all things so much as about the creation of the land of Israel. [footnote: Genesis Unbound by Sailhammer] Well, it seems from scriptures like Exodus 20:11 and Jeremiah 27:5-6 that, among other things, the first chapter of Genesis refers to both: A. The creation of all things and… B. The creation of Eden… which according to some [footnote: Sailhammer], has basically the same boundaries as the land of Israel. Remember, Genesis is given first to pilgrims on a journey home to a land they had never seen. A few years ago, along with my Arab friend, George, and a Jewish guide named Amir, I helped lead a tour of Israel for people in my church. As we approached the Wailing Wall We saw a sign. It read (in part): Jewish tradition teaches that the Temple Mount is the focal point of Creation. In the center of the mountain lies the “Foundation Stone” of the world. Here Adam came into being. Here Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob served God. The First and Second Temples were built upon this mountain. The Ark of the Covenant was set upon the Foundation Stone itself. 131

Isn’t that incredible? It sounds like home… for everybody Home Well, we had a great trip. I recommend it for all, for it gives you an incredible perspective upon Scripture. We went to Gallilee: Nazareth, Capernaum—places that Jesus would call home. We also went to the temple mount and saw the remains of what Jesus called his “Father’s house.” I have pictures of immense stones lying on pavement upon which Jesus once walked. They were pushed off the edge of the Temple Mount in 70 A.D. by Romans. It was just as Jesus prophesied: In one generation not one stone left on top of another, and the Jews would be sent into exile. From the steps of the temple, where Jesus taught we would look down into the valley of Gehenna. Ominous clouds of smoke rose from that valley—some folks were having a picnic and barbecuing chicken. In Jesus day, the blood of sacrifice, would run down from the temple mount into the Kidron Valley, where it would converge with Gehenna, and then flow all the way down into the Dead Sea, the abyss, the lowest spot on the planet earth, tehom—“the deep” From Masada, we could see all of that sea. It has shrunk into two seas today. That’s due to industrial evaporation ponds in the south. Our Jewish tour guide explained that this was like a partial fulfillment of Ezekiel 47 in which Ezekiel sees water running from the Temple Mount into the Dead Sea, making it fresh and teaming with life rather than death, darkness and chaos. Our guide said it was partial fulfillment, because Ezekiel says part will be left for salt. And that would be the evaporation ponds to the south. The Old Testament foretells the return of the children of Israel to the land, and many think those prophecies were fulfilled or are being fulfilled since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948. They call it Aliyah. It means “ascent” and refers to the return of the exiles to their homeland--the “land flowing with milk and honey.” Twelve times the Old Testament refers to “a land flowing with milk and honey”:

On the last day, I found it: milk and honey at a mini-mart. Now, people will say, “Flowing with milk and honey is a metaphor.” Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. Either way, the mini-mart was a disappointment next to the prophecies of Ezekiel and Isaiah. 132

We call the land, “the Holy Land,” and I did find some holy things. They were sold in the gift shop at the hotel: olive wood Jesus heads, three types of anointing oil, “light of Jerusalem” candles, Baby Jesus in a plastic bag—slightly creepy, Jesus and His disciples holy shot glass—I think it neutralizes whiskey, and of course, 100% kosher underwear. We also saw a “Holy Rock Café,” some “Holy Bagels,” and we walked on “holy stairs” where Jesus supposedly walked—yet the stairs themselves didn’t seem particularly holy. God’s holiness is hesed (Hebrew). It means, steadfast love, relentless love, mercy. “Holy Land” is Mercy Land. Psalm 37 and Matthew 5 both state, “The meek shall inherit the land.” But not everyone agrees with that philosophy. It seems that it’s not the meek who inherit the land but the folks with the strongest Air Force. They were selling a T-shirt in the gift shop. On it was a picture of a fighter plane and these words: “America Don’t Worry. Israel is behind you.” Now, please don’t be mad—I realize that Israel is a hot topic—just acknowledge a wee bit of irony. You know, Jerusalem means “City of Peace.” Arguably she’s seen more violence than any city in the world. I have a picture of the Jerusalem city gates. They’re absolutely riddled with bullet holes. Isaiah prophesies a return to the land in Isaiah 60. He says of Jerusalem, “Your gates shall be open continually; day and night they shall not be shut that people may bring you the wealth of the nations (v.11).” Some gates were open, but some were shut. For Americans, the gate was open. But, the gate leading to, or from, Bethlehem was shut. A huge “dividing wall” separates Jerusalem from Bethlehem, so that people like Bishara Awad can’t get in. It’s not the first time someone from Bethlehem was rejected by Jerusalem. He’s “exiled” from “the land” because of his race and religion. He’s a Palestinian Christian and the President of the Bethlehem Bible College… ironic. Now, I realize the issues are complex. We were able to cross the wall and meet with Bishara, but our Jewish guide could not. And don’t be too judgmental. Israel needs that dividing wall of hostility, to guard themselves from terrorists and to save their own lives… that should sound familiar. Over the gate to the Holocaust Museum is inscribed the prophecy of Ezekiel: “I will put my breath into you and you shall live again. I will set you on your own soil.” (from Ezek. 37:14) Ezekiel also prophesies the return of the house of Israel to the land in chapter 36. He writes that “on that day” (v.33) —the day that God causes the cities to be inhabited, the waste places to be rebuilt, the desolate land to be cultivated and foreigners to say, “this is like Eden” (v.35)—“on that day” He will also give them a “new heart” . . . and take away their “heart of stone.” (v.26) Then the nations, the gentiles, will know “I am the Lord.” (v. 36) He says, “I will do it.” “I WILL DO IT.” Well historians argue that Israel, Great Britain, the U.S. and sometimes the U.N. “did it.” And I was expecting a little more from “Eden.” And not everyone there had, what I think Ezekiel would call, a “new heart”…, which made me doubt that this day is that day—that day that Ezekiel prophesied about. Now listen, I’m certainly not just talking about Jews praying at dead stones in the Wailing Wall. And I’m not just talking about Moslems strapping bombs to their bodies. I’m talking about Christians with stone hearts. In Capernaum we visited, what is believed to be, the remains of St. Peter’s house. 133

On stilts, built directly above it is a Roman Catholic Church. To me, the message was clear: “St. Peter belongs to us.” Nearby is a version built by the Orthodox Church, for they think St. Peter belongs to them. In Bethlehem, we visited the Church of the Holy Nativity. It’s divided into three parts: Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. Amir, our Messianic Jewish tour guide, told us that once he walked in to see a chair flying across the room. The priests were fighting because one group prayed three minutes longer than their allotted time. We also visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many believe Jesus was crucified and placed in the tomb. On the second floor of the church there is a ladder that’s been leaning against an outside window for something like 200 years. To move it would be to break a peace treaty between the Orthodox and Catholic priests who occupy the building. Our tour guide told us that a Muslim family holds the only keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For hundreds of years ago the fighting Orthodox and Catholic priests agreed to a truce and gave the keys of the church to Muslims . . . since neither Christian sect could trust the other. So every morning a Muslim comes and unlocks the doors to the church so the Christians can go “in and out and find pasture.” And now, if you think those Old World Catholics and Orthodox are so carnal in their childish attempt to conquer and occupy the Holy Land, check out the US Military Aid Budget for the country of Israel. OK! That’s a bit controversial… So check out the inscription I found on a stone pillar in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, directly across from the traditional tomb of Jesus: in magic marker, someone named Ray, from California, had signed and dated the ancient stone pillar.

Now, you may make the very biblical argument that the Church is the living heir to the twelve apostles—the “true Israel”—and the argument that we are that Church. Yet this is not the way we, the Church, are to “occupy the land.” We saw a sign on the outside of the old stone Church of All Nations, adjacent to the Garden of Gethsemane, it read: “Please: No Explanations Inside The Church.” That makes sense. Someone needs to control the story. We don’t want any of those stones coming to life and telling the story: the Gospel story. How Jesus entered the city and conquered “the land.” Ezekiel 36:26, 33: “I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you… On the day that I cleanse you from all 134

your iniquities . . . .” Well, it just makes a fellow wonder if this is that day. . . or if this is the land Ezekiel was speaking of. Some Orthodox and ultra Orthodox Jews say this is not that day, and the secular state of Israel is really not that land. They argue that only the Messiah can establish the kingdom and bring the exiles, the pilgrims, and the sojourners home. “For it’s not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.” (Zech. 4:6) Well, you can agree or disagree with that. But I think we can all understand why so many Jews are so desperate for a homeland. For 2,000 years since 70 A.D., they have been exiled from the land. For much of that time, they’ve been persecuted, abused, and murdered by the Church—the Church that is called by the Jewish Messiah to love the Jews! Most recently, 6 million people of Jewish descent (not necessarily faith, but descent), were tortured and murdered by Nazis. No wonder they’re desperate for a homeland—a home! Can you relate to that? My Home When I was a young boy, I didn’t fit in at school. I was an uncoordinated, preacher’s kid who got picked on a lot. I was exiled a lot. Every day I couldn’t wait to get home. I fit there; I belonged there; a place was prepared for me there: my own room, my drum light, my soldier lamp, my rock collection, and my metal dinosaurs from the Museum of Natural History; my sanctuary, my bed, my room, my home, my father’s lap. I remember I’d sit on my father’s lap and everything was good. I experienced shalom—peace, and I could rest. I still wish I could go home to 6875 South Prince Circle, sit on my father’s lap and tell him my struggles. But we sold the house long ago, the dinosaurs are in a box in my basement, and my dad is dead. They say you can never go home, and I think that would mean you can never rest—shabbott—sabbath. “You can never go home.” Well, 3,500 years ago an entire nation of slaves, wandering in the wilderness, wanted to go home . . . but they weren’t sure where home was. When things got tough, they wanted to go back to Egypt, and if not that, just stay where they were—it was good enough. Stay on the east side of the Jordan, settle down in the wilderness, and pretend: “This is home.” They longed for a home. But unless they surrendered their wilderness home of illusions and lies, they could never occupy their true home flowing with milk and honey. Genesis is first addressed to those pilgrims, exiles, and sojourners . . . homeless ex-slaves wandering in the wilderness, longing for a homeland where “everything is very good” and they can rest, have deep rest, shabbott, stop, Sabbath—the 7th day. In previous chapters we realized that we haven’t gotten there yet, that according 135

to modern physicists and the ancient biblical texts, the universe is not quite, or just barely, seven days old. Therefore we are, in fact, on a journey toward the seventh day (the kingdom of heaven). And so we are, in fact, still being made in the image of God. And therefore we are, in fact, pilgrims, exiles, and sojourners . . . not staying here but traveling through on our way toward our promised land—the new heaven and new earth, wherein righteousness dwells and “everything is very good.” So Moses tells them that on the third day God said: “‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land (yabbashah) appear.’ And it was so. God called the yabbashah Eretz. . . . And God saw that it was good.” “Gooood!” It was where they were going. God was speaking to their hearts. “We’re not there yet. Have faith and keep going. I will do it—I will judge tehom, I will separate the waters and make a way. Be still and see the salvation of the Lord.” The Way Home You’ll remember that this nation of exiles had just seen the waters part at the Red Sea. You can read about it in Exodus 14. God had led the Israelites to a place on the bank of the Red Sea where they had no direction to look, but up. And God said, “The Lord will fight for you and you have only to be still. Be still and see.” That night God parted the waters, and they walked through on yabbashah—dry ground. (v.19) In I Corinthians 10, Paul writes that as they were baptized into Moses at the Red Sea, so we are baptized into Christ. He is the way through the waters, through tehom, out of tehom, and on to the Promised Land. He is the rock, the foundation stone. He moves to wherever we are. Yet we must stand on the rock. And we must let go of the old land to enter the new. Moses also told those Israelites about Noah. You can read about him in Genesis 6. You’ll remember God judged the wicked land with a flood of water. But God saved Noah in an ark, and forty days later the ark rested on dry ground. In I Peter and II Peter, Peter argues that Christ is like that ark. And baptism corresponds to this: that we are baptized with water and fire and that God once judged the earth with water, and He will judge it with a flood of fire. Jesus is the ark that carries us through that flood. He takes us from an old earth to the new, bearing us through judgment of water and fire. But you have to get on the boat! You have to die to the old earth to inherit the new. Baptism means you’re on a journey through troubled waters to dry ground—Promised Land, Holy Land. You may also remember that after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, God separated the water once again. As the Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat (Jesus is the covenant and mercy seat--Romans 3:25), entered the Jordan River, God separated the 136

waters and the children of Israel crossed over on yabbashah—dry ground (Joshua 4:22). God made a way, but they had to leave the east side to occupy the west. They had to let go of the wilderness to enter the land. Now, the important thing is this. Fifteen hundred years later John came baptizing in the Jordan, and get this: Jesus is baptized in the Jordan. Yet they both are already in the land. Where are they going? They’re already in the land . . . or are they? In Matthew 28, Jesus tells His disciples to go baptize, because all authority is His. So I have a picture--a bunch of us getting baptized at the Jordan River. We’re getting baptized . . . but where do we think we’re going? We’re already on the west side. We’re already in the land . . . or are we? You know, Jesus came preaching that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:17) But, you have to “lose your life… in order to find it.” (Matt. 16:25) You have to take up a “cross and follow.” (Matt. 10:38) People said, “No thanks. We’d rather stay here and pretend we’re already there.” In fact, they crucified Jesus five days after they tried to make Him king. They crucified Him because He would not lead a military revolt against Rome, establishing an independent, worldly nation state named Israel. Instead, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” (John 2:19) He said to the thief on the cross next to Him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) That word means paradise garden . . . like Eden yet even better than Eden, for “everything is very good.” The book of the Revelation calls it the New Jerusalem… But, To get to the New Jerusalem, you have to surrender the old. To get to the new creation, you have to surrender your own creation. To receive the city “whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10 KJV),” you have to surrender the city whose builder and maker is you. To enter the Promised Land you have to surrender the land you occupy. Why? Because Jesus is the way … and you are not. In John 14 at the last supper, Jesus tells His disciples: “ . . . I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way . . . .” “The way” is not rules and laws, creeds and religion, work books and formulas. “The way” is not the Republican agenda or the Democratic agenda. “The way” is not the United Nations, the United States, or F-16s. “The way” is Jesus.

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And in case you’re thinking, “That’s easy for a preacher to say. Just wait ‘til some terrorist bombs a bus in your neighborhood. Jesus is the way?!? Jesus could get us all killed!” …Yes. Crosses have a tendency to do that. Yet the moment you lose your life for His sake and the Gospel, you enter the land, the seventh day; you’re home.1 The book of Hebrews makes it clear in chapter 11 that we are exiles. In fact, all the Old Testament saints were exiles, pilgrims, and sojourners, including David, the greatest Israelite king, for “they did not receive what was promised (v.39).” “They desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one (v.16).” They were “seeking a homeland (v.14).” I Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people . . . . Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. In other words, we’re not there yet. We’re not home yet. And unless you believe that, your “flesh” will hang onto this hell of a world, this wilderness world, and lie to your soul that you’re already home. Home in lust, pride, greed, possessions, violence, and competition. Already home . . . so you’ll never seek the Holy Land, the Promised Land, the promised rest, the seventh day. If you think this world is your home, the Evil One can control you with the fear of death, steal your courage and drain your joy. But if you believe you’re an exile, this world loses its grip on your soul. This world no longer changes you; you change the world. In the 4th century, when Christians were still crucified and the Church changed the world, Eusebius wrote to the Roman Emperor who was threatening him with death: He needs not fear confiscation, who has nothing to lose; nor banishment, to whom heaven is his country; nor torments, when his body can be destroyed at one blow; nor death, which is the only way to set him at liberty from sin and sorrow.2 Years ago a missionary sat in sorrow on the dock at South Hampton, England. He’d just gotten off a ship from Africa. On board the same ship was Teddy Roosevelt. Whey they arrived, there was a band and a huge parade for Roosevelt. But no one had come to greet this missionary. Discouraged, he buried his head in his hands and moaned, “God, I didn’t expect a band or a parade. But you could have seen to it that somebody came to welcome me home!” At that the missionary heard God speak. He heard, “My child, you’re not home yet.” [footnote?] We’re not home yet. We think we are, but we aren’t. Maybe we don’t have much 138

confidence in home or the Way that gets us there. We think that heaven will be some sort of a timeless, nebulous, unfamiliar ooze… not home. So when we read the Old Testament prophecies that seem so solid and real, in which old men “fill out” their days (Is. 65:20) and folks go fishing in the Dead Sea (Ezek. 47:10), we think to ourselves, “This can’t be heaven. This must be some place on earth. Heaven is clouds, harps, and choir robes; timeless, nebulous, and unfamiliar. Heaven will not feel like home.” What is home? Well, Heaven is the seventh day, the finished creation, the paradise garden, the new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells, our destination, our home. I think it’s just the opposite of a timeless, nebulous, unfamiliar ooze. Do you remember this picture?

The six days of creation, and then the seventh day. The New Testament contains two Greek words that both get translated “time.” Chronos is chronological time, it’s time governed by a chronometer—a clock. Kairos is more like time governed by an event, it’s opportune time, the right time. Revelation 10:6 (in the Greek) tells us that, “Chronos will be no more.” I don’t think that’s a figure of speech. Chronos comes to an End, yet I suspect that kairos is always at hand, like the Kingdom is at hand. Jesus said, “My Kairos is at hand (Matt. 26:18).” Perhaps this is a distinction only hinted at in these Greek words, but I suspect that the six days are chronos and the seventh day is kairos. Kairos invades our chronos whenever we walk in Faith Hope or Love; whenever we experience eternal life NOW. Well, if chronos comes to an end, I suspect that kairos never does, it is eternal. It is God’s time, filled time, completed time, eternity. Kairos is “filled time,” meaning full, logos full time; time that has been filled by God. Hades, the abyss, and the void are time emptied of Meaning. “The outer darkness” is a place on that timeline. But heaven is time filled with Meaning; Logos; Light; Jesus; God. All chronos is surrounded by kairos; that is every moment is Easter waiting to happen; heaven waiting to happen. But this is my point: the seventh day, Heaven, our eternal home is not timeless so much as time-full. It will be all times, made new and filled with glory. I don’t think our minds can conceive it… but let’s try. In this world, we can only go one direction in time. Time is the fourth dimension. In this world, time is our master, but in the next world, perhaps we will be the master of time. And you will have all the time you want. And you will know the End from the 139

Beginning and know it all means Jesus. You will know the Glory in all times. And at no time will you experience, fear, sorrow, anguish and anxiety … except you will have a concept of those times, for you have been created in this time. But you will never be out of time. Even now, you only seem to be out of time. I have a friend who lost several of her children years ago in the most tragic of ways. In visions, Jesus has shown her that He has her children. That is a tremendous comfort, and yet it has been an incredible sorrow for her that she has not been able to raise them. Praying for her one night, as she mourned this painful reality, it occurred to me that in the visions her children were always young… even though they died decades ago. I said, “Why don’t you ask Jesus: ‘Why are they still young?’” So she asked Jesus, “Why are my children still young?” She heard Him answer, “They’re waiting for you to raise them.” You see, she lacks for nothing, including time. So maybe you can go home. Excited, I then said, “ask Him this: ‘Am I a single mother?’” She did, smiled at me, and said “no.” She’s not a single mother. She’s the Bride of Christ. The Promised Land is not timeless, nebulous or even unfamiliar. And her Bridegroom is not timeless, nebulous or unfamiliar… nothing is more “real” than He. My father had never had a vision, but before he died the Lord gave him several. He would describe them to me with such hope and joy. In these visions, he met his grandson who died in the womb. He’d go walking through beautiful “Pennsylvania woods” and a town where “everyone was happy.” He told me, “I visited the church I grew up in.” See? Maybe you can go home. Maybe you can go back to Old Jerusalem, but Old Jerusalem is forever new. Jesus said, “I make all things new.” Wouldn’t that include my drum light, soldier lamp, and the lap of my father? You see, I will be home again . . . In deed, I will be more home than I ever was before. Actually, I’ve never been home, only dreamed of home and mistook that dream for home. So pilgrims and exiles, we don’t need to hang on to Egypt; we sure don’t need to stay in the wilderness; there’s no sense in panic over that old Jerusalem. We’ve never been home, only dreamed of home and mistook the dream for home. All you alcoholics, perhaps you’ve never tasted wine you’ve only dreamed of wine. All you sex addicts, perhaps you’ve never experienced communion, only dreamed of communion. All you greedy folks, you’ve never seen riches, only dreamed of riches. All you power-mongers, you’ve never felt power, only dreamed of power. All you addicts, you’ve never experienced release, only dreamed of release; you’ve never experienced rest, only dreamed of rest. you’ve never experienced pleasure, only dreamed of pleasure… and mistook the dream for reality and so will not let it go.

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Heaven is reality. This world is the dream, so you can wake from this dream; no longer addicted to the dream; no longer enslaved by the fear of death… Real death is waking from the dream. It’s the death of death. It’s dying to self and living to God. My dad described his vision and said, “Peter I visited the church I grew up in, and I visited your church . . . I mean our church. I stood watching in the balcony.” After Hebrews 11, and the list of those that “are seeking a homeland,” the author of Hebrews tells us that we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses.” That’s Hebrews 12:1. It was the last text my Father preached in church before he died…or uh, lived. You see, I think my father sometimes visits, standing in the balcony. But he’s not a phantom or a shadow. In fact, he’s more solid than anything you can see. We are the phantoms; we are the shadows. We’re the ones trapped in the dream. He is fully awake. The seventh day isn’t less real than us; it’s more real than us. It’s not timeless, not nebulous, and not some unfamiliar ooze. When Julian of Norwich had her incredible visions, she spoke of how truly awesome Jesus was and yet how incredibly familiar. The word she used in the Old English was homeliness. She felt so incredibly at home in His presence.3 In 1957, a father took his ten-year-old son, blind from birth, on a pilgrimage to the Shrine in Lourdes, France. The father prayed that his son would see, and instantly the boy could see. Brennan Manning tells the story, “He saw flowers, trees, green grass, and the open sky. Then he looked into his father’s face . . . saw the eyes that went with the only voice he had known during ten, long years of darkness. When he saw his father, do you know what he said? “Oh boy! Everybody’s here!”4 Did you know that “every good and perfect gift comes down from your Father in heaven”? And did you know every gift comes through His Word, who is Jesus? He is the Meaning in all your moments; the Kairos in all your chronos. So one day you’ll receive all things and say, “Oh boy! Everybody’s here!” You’ll be home. We’re not there yet. Yet there is here The Father never left his Son and the Father doesn’t leave us.4 He speaks his Word into the darkness that is us. And He speaks his Word, His creative Word, into the dark world all around us—this age. “World” and “age” are often the same word in the New Testament (“aion”). Our world, our eon, our time is surrounded by God’s Time, God’s eternity. Like Jesus preached, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” I think that means, “The Seventh day is at hand.” “At hand” means “at hand” like you can reach out and touch it. The new heaven and new earth is “at hand.” Two thousand years ago, on the island of Patmos, John wrote, “Behold (LOOK!), he is coming… (Rev. 1:7)” That’s present tense. And he wrote, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth… and I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down (That’s present tense as well) out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her 141

husband (Rev. 21:1-2).” We are that bride! Paul says it too: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold (LOOK!) the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17).” That must be why the author of Hebrews wrote, “… you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…” (Hebrews 12:22) “You have come!” Now you may be thinking: “Hey, I don’t remember that.” Well maybe your eyes were closed; maybe you weren’t listening; maybe you were dreaming. Like, standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon on a black night, with your fingers in your ears, dreaming a little dream about your self, until the sun rises or someone yells, “Wake up! Would you look at that?!” Perhaps the New Jerusalem was right there—is right here, at hand, like the Grand Canyon would be at hand; you’ve come to it, but haven’t “seen it;” haven’t heard it? What is it? • • • • •

The New Jerusalem is like the Old Jerusalem, except “filled.” She has “the glory of God (Rev. 21:11).” We make the Old Jerusalem with “laws” in the power of the flesh—she is human life bought and sold like a Harlot… the Great Harlot (Ezek. 16;1-15, Rev. 17:1-2). God makes the New Jerusalem with Grace that is himself, his glory, his life, his blood. The New Jerusalem is His Bride. The New Jerusalem is coming down and is already here, hidden in the old Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is constructed with people, (Rev. 3:12, 21:12-14). “Nobodies,” filled with the “Somebody,” that will be Everybody.

Jesus said it, and will say it: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me (Matt. 25:40).” He is present; at hand; all around us every day. He is Love calling to our dark hearts from people in need: “come live; come love; come walk in the Light.” And Jesus will also say this: “As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me (Matt. 25:45).” That is, “You missed the City in which I live.” And that somehow is the Judgment, the edge of the 7th day, the edge of the celestial city… our homeland. We’re not there yet. Yet there is here The Journey is a revelation: The revelation of Jesus Our journey will come to an end. Jesus is the End. Our journey will come to an End, but the End has already come to our Journey. Our time will come to an End, but the End has already come to our time. Even now He is the whisper of the Father in your heart: “Say ‘Abba Daddy.’ Surrender to Love. Be filled with Love. I AM Love for you.” Even now He inhabits “the last and the least,” in your city and on the other side of the wall. The Kingdom is at hand, for the King is at hand, hidden in the people around you. They are His temple, His city, His Holy Nation, His Bride. If we believed that, I think it would change the way we travel: 142

We travelled to Jerusalem… but we are Jerusalem. We travelled around the world to see the “Holy Land”… but we are the Holy Land; His brethren. We’re not defined by genetics. We’re defined by Grace through faith. We’re defined by His Breath, His Wind, His Spirit in our lungs; His blood in our bodies; by His Father, who is “our Father.” The “Holy Land” is tax collectors, former prostitutes, Roman Centurions, Pharisees, “the chief of sinners” named Paul, Jews, Gentiles, Arabs, Samaritans, men and women. We are His temple, His city, His “Holy nation,” even His land—His “cultivated land (1 Cor. 3:9).” Do you still want to go there, if they are there…if there is them? Can you be home, if they are your home? …not with a stone heart; only with a new heart; only with God’s heart – Jesus. Countries go to war over the Temple Mount. But the true temple is born in Bethlehem. (We build walls around Jerusalem just to keep Him from the Temple Mount.) We want control of the temple and so we murder the living temple. It’s not the first time it’s happened. (John 2:18-22). Nations go to war over the “City of Peace” and repeatedly murder the “Prince of Peace.” They do not know “the things that make for peace! (Luke 19:42) …now they are hidden from [their] eyes,” said Jesus the Prince of Peace… as He rode into old Jerusalem to be crucified by old Jerusalem… and to transform her into New Jerusalem, His Bride. Countries go to war over the stones in the Holy City. And they murder the living stones that make up the Holy City; (1 Peter 2:4-5, Rev. 3:12, 21:14) the stones that make up His House. One day, the 7th day, that house will be his home and our home. Nations go to war over the “City of Peace” and the “Holy Land,” and they are the Holy Land. This is how they are judged, Matt.25:32: “Before him will be gathered all (not some)…all the nations and he will separate…” He will separate that which loves his land from that which hates his land: his Holy land filled with Himself, who is fiery hot, relentless and holy Love. Holy land is Mercy land; Grace land; Love land. What is it that makes a house a home? …And a chunk of land a “homeland? Love, and God is Love. Home is where Love Is God is revealing your home, in every moment of Love. And even the moments without Love, or your perception of Love, are a preparation for the incarnation of Love as Mercy. And in the End, you get all your moments back, you’ve come home…or should I say home has come home to you.

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Our bus driver was an Arab believer named Munire. Our tour guide was a wonderful Jewish believer named Amir. Our host was a Lebanese Boulderite Evangelist named George Housney. Some on the trip were of Hebrew descent. Some on the trip, were of German descent. We travelled on a bus, talking, telling stories, laughing, singing, praying… sometimes even crying. Jesus was on the bus too. He promised that he would be. We were looking for home… and we were home, if we only had eyes to see. One day we will. At the river Jordan we were baptized. The Spirit hovered; the light descended. As we came up out of the water, the waters separated, and the Yabbashah, the dry land, God’s Holy Land, began to appear. It has been hidden beneath the murky waters, in the “last and the least,” in those that you’re tempted to hate, in dirty fields and ramshackle old mangers. The waters parted and “the land” began to appear. Our hearts crossed over that river and soon our bodies will as well. We’ll have new bodies and new eyes in those bodies. Our Lord will open them and we will exclaim: “Oh Boy! Everybody’s here!”

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1.

In just the last 100 years or so, particularly since 1948, there has been a great deal of strange theology in the American church regarding the earthly nation state of Israel. It stems from the relatively recent theology of Dispensationalism and certain modern theories regarding the end of the world and the meaning of the Revelation. However, Scripture is clear that Jesus is the “seed of Abraham” (Gal. 3); He is our Judgment, not some nation state in the Middle East; that “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” (Romans 9); and that “he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly… he is a real Jew who is one inwardly.” (Romans 2). After Peter’s vision in Acts 10 it’s clear that gentile believers are grafted into the house of Israel (Romans 9). As Paul puts it in Eph. 2:14-15, “He (Christ) himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.” Jesus has torn down the wall. It is we who keep building it up. NEVER confuse a kingdom of this world with the kingdom of our God; a worldly nation with the Holy Nation. As the Holy nation (1 Peter 2:9), we are called to bless every person of Jewish descent and every person of Palestinian descent. We are to bless every exile with “the Way.”--the way home--our Lord Jesus. 2. 994.

P. L. Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times, (Rockville, Maryland, 1979),

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, trans., Elizabeth Spearing, intro., A. C. Spearing, (London: Penguin, 1998), xix, xxxix. 3.

4. Brennan Manning, Lion and Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, (New York: Chosen Books, 1986),140-141. 5. The Father never left his Son. He was the unseen presence in the dark night. On the cross shrouded in our darkness Jesus, the Son, cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46, Psalm 22:1). That is the first line of Psalm 22, which goes on to say, “Praise him!... he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cried to him (Psalm 22: 23-24).” Paul writes, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself (2 Cor. 5:19 KJV).” On the cross, Jesus had descended into our darkness and so could not see His Father, but the Father saw Him. And in the darkness, Jesus remained Faith Full. I’ve heard it said that God cannot look upon sin. Perhaps that’s true since sin is an absence. Whatever the case, God certainly looks upon sinners, or we’d all be endlessly lost. It’s not God that can’t look on us because of sin, it’s us that can’t look upon God. We have our eyes closed and our ears shut. On the Cross, Jesus descended into that darkness. I don’t think the Father ever left His Son and The Son remained faithful in our darkness. And NOW God sends the Spirit of His Son into our darkness to cry “Abba Father.” We may feel forsaken, but we never are forsaken. The Father holds us in his arms like an infant that has yet to open his or her eyes. He now speaks His Word, His Son, into the darkness that is us… He whispers, “Say, ‘Abba,’ say ‘Daddy.’ And open your eyes.”

~ I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a 145

monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist’s pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to me as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home. ~ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. ~ C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. . . . It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord GOD; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. “Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the LORD; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it. . . .” Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel.” ~ Ezekiel 36:24-28, 32-36; 37:11-12 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. ~ Romans 9:6-8 (See also Genesis 12:1-3 and Galatians 3:16; Psalm 37:11 and Matthew 5:5; Deuteronomy 30:5-6 and Colossians 2:11-12; Isaiah 60:10-12, 66:20-21 and Revelation 21:1-3, 22-25; Joel 3:1-2 and Matthew 25:31-32,40, 45; Exodus 19:5-6 and 1 Peter 2:9-10.) For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field [georgion: literally “cultivated land”], God's building. 146

~ 1 Corinthians 3:9 Jesus Christ is yesterday and today and for ever the same (Heb. 13:8; cf. Rev. 1:17). Openness to the future is what quite simply and necessarily characterizes the understanding of time in the NT. The goal of the eschatological event is God 'all in all' (1 Cor. 15:28). In him is described the goal of all times. The time which follows the final predictable event is necessarily unlimited on the basis of that which is said about its content - that from which it gains its quality and by which it is defined: it is simply and solely filled by God ('God all in all' can have no temporal limits). It alone is thus utterly and completely filled time, utterly and completely God's time and thus eternity. ~ G. Delling “Time” in The Dictionary of New Testament Theology "There seems no plan because it is all plan: there seems no center because it is all center. Blessed be He! Yet this seeming also is the end and final cause for which He spreads out Time so long and Heaven so deep . . . ." ~C. S. Lewis, Perelandra Because eternity was closeted in time, he is my open door to forever. ~Luci Shaw

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Chapter 10

Beauty And Road Signs for Pilgrims It must seem like I go on a lot of trips. I don’t think I do, but a couple of years ago, I guess I did. That was partly due to the fact that I received a wonderful sabbatical after fourteen years of preaching. During that sabbatical, my friend George, along with his wife Carol, paid for my wife Susan and I to attend some summer classes offered at Oxford in Great Britain. Before the classes began we all visited the National Gallery. It’s London’s giant, free, art museum full of priceless art. I never saw this coming, but I was utterly amazed at the work of Peter Paul Rubens. I had never realized that he had painted so many biblical themes with such depth and passion. I remember walking into one room and seeing this picture:

It’s titled “Samson and Delilah.” As I stood staring at it, George walked up next to me and said, “You’ve got to wonder how Samson, knowing so much of God, could have made a mistake like that? I don’t understand.” We both stood there in silence, gazing at the painting, and then I said, “Oh, I understand.” George looked a moment more and said, “Yeah, I guess I do too.” Well, that’s incredible art—art that can preach a thousand sermons in one frame. Samson is passed out on Delilah’s lap. He has surrendered his strength to her beauty. She is sick with ambivalence; Philistine soldiers wait at the door. In the background on the shelf are the pagan idols Venus and Cupid. The painting reveals the human condition and the biblical story so well: the desire to be known, the attraction and tragedy of sin, the longing for a savior. You’ll remember Samson surrenders his strength to Delilah and all hell breaks loose. But in the end, he surrenders his weakness to God, and the kingdom of heaven breaks loose on the Philistines. And Samson slays more in his death than in his life. Sound familiar? 148

Millions come through the National Gallery and see the Gospel in art painted hundreds of years ago. Well, I stared, I ached, and God spoke. I didn’t understand all I was feeling. Then George and I walked into the next room. It was shocking. All the paintings were of church buildings . . . or preachers preaching in church buildings. And all were boring. A little plaque explained that the difference between the two rooms represented a couple of decades and exhibited the impact of the Protestant Reformation on the low countries in Europe. Due to fear over the “idolatrous excesses of the Roman Catholic Church,” and the renewed focus on the “Word of God as correct doctrine,” artists began to paint pictures of preachers preaching, and they avoided biblical stories that might lead to “idolatry.” In other words, they stopped painting the Word of God and started painting preachers preaching the Word of God. Well, you can see their point, can’t you? The Church, especially since the Reformation, has always had a rather ambivalent attitude toward art; toward beauty. What do we do with Beauty? Genesis 1:9-25 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was 149

evening and there was morning, the fifth day. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes that “the good” used here does not refer primarily to a moral quality but to an aesthetic quality. It might better be translated “lovely,” “pleasing,” or “beautiful.” In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), the Hebrew word for “good,” is here translated kalos not agathos. Agathos means good and implies the ethical good. Kalos tends to describe aesthetic good—not good for something, just good—beautiful. No one needs to tell you that it’s good, you see that it’s good. God sees land, trees, seed, and fruit, and He sees that it’s beautiful. Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Then at the end of the sixth day, on the edge of the seventh day, “God saw everything that he had made, and look! It was very good, very beautiful.” Scripture reveals that the Lord delights in His good creation. He’s an ecstatic and sensual artist. I mean by that, that He “senses,” He “sees” His creation is beautiful. He doesn’t argue that it’s good. He doesn’t say: “This is good for ______ (some other reason.),” “It’s good to enhance the moral fiber of society,” or “It’s good for enhancing production and the well being of the proletariat.” He doesn’t argue that it’s good for something. It’s just good--beautiful. The fruit is good, long before anyone’s around to eat it. The wood is “good” long before anyone turns it into an end table. The creatures are beautiful long before anyone rides them, wins a 4-H show with them or eats them. Creation is Beautiful. It’s just beautiful. A flower is beautiful. Some people think that means “illogical.” Beauty is not illogical - not if it’s the manifestation of the “Logos.” It’s not illogical. It’s more logical that we can comprehend. You really can’t comprehend beauty; Beauty comprehends you. You really don’t argue beauty; You proclaim beauty. You say, “Look at that flower. It’s beautiful! Look at that sunset!” But if you have to argue that the sunset is beautiful, it loses its beauty. You really don’t argue beauty; you 150

proclaim beauty or perhaps exhibit beauty. In Matthew 5:6, after proclaiming the beatitudes (which aren’t arguments but proclamations of beauty), Jesus says, “You are the light of the world . . . let your light shine before men that they might see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven.” Good Works What good works do Christians do, or what good works do you do that make the world say, “Wow! Praise God for those beautiful Christians!” Is it when we point out depravity in others? Is it when we picket in front of the Capitol demanding better legislation? Is it when we argue, “The evidence demands a verdict, so you’d better believe!”? Is it when we debate atheists and win? Is it then that the world says: “Wow! Praise God for those beautiful Christians!”? Jesus says, “Let them see your good works (kala erga, dictionary form: kalos ergon.)” It’s a phrase He only uses here and in one other place in Matthew. “Let them see your beautiful deeds—your beautiful things—your lovely works.” Beautiful Things Well, God sees that His creation is lovely, beautiful, and good. He creates land, sea, plants, trees, fruit, seeds, sun, moon, stars, seasons, fish, sea monsters, birds, and animals . . . and then God creates man. Then God creates the last, ultimate thing in the creation story. He creates a bare, naked lady. William Blake wrote, “The naked woman’s body is a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man.” So is a bare, naked lady bad??...No! She’s so good, so lovely, so beautiful, so so so good, that a man can barely endure the beauty. I mean, if I were going to pick an idol, I think my first choice would be bare, naked ladies . . . and then a distant second: some kind of alcoholic beverage, then pizza, then the island of St. Barts, and then maybe the Denver Broncos. But do you see? The more beautiful a thing is the more tempting it is for us to turn it into an idol. Beauty is Dangerous In Romans 1, Paul argues that God is revealed through His creation. However, in vs. 22, humanity: Claiming to be wise . . . became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts . . . 151

He gave them up to their desire to comprehend, control, and consume. He gave them up . . . to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. They saw the glory of the creature and missed the Glory of the Creator. They saw the beauty of creation and missed the beauty that is the Creator. Created things, beautiful things, reflect the Beauty that is their Creator. Idolatry is putting a created thing in the Creator’s place. It could be pizza, beer, a man, a woman, or even yourself. Idols destroy us as we destroy them, and they lose their beauty. Idolatry The Old Testament refers to idolatry as harlotry. If you “loved” an artist for the beauty of his artwork, but not the beauty that he is; if you “loved” a woman for the beauty she bears, but not the beauty she is, well it wouldn’t be love, but lust. If you consumed the beauty she has, rather than served the beauty she is…I suppose that would be harlotry. Idolatry is harlotry. It’s a relationship meant to be governed by love that becomes governed by lust and consumption. I think worshipping nature and consuming nature are two sides of the same coin. “Tree hugging” and “deforestation” are both idolatry. If there is nothing that governs your relationship to beautiful trees, you’ll either worship them or try to consume them . . . or both. Guys, if there’s nothing that governs your relationship with women, you’ll either worship women or abuse women . . . or both. And then they’ll no longer be beautiful to you. In Moses’ day, the Canaanites worshiped sex, fertility, rain, trees, sea monsters, cows, sun, moon, and stars. And worship was a business arrangement. Worship was an effort to control those things and possess their attributes. Well, probably the greatest temptation to idolatry is not simply naked women but beauty itself, for yourself—Beauty as a possession you comprehend, control, and consume. Beauty you take to complete yourself. And that really is the greatest idol: yourself. Do you remember the temptation Eve fell to? It was the fruit of a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: the knowledge of beauty and corruption. She doesn’t trust God to give her that fruit as a gift. She takes it, possesses it and consumes it in order to create herself; make herself beautiful… and when she does everything gets ugly. Now, you may not believe this, but the most beautiful thing ever seen on planet Earth was a man named Jesus—the Ultimate Adam—the Beautiful One. What did Eve do? What did the Bride do? What did we do with Jesus? We tried to comprehend Him, control Him, and consume Him. Instead of receiving Him as a gift, to the glory of God, we took His life and nailed it to the tree. We broke His body, and His blood spilled out.

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When it did, a Roman centurion fell to his knees and worshiped. It wasn’t idolatry. It was worship. He tried to consume Beauty, but Beauty consumed him. He slaughtered the Beauty, but in reality, the Beauty slew him. If it had been some form of idolatry before, it was now transformed into worship. Now we consume His body broken and blood shed, but that isn’t idolatry. It is what we are made for. The cross is the revelation of Uncreated Beauty. We try and conquer Him there. And there, He conquers us. We take his life. And There He gives his life: body broken and blood shed--the fruit of the tree. We sin by “taking it.” He reveals His glory by giving it—Grace. We sin and He ambushes us with Beauty. We try to take His beauty, His power, His attributes and He ambushes us with Himself. We try to use God like a harlot, and he gives us his heart: Jesus If we eat and drink without “discerning him,” we drink Judgment on ourselves. If we eat and drink with gratitude for His Love, we Live. It’s not Idolatry, It’s Worship For He is not an idol; He is not the “glory of the creature.” This is The Heart of God The Word of God The One we were made for The One who is beauty, Not the creature but the Creator. This is the revelation of uncreated beauty, given to us as a gift – the Glory of God. God is Good. “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” asked the rich young ruler. Jesus answered, “Why do you call me good? No one is good (agathon from agathos) except God alone.” (Luke 18:19). God is Good. “The Good” isn’t something that we can simply do. First it must be something that is done to us. How is it done to us? “No one is good, but God alone.” Is Jesus good? Is Jesus Beautiful? When you see beauty, what is it? In Genesis 1:4 God calls the Light, “good” (tov) in Hebrew, Kalos in Greek, good or beautiful in English). It’s the first thing declared “good,” and think of it: if God “sees” any other “beautiful thing,” what’s He “seeing?” What are we seeing? Aren’t we seeing uncreated Light, reflecting off of created “not-light?” We’re seeing the “Light of the World,” bouncing off of “not light of the world.” Or perhaps: “the Light of the World” having filled the world. God tells Isaiah, “I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other.” (Is 42:8) However in chapter 6 of the same book the angels cry, “The whole earth is full of his glory.” Psalm 72:19: 153

“May his glory fill the whole earth! Amen and Amen!” His Glory: not the “glory of the creature,” but the “Glory of the Creator.” Jesus said that “God alone is good,” but in Genesis One, at the end of the sixth day God sees everything that he has made and look, it’s “very good” or “very beautiful.” It seems to me that the only way all those verses could actually be true is if God actually “fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23) and He does it with Jesus the “Light of the world” who descended and “ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.” (Eph. 4:10) So there are “things” and then there is the “glory” that bounces off of those things or perhaps, one day, “fills those things.” So anyway, how might we be Good? How might we be beauty full? And what is Beauty itself… or himself? Beauty? Well, those are some fascinating questions. We’ll get back to them soon. For now, my point is simply this: The beauty of created things is a problem for us humans, because we tend to turn those created things into idols: We mistake the thing for the beauty we see “in” the thing or reflected by the thing. So, we begin to worship the thing and thus destroy the thing, because we’re missing the beauty in the thing or reflected by the thing. We destroy the thing and destroy ourselves in the process of worshipping the thing—the thing no longer “good” or beautiful, but an idol. Beauty is a Problem And so the natural impulse of religious people is to outlaw all potential idols; which is to outlaw the creation; which is to outlaw the beauty in creation and the Word that upholds creation. How could you outlaw creation? How could you outlaw seed, fruit, sun, moon, and stars? How do you outlaw naked women without outlawing the human race? If you outlaw creation, you in-law the void—you legislate the void. The natural impulse of religious people is to outlaw beauty, which is to outlaw Peter Paul Rubens and his paintings, which is to outlaw the Proclamation of the Word; which is to outlaw the “Light of the world,” and crucify the “Beautiful One.” The natural impulse of religion is to comprehend, control, contain and conquer beauty. And what is Beauty? Who is Beauty? The natural impulse of religion is to comprehend, control, contain and conquer beauty, which is just more idolatry—the idolatry of us—us, saving us, from idols... from beauty and what is, who is Beauty? That’s a problem, and idolatry is a problem. A Polemic against Idolatry Well, most scholars agree that Genesis 1 is a polemic—an argument specifically formulated to deal with idolatry in ancient Israel. It turns out that the Genesis creation story is remarkably similar to other ancient Near Eastern creation stories, yet remarkably different: 154

• • •

Time is not circular but linear, like we’re going somewhere. The seventh day is not bad but good. The things the Canaanites worshiped as gods (like Marduk, the son of the sun god, who sliced Tiamat the sea monster in two, making the firmament of heaven and earth; or Baal the god of rain, fertility, and fruit; or waters, sea monsters, sun, moon, stars, rain, sex, and fertility) -- The things the Canaanites worshiped as gods aren’t gods but the good creation of the Creator God.

So the Hebrews are told that each of these things are not gods but pieces of art that reveal the Artist—creation that reveals the Creator. God is an artist, who paints with His Word. I Timothy 4:4: “For everything created by God is good [“kalos,” beautiful], and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving [“eucharist-ia”] for it is made holy by the Word of God and prayer.” Thank God for Beautiful Things

Every created thing goes from idol to temple when I say, “Thank you Father in Jesus name.” That word of thanks puts the created thing in its proper place . . . not as creator but as creation bearing testimony to the Creator – a temple at which we encounter the Creator and then worship the Creator. So I’m to drink every cup of wine in remembrance of Him. I’m to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for the fruit of the vine.” Then I remember He made it, it’s His, and He is Lord, not the wine. He loves me, and He will fill me. He is not the wine and yet there is beauty in the wine: God’s Word through wine, blood red wine. Guys, when you see a beautiful woman, you don’t have to deny that she’s beautiful, as if beauty is something bad. Say, “Thank you, Jesus, for her.” Then suddenly you remember she belongs to God and not to you. She’s His good creation, neither to worship nor to consume. And God Himself will satisfy the ache within you to surrender your strength to great beauty. She’s a temple of beauty, but not the source of beauty; not beauty himself. The truth is, she herself, couldn’t satisfy your ache--your longing for beauty. As soon as you “took” the beauty; as soon as you seized beauty as your possession, it would no longer be beauty full. You can “take” her, and yet she’s not the beauty that you seek-not the substance but the container of the substance; not the substance but the sign. All creation is a sign pointing to it’s Creator. Beauty full signs And yet you do realize that God has “subjected… the creation to futility (Romans 8:20).” That is, all signs fade . . . for a reason. Beauty doesn’t last here. Beauty dies here. After about 21 or 22, it’s downhill until you’re dead: wrinkles, flab, bald spots . . . or maybe it’s uphill, for God is leading us to greater and greater beauties, such that physical 155

beauty is like a signpost pointing to greater beauties, a drop of beauty to make us long for more beauty - Beauty that we can now only barely begin to perceive. The signpost reads: “God is good. He created this good thing. But pilgrim, don’t stop here. You are being made for Him.” Don’t stop at the sign to Niagara Falls; read it and keep going. Yes, there’s beauty in the sign, it reflects the beauty that IS Niagara Falls. Don’t settle for the sign. The signpost reads: “Hey, Samson, Delilah is a sign but not your destination. Don’t surrender yourself to her until you’ve surrendered yourself to Him--the Beauty that you are being made for.” Everything in creation, everything in Genesis 1 points to Him. It’s beautiful because He is Beauty; beautiful because it reflects the Light and points to the Light. “The heavens declare the Glory of God… Day to day pours forth speech.” (Psalm 19:1-2); Day to day pours forth Word. Creation is created by that Word, upheld by that Word and reveals that Word. In that Word, is life and the life is “the light of men;” “the light of the world (John 1:4, 8:12).” That Light, in that Word, became flesh and we “Beheld his glory.” (John 1:14) Jesus is Beauty All creation reveals that Beauty and proclaims that Beauty—The Word. All creation is a stage for the revelation of Him. Day 1 The Light shines in the darkness and that Light will reveal everything else and every “thing” else will reflect that Light. Day 2 Space under heaven and on the surface of the deep is space for us and space for the revelation of Mercy. The Third Day We are the land. Jesus is the seed. He is the Harvest of the Earth: Bread and Wine. He is the Fruit on the Tree. Day 4 Jesus is the substance of the Sabbath, the meaning of days, months, seasons, and years. He is the “Sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2);” the “Bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16);” “the Faithful Witness”—the moon (Ps. 89:37, Rev.1:5) Day 5 Jesus is the Lion. Jesus is the Lamb slain. Jesus is the perfect sacrifice and spotless offering. Day 6 Jesus is the man, and we are the woman—His Bride. God is our Father, and we are his children—by the Spirit of Jesus. By the Spirit of Jesus we cry “Abba Father” and “It is finished.” Jesus from “the bosom of the Father (John 1:18 RSV)” He is the Father’s heart for us. All creation points to Jesus, like road signs point to your destination. All creation points to Jesus and when we “get Jesus,” we will get all creation with him. “He who did 156

not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) Jesus is from the bosom of the Father. He is the heart of God given to us. Our Father has a beautiful heart. It is Beauty. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him. But the goodness in the gifts is Him, His heart, His light. He is the “Father of lights.” (James 1:17). He is what makes the gift good. I’m a father. Every good father loves to give good gifts to his children, but the children can come to love the gifts more that the giver, in which case the gifts are no longer good, for the gifts have eclipsed the light in the father’s heart—the good in the gifts. For a “spoiled” child, the father’s gifts are no longer the revelation of the father’s heart; signs pointing to his heart. The father’s heart has become a means to get the gifts. And when the “spoiled child” takes those gifts, those gifts are no longer good, because he’s crucified the good – the Father’s heart. The gifts are no longer good and for the spoiled child, the father’s heart is no longer good. It’s no longer “good for nothing,” it’s only “good for something:” getting gifts that don’t satisfy and are no longer good. A spoiled child is a miserable child and for a spoiled child, everything is ugly. So the good father will withhold good gifts, in order to give the best gift. The best gift is his heart. It is revealed in all his gifts, yet it is ultimately revealed when the children break his heart, revealing his heart, yet seeing his heart and receiving his heart. Jesus brought good gifts: banquets that materialized from a couple of fish and a few small loaves, miraculous wine in six stone jars, miracles and healings. And yet when they demanded “signs,” more miracles and gifts, the “signs” were withheld—He said an “evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign.” They seek the sign but don’t read the sign. So He withheld the gifts, to give the greatest gift: His Heart. Jesus is God’s Heart given to us, at the right time. When we were at our worst, He gave his best. His Heart, nailed to the tree for all the world to see. Once we “see” him; once we really “get” him, not “take” him, but “receive” him as the gift that He IS… well then we receive all things, and all things are good, for they contain and reveal our Fathers heart: Beauty, the “radiance of his glory,” his Love poured out—Jesus. A wealthy and powerful Bridegroom, will withhold his gifts, in order to reveal his heart and win the heart of his Bride… Then he gives her everything. A wealthy and powerful Father, will withhold his gifts, in order to reveal his heart and win the heart of his Children… Then he gives them His Kingdom. Jesus is our Bridegroom and the heart of the Father for us. At the end of Day 6, we see Him. Day 7 We get Jesus and “all things” with him. It is finished. Isaiah saw the Lord seated on His throne. In the Revelation, He is a slaughtered lamb 157

standing on the throne. Isaiah “sees” Him and the angels start singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” (6:3) When I see that the wine is full of “His Glory,” perhaps it’s safe to drink. When Delilah is full of “His Glory,” perhaps she’s safe to love. Then the wine isn’t an idol, but a sign. Delilah isn’t a harlot, but a temple. Creation is filled with the Glory of the Creator. But this is day 6, and we don’t yet “see it.” We don’t yet see it, for we haven’t yet seen Him… fully. We’re on a journey and our Journey is a revelation… of Beauty. The Revelation of Beauty We’re each growing in our ability to enjoy beauty. An infant won’t even notice a Peter Paul Rubens. A toddler will pick his nose in front of a Monet. But children grow. Maybe we’re all growing. Maybe life is like an art appreciation class. And in the End we appreciate the artist. 1. Perhaps the first sign is a dandelion on the front lawn when you’re a kid. But it dies, your heart aches, and you look further. 2. Then perhaps it’s a song, but the song gets old. 3. Then perhaps it’s religion, but it turns out to be dead. 4. Then perhaps it’s a lover: a bride or groom. You taste ecstasy but it’s not enough. 5. Then perhaps it’s a believer who’s kind, but the kindness is flawed. 6. Then perhaps you begin to see Him: the One behind all the signs—Jesus Christ and Him crucified—the love of God poured out—the Beautiful One. But, you see, life is a journey from glory to glory, a journey toward beauty that is God. Life is an art appreciation class or an artist appreciation class. You are learning to love Love. In other words, you are learning to see beauty. A group of visitors at a summer resort had watched the sunset from the gallery of the hotel. A fat, unromantic-looking man had lingered until the last glow faded, and had seemed thrilled through and through by the beauty of it all. One guest, more observant than the rest, wondered about this, and so at supper she said to this man, who sat next to her, “You certainly did enjoy the sunset. Are you an artist?” “No, madam, I’m a plumber,” he responded with a slow grin. “But I was blind for five years.” You see, even the darkness between signs is a sign itself teaching you to love beauty. He had seen sunsets, then he was blind, and then he saw sunsets as he’d never seen them before. Perhaps we encounter the dark in this world so we can learn to love the light in the next. Perhaps we encounter chaos, pain, and suffering so we can see the beauty that 158

shines in its midst. See . . . and not only be plumbers but artists. An enthusiastic young man who had just received his plumber’s license was taken to see Niagara Falls. He looked at it a moment and said, “I think I can fix this.” God calls you to the blood that flows; to the torrent that is His cross, not so you would fix it, but so it would fix you. So that sacrificial love would shape you in His own image. You don’t fix Beauty; Beauty fixes you. A bored tourist walking through the art galleries at the Louvre commented to a security guard, “I don’t find anything exceptional in these paintings.” The guard replied, “These painting are not judged by us. We are judged by them.” We don’t judge Beauty; Beauty judges us. In Revelation 5, all creation (“every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth”) praises Him who stands on the throne: the slaughtered lamb; “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”; Beauty. In Matthew 25, Jesus reveals the Judgment: What we do to Him in people; what we do to Beauty in the last and the least is Judgment. We all merit destruction and the void. In Mathew 26:1, Jesus reveals that He is the Judgment for us; that He is the Passover Lamb; the sacrifice for our sin; He is the source of a river of blood, the river of Life. In Matthew 26 Jesus reveals Beauty and His disciples can’t see it. But this strange woman can. She sees the beauty of Jesus; she sees sacrificial love, and then she takes a flask of the most precious of ointments, worth a year’s wage. She pours it on Christ’s head. He will smell it as He hangs on the cross. It is sacrificial love. The disciples ask, “What is this good for?” Jesus says, “Leave her alone. It is a ergon kalon (from kalos ergon)—the beautiful thing.” After years of darkness, she sees the beauty. She doesn’t fix the beauty; the beauty fixes her. She doesn’t judge the beauty; the beauty judges her. She sees the beauty, she becomes beautiful, and she does the beautiful thing—the kalos ergon—the good work. More than likely she had been a harlot, but now she is a picture of the Bride; She had bought and sold beauty, but now she surrenders to the beauty that is Christ. Jesus fills her with beauty and she bears fruit that is beautiful. It’s “good for nothing,” just good. Jesus says, “Wherever the gospel is preached, her story will be told.” She gets it: Beauty and she becomes Beauty full. Beauty Full and the Beautiful Thing What are those “good deeds”—those kalos ergon that we do, for which the world (the pagans) gives praise to God? Well, probably not our legislation, argumentation, or provocation; probably not the “deeds” that we do to build our “ministries;” probably not the ways in which we use beauty, use the name of Jesus, to advance our own ends… 159

But how about sacrificial love? It’s love for which we get nothing in return but love. Sacrificial love is love, solely for the sake of love. It’s not love for some other reason. It is the reason. It’s good for nothing, it’s just good. It’s the beautiful thing. It’s Beauty. Did the world think Mother Teresa was beautiful? Did the world think St. Francis was beautiful? You know, there is a place for making arguments about the Beautiful One, but we are always to exhibit the Beautiful One. You don’t argue great art; you see great art. We are called to witness great art and give glory to the Artist. “Let your light so shine before men.” (Matt. 5:16) And Jesus is the Light. He is Beauty. Life is an Art appreciation class and in the end we appreciate the Artist. We are His Art. Beauty in us is Christ Jesus in us. He paints us with His Blood – His Life. A day after we went to the National Gallery, we travelled to Oxford for courses on apologetics: that is, how to make a reasoned argument for the faith. I love that kind of stuff, and it can be extremely helpful. Yet at times it feels like you’re explaining the prudence of an insurance policy rather than testifying to an unspeakable beauty. (And for all our arguments, at least in the western world, evangelism doesn’t feel like very good news. And lately, it hasn’t been very effective.) Well, after Oxford, Susan and I traveled to France. One morning we went to see the Marc Chagall Museum in Nice. It’s really not “my kind’ of art but a friend at church suggested that we go. We arrived early and sat outside with two busloads of Japanese tourists. You know, the Japanese have been notoriously resistant to evangelism. It probably has something to do with atomic bombs and the ugliness of war . . . so few are willing to listen. The French have been notoriously secular and don’t want to listen. And Marc Chagall was a Jew . . . an exiled, Russian Jew. Well, once inside, I was amazed at the biblical themes portrayed on the walls. And I was intrigued by one painting in particular. It must have been at least nine feet tall and six feet wide. I sat and studied it a long time. It swam with color, passion and a multitude of biblical references and stories. It had one man at the bottom and one man at the top hanging on a cross. If I had permission, I’d print the image here, but a little box with a black and white reproduction just wouldn’t do justice to this piece of art. I don’t think I’ll ever forget sitting on a bench with apologetics running through my mind, while watching a Japanese tour guide explain this painting to a mob of attentive Japanese tourists. The painting is entitled, ‘The Creation of Man.” • In the lower right corner I could see the first Adam with Eve. • Then, Man, dead in his trespasses and sins, yet carried by the Angel of Yahweh. • And above him was a brilliant covenant rainbow. • I saw Jacob climbing his ladder. • He carries a menorah, representing the seven days of creation. • I could see the giving of the law in the upper left corner… 160

• • • • • •

And a rabbi with a goats head keeping the law from the people… And David, playing his harp for those very same people. Jeremiah was curled in a ball lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem. …or was he lamenting the destruction of Chagall’s life and hometown in Russia? And at the top, in the middle of it all, was Jesus Christ and Him crucified—the Ultimate Adam, the Eschatos Adam. His Story becomes your story… Adam. It’s “The Creation of Adam.”

Well, I couldn’t understand any of the Japanese, but the tour guide went on for a long time. And I thought to myself, “How could she not, in some way, be preaching the Gospel?” And if she wasn’t, the painting surely was. And they were listening. The Japanese were seeing . . . seeing that God is good—beautiful. We work and work, and argue and scheme, to evangelize the world. But an exiled, Russian Jew in secular France picks up His paintbrush and worships the Beautiful One. And the world crosses the ocean to come see. Your life is to be that canvas. Your life is the creation of Adam. So on the night He was betrayed, He took bread and broke it saying, “This is my body given to you. Take and eat. Do this in remembrance of me.” And in the same way after supper, having given thanks, He took the cup and said, “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Drink of it, all of you, in remembrance of me.” He surrendered his strength to us, then, He was crucified in weakness. Do you see Him? On the cross in weakness? He is “good for nothing,” just Good. He is Beauty. We meet Him at the cross. In His moment of utter despair, emptied of his strength, capable of accomplishing nothing, Jesus is GOOD for nothing. And God makes Him GOOD for something. God makes Him the GOOD in everything: Beauty. See Beauty, Ingest Beauty and live Beauty full y Samson, surrender your strength to this Beauty. Delilah, Eve, surrender your strength to this Adam. Trust Him with your heart Nothing in all creation is more beautiful to Him than His Bride… undressed of her self-righteousness; her strength. For there He dresses her in His Glory: the Beauty that is Himself. He is good for no reason. He is the Reason. Everyone Good for Nothing, Just Good: That’s Heaven That’s Beauty Full “For we are his workmanship, (His Artwork) created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” - Ephesians 2:10 161

Pertinent Quotes Blessing theology defines reality in an artistic and aesthetic way. Throughout the narrative, God judges the results of his work “good” (1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25), and in verse 31, he pronounces the whole “very good” (v. 31). The “good” used here does not refer primarily to a moral quality, but to an aesthetic quality. It might better be translated “lovely, pleasing, beautiful.” ~ Walter Brueggemann, Genesis These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself, they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. ~ C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory Our knowledge of Jesus Christ is far too serious a business to be left to theologians and exegetes alone…. I find myself in complete agreement with those who wish to reinstate the mystics, clowns and artists alongside the scholars. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge I recall a clergyman once telling me after a wonderful concert that for the first time in his life he realized that by enjoying the beauty of the music he was obeying God, while before that experience obedience had always been associated with unpleasant tasks for him. ~ Diogenes Allen, Spiritual Theology On the wall of one of the cathedral bays at Saint John’s, the one called the Poet’s Corner, there is an inscription carved into the stone that quotes Willa Cather: “Thy will be done in art as it is in heaven.” Amen, I say. And in plumbing and paper pushing and publishing as well. And in teachering and boardmembering and doctoring and bricklaying, for that matter. ~ Robert Benson, Between the Dreaming and the Coming True At the end of his life Renoir had arthritis so bad he had to tape the brush to his hand. He was wealthy, and people asked, “Why are you doing this?” He replied, “Pain lasts a moment; beauty lasts a lifetime.” ~ Mark Brewer, Sermon at LMCC, June 6, 2000

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Chapter 11

Stare at a Bug Care for Creation and Creation Cares for You One Sunday I gave the children’s sermon followed by the adult sermon a few minutes later. After the service a very well known Christian author, who attended the church at the time, said to me: “Peter that was a great children’s sermon! You said what you needed to say… I don’t think you needed the other one.” “Thanks… I think?” That was the Sunday I brought Ralphie to church. Ralphie was our pet crawdad. We kept him with the gold fish, the big resilient goldfish, in the aquarium downstairs. He was awesome. I pulled him out by the Thorax (the back) and set him on the stage. Eyes grew big; some squirmed; most “oohed” and “aahed.” Ralphie held his pinchers high—Fear, Trembling, Fascination and Awe; what theologians call Mysterium Tremendum and Mysterium Fascinans; manifestations of an encounter with the Holy, the Divine. I asked the kids to describe Ralphie. “What is he?” They said stuff like: “Wow! He’s awesome! Scary…Cool! BIG PINCHERS, I like him. Freaky, Can I touch? Will he bite?” That was their description. I then said, “Well this is the right description: Arthropoda Crustacea Malacostraca Decapoda Pleocyemata Astacidea. That’s what Ralphie is.” I then asked, “Which description do you suppose God like’s best?” That confused them a bit. “I think He likes yours best,” I responded. “And I think you have a better idea of what Ralphie really IS. He’s like a piece of art. Have you ever made something? Like a piece of art? Well, you don’t want people to explain it; you want people to look at it and say, ‘Wow!’ Well, I think God is like that. When you look at His creation and say, ‘Wow!’ that’s called worship.” Perhaps my author friend was right. Worship… is exactly what God desires. And little kids do it quite naturally. If this is your “Father’s world,” then you are a child filled with wonder. If this is your world, then you are a “Grown up,” and everything is dead. Wonder There is a scene from my childhood which seems to be forever etched in my mind. I can’t remember exactly when it occurred, but it was on one of those long, lazy, summer or fall days that we all enjoy as children. We were down at the ditch, (Fred Remillard, Dave Hart . . . maybe Brad Braverman). In the summer, I lived in the ditch—the irrigation ditch that ran behind my parents’ house next to the railroad tracks in Littleton. There, we went inner tubing on hot 163

summer days. We made little boats out of milkweed pods. We collected every kind of bug. I’d stare at them for hours. We’d watch spiders spin the most amazing webs. We’d watch caterpillars manufacture cocoons and turn into butterflies. We caught scores of garter snakes, which gave me a sense of power over my Mom. . . awesome! But the very pinnacle of all the wonders in the garden of the ditch was the crawdad—the rather shocking and absolutely fascinating crayfish. On this particular day, we had managed to catch several. As usual, we watched them for hours. (Even now, they amaze me: Those antennas that feel in the dark; all those legs and the fins under the tail; their tank-like little bodies; the way they carry their eggs; those incredible eyes . . . and best of all, those outrageous, giant pinchers raking the air or the water above.) Crawdads. To a fifth-grade boy, nothing is more beautiful than a crawdad. The beauty of the Sistine Chapel or a Peter Paul Ruben’s does not compare to the wonder of a crawdad. At least to me they were the height of cool. Even then, I was convinced my Father in heaven made each one. So the coolness of crawdads revealed a very cool God. I was a little science freak at the time. And I think this is why: Science was all about staring at crawdads . . . staring at crawdads, not explaining them away. I had Darwin’s theory down, but even as a kid I knew that theory could never explain the inherent coolness of a crawdad or the inherent ability in me to recognize that coolness— coolness, which in the last chapter we described as beauty. So I would never say, “Hey, Fred, that’s an Arthropoda Crustacea Malacostraca Decapoda Pleocyemata Astacidea. Mystery solved. Let’s do something else.” I didn’t want to dissect them and explain them away; I wanted to watch them. I hope you realize that science started as worship of the Creator, not an effort to explain Him away. So anyway, we’d watch creation and because I knew the scientific lingo, I’d say, “Arthropods are cool!” and Fred would say, “For sure!” In other words—in church words—Fred, Brad, Dave, and I would worship in the Cathedral of the Ditch. We worshipped for a long time this one particular afternoon, staring at crawdads. And then someone made the seemingly very mature suggestion: “Hey, let’s blow ‘em up!” Well, you know, in my ten-year-old brain something about that seemed very manly: “Man who dominates the beasts conquers the crawdads!” And crawdad cool would become Peter Hiett cool. I would “take” their beauty. So we got my daisy BB gun, set the crawdads on the bank of the spillway . . . and shot them all to pieces. And now, the scene I remember so well . . . not with my mind but with my heart: I remember standing there staring at crawdad pieces . . . some still moving, scattered all over the spillway in the hot sun. And deep down in my gut this “knowledge” of something, this feeling that what we had just done was not cool, not manly, and not courageous at all, but more like vandalism: graffiti on the inside of a cathedral or a paint bomb thrown at a Peter Paul Reubens. I hadn’t acquired their coolness, but something else. What I remember was guilt. Guilt Now listen: I love crawdad gumbo, and I eat it without guilt. But that day . . . guilt…shame, like I wanted to hide in the trees. Why the guilt? 164

Genesis 1:24-26 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good [beautiful]. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” I would think that would include crawdads; “Dominion over crawdads.” Dominion In 1967, Princeton history professor Lynn White wrote an article titled, “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis.” In it he blamed Medieval Christian theology for our modern ecological problems and argued that ten-year-old boys in the West behaved as they did because of their Christian culture, which taught them that creation is separate from people, created simply for our use, and that we are commanded to have “dominion” over it, that is, “dominate” it. In his article, White lamented the loss of old pagan religion in which people worshipped creation. Since that article, the environmental movement has been heavily associated with paganism. And environmentalists have viewed Christians with a whole lot of suspicion. Likewise, Christians tend to view environmentalists as tree-hugging, New Age Whackos. Paganism Many environmentalists would argue that ten-year-old Peter Hiett was guilty of “Species-ism”: thinking one species was better than another. They’d say the earth is our mother and we should worship her. And that makes some sense, because crawdads are cool and the earth is profoundly beautiful. I remember lying on my back on a little inflatable raft in the Sacramento River Delta getting a tan. It was thoroughly serene. I was watching an immense, beautiful bird ride the wind with perfect grace hundreds of feet above me. As I floated on the water in the sun watching that bird, I thought, “This is heaven.” Just then I noticed some stuff falling from the tail of the bird . . . but it was very high and far away, so I thought, “No worries.” Just then I felt a breeze, and the material changed directions. I watched it for a while, no kidding—it was like a smart bomb. At the very last moment, I dove off the raft as it was thoroughly plastered with massive quantities of bird pooh. I couldn’t keep from laughing. It was miraculous! And I thought, “OK, God, I get the point.” Creation is good, but it has been “subjected to futility, in bondage to decay.” 165

Creation is heavenly, but not quite heaven yet…here or now…at least not for me. In seminary I had a friend named Rabi Maharaj. As a boy, he was trained to be a Hindu Guru. So every day he’d worship his cow, but whenever he’d bow down before it, it would bite him on the head. That sent him on a quest, “Maybe my cow isn’t my god. Why do I have to take care of god . . . feed and water god? And why would god bite me on the head? Maybe my cow isn’t god. Then who is?” If you’re into pagan environmentalism, think about it. If creation is God, why would we need to take care of it/god? And why would cows bite faithful worshippers on the head? And yet, something does tell us that cows are wonderful. We should care for cows . . . and we should never mutilate crawdads, just for fun. Scientific Naturalism Well, many environmentalists who reject paganism are into Scientific Naturalism, because, you know, science does do a lot of staring at crawdads. However, it seems to me, the height of absurdity, for a Secular Darwinist to argue that I should feel guilty for mutilating crawdads. Darwin argued that life progresses through the “survival of the fittest,” that is, dominant species dominating weaker species. The idea that anyone ought to feel even remotely obligated to go save some distant species that has no direct benefits to man is just the opposite of Secular Darwinism. Extinctions are necessary to Darwin’s theory. In fact, if there is a “good,” it’s one species exterminating another and occupying its niche. So “the good” is building strip malls on wetlands and rejoicing in the demise of the yellow-bellied, ruby-crested, southern swamp warbler . . . or whatever. And now, if we’re honest, I think this is where we get our definition of dominion. It’s even where we Christians get our definition of dominion. That is: Dominion is to beat your neighbor and conquer your enemy. Maybe our definition of dominion is different from God’s. Honestly, what is a better justification for the great crawdad massacre of 1971? A. Nature walks in Sunday school where we had to “find things God made”? Or... B. Science lab where we dissected frogs in order to “know them”? Secular Darwinism is idolatry: the idolatry of the dominant species named “man.” Paganism is also idolatry: idolatry of creation and its creatures. Environmentalism Remember our last chapter, we talked about idolatry and said if there’s nothing that governs the relationship between you and beautiful trees, for instance, you’ll either worship trees or consume trees . . . or both. Environmentalism is taking care of trees. And I think taking care of something is pretty much the biblical definition of exercising dominion. 166

In Genesis 1, God has just exercised dominion for six days by “creating,” “making,” and “letting” . . . not controlling, conquering, and consuming. I think genuine evolution is God “letting” His creation adapt and grow. He creates it and lets it . . . reproduce, adapt, and grow. God is the great naturalist, the great environmentalist. He is the great gardener, and we are being made in His image: gardeners. Yet, we are also His garden—His creation. So I think what confuses us is that cows bite and birds drop pooh bombs, and therefore we think that we should bite and we should drop bombs. There are two principles in this world described with a vast array of words: Creation……………. Life………………… Order………………. Substance………….. Light………………. Good………………. Love………………..

and desecration and death and disorder and void and dark and evil and not love

So in this world, we are constantly faced with a choice. Do we love love: do we love beauty, and do we love creation? Or do we hate love, consume beauty, and desecrate creation? God has subjected “creation to futility… in hope.” He has placed us on the border of creation and desecration in hope. I think the hope is that we would be made in our Father’s image and join Him in His work of creation. In chapter two of Genesis, we find that God has placed “man” in a garden and called him to be a gardener in His garden (2:15). A garden is simply ordered creation. That would imply that creation is unordered and unfinished outside the garden. The man and woman are called to care for the garden, but even more I suspect that God intends for them to expand that garden; even go from that garden, and in God’s image, help Him order the unfinished creation—exercise dominion. What is dominion? If mankind gets his definition of dominion from the creatures; if he “worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator,” then he will believe that dominion is the “survival of the fittest.” And believing that and exercising that, Adam will be shaped into the image of a beast. However, if mankind gets his definition of dominion from the Creator, then he will believe that “to be great you must be servant of all” and “to be first you must be the slave of all.” And believing that and exercising that, Adam will be shaped into the image of His Creator. So creation is good…but not “finished” yet. And God is inviting us to help create in His image. But how do we do that? 167

As it is, creation is feeding on itself. One life is dependent on another’s death. And so, are we to take life or give life? Are we to eat or be eaten? What does God do? How does He create? You realize that everything you eat is something that has died. Your life is dependent on the death of another. It’s too bad that we buy meat in cellophane packages at the grocery store. If we were each forced to hunt for our food, we would each know that our very life is dependent on the death of some beautiful creation. Remember that every day the Jews were to sacrifice plants and animals in the temple. On Passover, for instance, each family was to take their lamb to the temple—a lamb they cared for; perhaps, even raised. They would take it to the temple where it would be sacrificed by the priest in the worshiper’s presence. The priest would slit the throat, drain the blood, and then the family would feast on the meat. I think that may be a critical step, which we miss when we purchase our lamb at Safeway on Easter. We haven’t raised one and we haven’t seen one die. And so we modern people tend to think that all of those sacrifices required in the Old Testament mean that a lamb, for instance, isn’t very valuable to God… and therefore it’s no big deal to kill one. Is killing a lamb a big deal to God? Does He hate lambs or love lambs? In 33 A.D. at the Passover, a lamb was sacrificed on the Temple Mount. His name was Jesus. He was sacrificed that we would feed on Him and live. And not just live but live in His image, ready to lay down our lives in love for that which God is creating still. The Jews believed that Jerusalem was the site of the Garden of Eden. Jesus was crucified at the edge of a garden. They placed Him in a garden tomb. When He rose from the dead, Mary thought He was the gardener. She was not less than right; she was more than right. He is the Gardener who will turn this entire earth into a paradise garden. He is the Gardener who orders all creation, making it new, with His very own body and blood. Colossians 1:16-20: “All things were created through him and for him . . . and in him all things hold together . . . .He is the beginning (genesis), the firstborn from the dead…in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” That is… How God Exercises Dominion “Dominion” is defined by Jesus—the slaughtered Lamb on the throne, who gave His life as a ransom for many. Dominion is love—Love that speaks Love; the Word of God spoken to create, sustain and reconcile all things. God? 1) Some can see God as the Word, the logos, the love, and the life behind all things. But they get really nervous when folks talk about God in a manger or on a cross. (We tend to call those people “liberals.” They tend to think like Pagans and 168

Pantheists.) 2) Some can see God as a baby in a manger; a man who dies, rises, and comes again—Jesus. But they get really nervous when folks refer to Him as Love, Life, Truth, Reason, or Word. (We tend to call those folks “conservatives.” They tend to think like Darwinists.) 3) However, some by God’s grace can see that God is both: universal and particular. I think they’re called Christians. And this is the glory, power, and wonder of the Incarnation: Jesus is the Word, and the Word is God. Jesus is God. So I can stare at a crawdad and say, “Isn’t Jesus cool?” I can look at a sunset and say, “My Daddy did that!” I can preach the Gospel by caring for creation. Biblical Environmentalism A biblical view of reality is the only view of reality that makes any sense of environmentalism. For by gardening, I testify to the Great Gardener—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But when I merely consume, desecrate, and destroy, acting like creation doesn’t matter, crawdads don’t matter, and lambs don’t matter, I tell a lie about Jesus— the Lamb on the throne. Whenever I litter, I lie about my Father—the Artist and Creator. Whenever I trample the garden, I reject the Spirit of the Gardener. FIRST POINT: We are called, by our Father, to care for creation. LAST POINT: When we care for creation, the Father uses creation, to care for us. We are His creation. We are God’s field, God’s plant, God’s garden. Now before I go any further, I should probably mention that Scripture uses the term world and the term earth in rather different sorts of ways. The apostle John uses the term “world” (kosmos) to refer to the systems of decay and futility that infect the “earth.” “World” often refers to the lust of the flesh; the pride of the eyes; the strivings of men and the “survival of the fittest;” how this fallen world operates. John also uses the term “earth” (ge in Greek, eretz in Hebrew). He uses the term “earth” (or “land”) to refer to God’s good creation. We must renounce the “world,” but care for the “earth” and the “earth” cares for us. In Revelation 12, John sees a woman who gives birth to Christ and then Christ’s brothers and sisters. She’s a picture of us—the Church. The serpent pours water like a river from his mouth to sweep the woman away. It’s the flood of his lies: that God is not good and you must create yourself, so you must “take” knowledge from the tree of good and evil; you must create your life by taking life—“The Survival of the fittest.” These are the lies of the world, and they chase the woman, but in verse 16, the earth comes to her aid, opens its mouth, and swallows the river of lies. 169

Even as a ten-year-old, I’d go to the ditch chased by that river of lies. “Hiett, you’re a loser. Once again, you were picked last for baseball. You’re a weenie and always will be.” I’d go to the ditch, (and sure there were signs of chaos and the fall in the ditch—everything dies. But look at it while it lives! How does it live? It lives by Grace.) I’d go to the ditch, chased by the river of lies, “Hiett, you suck.” And the earth would open its mouth and swallow the river. I’d stare at beauty: crawdads, bugs, and milkweed plants. And I would hear the Word: “I made you and I love you.” Jesus met me in the ditch. I know a woman who at one time was sold and purchased by a man who pretended to love her, but used her for evil. Years later she came to know Jesus and began to receive His love—real love, not the lie. At one point when life was especially painful, she was tempted to go back to her old lifestyle. She was temped by a memory that kept coming back as a dream. Long ago she had gone camping with this man. They had gone to a lake. It was beautiful; the sun was shining; they took a walk and he told her that he loved her. With her mind she knew that this man’s love was a lie. But that day at the lake, she had felt love so strong and so real that she couldn’t believe that what she felt was simply a lie. And so, when life was hard and God seemed distant, she was tempted to go back, tempted to be swept back into the old lifestyle. She came to Susan and me for prayer. In prayer she had a vision of that lake on that day: The evil man was there, the one who had consumed her for money and Jesus was there sitting on a rock laughing and smiling. But she struggled with renouncing this man and going to Jesus, for she had felt Love that day. I said, “Love comes from God. Where was God loving you that day?” She looked into the eyes of that man and saw they were dark with evil, and yet she struggled to leave him, and run to Jesus I told her the story of the woman in Revelation 12. I told her of the earth and how it swallows rivers of lies. I then said, “Jesus was loving you that day. Long before you knew His name and named him as your savior. He was loving you through the trees, the sun, the wind, and the lake. He was loving you with His creation. He was swallowing Satan’s river of lies.” At that she looked at Jesus in the vision, she saw that it was true. She had felt love that day, but it wasn’t from the evil man, it came from The Ultimate Man, her groom, our Lord Jesus. That day He had romanced her through trees and lakes, wind and sunshine. That day he longed for her to feel His Love, long before she’d even speak His name. She broke down weeping, and in the vision she ran to Jesus the Rock in the midst of Satan’s flood. Satan is the liar, who pretends to buy and sell beauty. That is harlotry and idolatry. Jesus is the Truth, who gives us Himself; gives Beauty as Grace. It’s happening all the time. We all battle a river of lies: “God is not Good, God is not Love, God is not Grace. So you must earn His love, pay for His mercy, and thus create yourself in fear.” I’m no longer in fifth grade. I’m “grown up” and I’m a pastor. And actually three 170

years ago, I was quite a “success.” I mean, where others had “failed,” I had proven to be most fit. I had survived. If you think the ways of the world don’t infect the institutional church or pastors like me, you’ve never been involved with “church” or you’re drunk. There is a tremendous pressure upon pastors and preachers to buy and sell Beauty. And it makes sense: we preach the Gospel and get money. So it’s very tempting to think that our business is Grace. When our business is Grace, we lose sight of Grace. And when that happens we’re filled with anxiety, use people, sell ourselves and struggle to believe that we’re “good for nothing;” that God loves us for nothing, just as we are. Three years ago, my “world” came crashing down. It was a “perfect storm.” God is in charge of “perfect storms,” but they hurt like hell and strip you to the bone. I was removed from my denomination for ideas expressed in this book. I lost my church, lost “my world.” and it was ugly. I wasn’t just picked last for baseball, I was picked last for “church.” Let me tell you: that can mess with your heart. With my brain I knew these things happened; that Jesus even said to expect them; and that he was producing beautiful new things out of the ashes. But with my heart I knew chaos, the void and despair. For about six or seven months, I walked. And I walked and I walked. We live on the west side of Denver Colorado with miles of trails nearby…and I walked. During that time, some wonderful and concerned friends took my wife and me to Costa Rica for a week, and every day… I’d walk, for miles and miles with blisters on my feet, I’d walk. At the time, I didn’t really contemplate why. But I know why. My heart was going back to the ditch, for Jesus met me in the ditch. I’d walk through the day and I’d walk through the night; I’d walk along the ocean and watch the relentless waves having rolled across the great abyss to crash upon the dry land; I’d walk through woods of old pine and blankets of wildflowers in verdant meadows; I’d watch the sunset, the “sun to rule the day,” and I’d watch the moon rise, to “rule the night,”—lights in the heavens for “signs and for seasons;” I’d watch the birds (Jesus told us to do so), “they neither toil nor reap, nor gather into barns;” I’d stumble across deer and elk. I walked and walked through Beauty… And the earth would swallow satan’s river of lies and my heart would hear the Word: “I made you. I AM making you. I love you. You are mine.” I listened. If I pastored a church of 10 million, I could not have pleased Him more, for in that moment, I worshipped. Jesus is the Word God speaks to create all things. Jesus is the Word God speaks through creation to create you. Each of you battles a river of lies, yet you are surrounded by the creation of Truth; the handiwork of love; the manifestation of God’s spoken Word. So turn off the TV, put down your homework, stop vacuuming the rug, and head down to the ditch. You don’t need Costa Rica or the Rocky Mountains. Just stare at a bug. If you don’t like bugs, find a flower—not the kind you pay for; the kind you don’t— like a dandelion. Stare at the flower. Stare at the bug. And let the Creator create you. Let 171

Him speak to your heart. POINT 1: Worship. POINT 2: Be Created – a worshiper. I don’t understand all that God said to my heart on my six month “walk,” but I know it was Love. I know it was Jesus. And of course I felt guilty that day in 1971. God was speaking Jesus to my tenyear-old heart, and I decided to shoot Him with my BB gun. But don’t fear. He rises from the dead, forgives all our trespasses and makes us new. We are His Creation created with grace. He is Grace. Check it out: Creation is Free and you are His Creation.

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Pertinent Quotes What people do about their ecology depends on what they think about themselves in relation to things around them. Human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny—that is, by religion. . . . We shall continue to have a worsening ecological crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man. . . . Both our present science and our present technology are so tinctured with orthodox Christian arrogance toward nature that no solution for our ecological crisis can be expected from them alone. Since the roots of our trouble are so largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious, whether we call it that or not. ~ Lynn White, On the Historical Roots Of Our Ecological Crisis, 1967 Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel. ~ Proverbs 12:10 How is it that we end up with such a disenchanted world? I think that this growth in disenchantment has to be laid at the door of the theologians as much as the scientists. The literalism with which these great matters are put forward, the lack of imagination, the lack of poetry; it’s almost as if the entire discourse has been reduced to a scientific argument. ~ Simon Conway Morris, The Wittenburg Door, Issue #210 Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Chapter 12

How to Make a World With Just a Word court is in session, a verdict is in no appeal on the docket today just my own sin the walls are cold and pale the cage made of steal screams fill the room alone I drop and kneel…

I cry out to God seeking only his decision Gabriel stands and confirms I’ve created my own prison ~Creed, My Own Prison My Own Prison

Do you ever feel like you’re in the Twilight Zone: that space between light and darkness; between the heavens above and the chaos below; between being and nonbeing? Maybe you are. There’s a remarkable episode in The Twilight Zone: The Movie, based on an old episode of The Twilight Zone, the TV show, based on a short story by Jerome Bixby titled It’s a Good Life. Anthony is a little boy that wants a “good life.” He’s six years old in the short story, but a few years older in the movie. In the movie, he invites a travelling school teacher to dinner at his house—young and attractive, her name is Helen. She stood up for him against a bully in the town café. They drive down a long road to a house in the middle of nowhere. Inside Anthony introduces Helen to his sister Ethel, his uncle and his Mom and Dad. It’s remarkably creepy, for they all “act” perpetually “happy,” even though their obviously terrified. (Perhaps you’ve been to a church like that.) Well Anthony wants them to be “happy,” and he wants them to want to be “happy.” He wants them to want him… and he’s angry that they don’t For dinner they have hamburgers coated in peanut bitter. All of Anthony’s family constantly declare the hamburgers “good” and anything Anthony wishes, good: “It’s good Anthony… you’re so good.” Entirely “creeped out,” Helen says that she has to go, reaches into her purse and pulls out a note. Someone had slipped it in her purse when Anthony wasn’t looking: “Help us! Anthony is a monster.” Helen makes the mistake of reading the note out loud. They all declare their love for Anthony. But when Anthony finds out that the author of the note is Ethel, Ethel cries out “Go ahead, Anthony. Do it! Do it!” Then she turns to Helen, the teacher: “Now do you realize you’ll never get out of here? You think it was an accident you came here? He made it happen. He brought you here, just like he brought us here and kept us here. Just the way he’ll keep you here. Maybe he’ll get mad at you like he did to his real sister, and cripple you and take away your mouth so you won’t be able to yell at him any more. Or maybe he’ll do to you what he did to his real mother and father.” At that, Anthony declares, “Time for you to go now Ethel” and wishes Ethel right into “cartoon land.” She appears on the TV screen, where a cartoon monster gobbles her up. Obviously Helen is terrified. Anthony declares that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, 174

but everybody’s afraid of him—he just wants them to love him, to want him. He says, “I hate this house. I hate everything about it. I wish it away. I wish it all away!” Anthony closes his eyes and wishes it all away. Then we see him standing alone in the darkness—nowhere and nothing: the Void. You see Anthony is a boy who get’s whatever he wants with just a word. He can make a world with a word. He gets what he wants, but doesn’t want what he gets. Is God like Anthony? Are we like Anthony? If we were God, would we be Anthony? Anthony has created his own prison, the void. But then, He hears a word. It’s the teacher. Either he wished the teacher into the void… Or his will was not stronger than the teacher’s will and she wished herself into the void; she willed to be with him… in Hell. Perhaps it’s both. She tells Anthony, that she’ll help him to choose the good. She does. A car appears and they drive into a new creation. Maybe we need a helper like that; a teacher like that; a word like that… But we can’t create our own world can we? I don’t know. Do you ever want a world all your own? Do you ever feel alone? Are you alone? Have you ever wondered why rich and powerful people are often such sad people? Maybe because they can get whatever they want . . . but they don’t want what they get. We’re all rather rich and powerful. And whenever we get a chance to create our own world, we tend to create our own hell . . . like Gollum. My World Remember Gollum in The Lord of the Rings? He has a ring of power, and with all that power, he crawls into a hole under the mountains. He chooses nowhere and nothing. He gets what he wants and doesn’t want what he gets. As we noted a few chapters ago, Gollum is based on the Jewish legend of the Golem. Golem means “unformed substance.” According to the Talmud, Adam was a Golem until he received the breath of God and Spirit of God, the Word that rides on breath. Maybe we’re Golem. Maybe we’re not fully created until we’re finally created by the Word—the Logos—the wisdom and meaning of God. And until then, if we choose to make a world, we choose to make our own hell, for we choose to speak our own words. My word You may think: “Good thing that’s a metaphor, because we can’t create our own reality…right?” Well, if it was utterly impossible to create your own reality with just a “word;” to create matter with just “intention,” why would we dream about it so much? That’s a philosophical question. It’s also a scientific question. We all dream of making our world with just a wish 175

or a word. Modern physicists are puzzled as to why we can’t, for they say we do at the quantum level. Physicists say that we “create” sub-atomic particles with our perception, reason, logos, or word. (In quantum reality, an “observer” collapses the quantum state of a subatomic particle; the particle only potentially exists until a person--an “observer”-thinks, intends reasons or wills it to exist) Those particles make up reality as we know it. So how come we can’t simply create our own world, our own reality, with a word? Maybe some do. Maybe some are entirely stuck in nowhere and nothing, like hell. Maybe some are only partly stuck in nowhere and nothing, like sin. Maybe we, at least for now, can only create our world in little ways and not big ways. Maybe that’s God’s Mercy: Maybe kicking us out of the garden when we became “like god;” Maybe “subjecting creation (and us) to futility” is God’s grace, keeping us from damning ourselves to hell: our own reality and no one else’s reality. ALONE. One of the kids from my old youth group called me. He was studying quantum physics at U. C. Santa Cruz and struggling with his Christian faith. We talked a while and then he said something like this: Peter, I have to believe there’s a God. Physics clearly shows that an observer creates reality. So if you and I can coexist in the same reality, if we can have a relationship in the same reality, there must be an observer observing us both, creating reality—our reality—with His Word. Universe: It means “one verse,” God’s verse, one Word, one World The Universe “Making a world with a word.”… What a bizarre idea . . . and what a biblical idea. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Then, for all of Genesis 1, for all of six days, God “creates,” “makes,” and “lets” with just a word. It sounds a little far fetched, don’t you think? A word is a vibration of meaning; a vibration of logos, that rides on breath, wind, or in biblical parlance: spirit. It’s produced by vibrations on a string that we call a vocal chord. In “string theory,” (the best and latest attempt to reconcile Quantum Physics and 176

General Relativity), all of reality is the manifestation of vibrations of meaning on onedimensional “strings” or “superstrings”-- strings that transect ten, eleven or even 26 dimensions… Well, God creates the universe with His Word. Then, in verse 26 we read, “Then God said, ‘Let us’” …Who’s “us”? …Maybe God is talking to His Word or His Spirit. “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.” Well, what is Their image? What is that image? Theologians have debated this for thousands of years, so we certainly won’t answer it conclusively, (and in another book, I hope to address it more completely: the trinity, love in freedom etc., etc.) But for now: It is rather interesting to note that when God says these words, He’s been doing nothing but creating with a word. “Creating with a Word,” and then He says, “Let us make man in our image.” So it would seem that creating a world with a word would somehow be His image. And it seems that none of us can do that, at least not very well. We’re not good at moving mountains, for instance, with just a word. However, we are still being made in God’s image… Hey. Have you ever thought about this? If we could move mountains with a word, and we all spoke a different word, then: All our mountains would be crashing into each other… in this world --or-We’d all have to live in separate worlds…each alone I mean, we’ve had a hard enough time with handguns. Imagine if each of us had the power to move mountains with a word, and each word was our own word. We’d have mountains flying all over the place and crashing into each other over the streets of Denver, New York and Saigon. Maybe that’s why Jesus (John 14:13) said, “Whatever y’all (2nd person, plural) ask in my name, this I will do.”—in my name. So there would be many prayers but one Word; Many prayers but one Meaning. Then, we could all live in one world.1 In God’s Image in God’s World Well, this is the last chapter of this book. I’ve taken some time with Genesis chapter one, because I think it may be the most neglected chapter in all of Scripture. And yet it’s the most foundational in all of Scripture. And if our foundation is crooked, the whole house will be crooked. God creates all things with a Word, and that Word is our solid foundation—the rock. The Word is the light, the light is life, and life is good. So we’ve discussed good and evil, life and death, light and dark, solid and empty: the idea that the things we think are empty may be full and the things we think are full may be empty. So we may be utterly full of ourselves and be truly and entirely empty. Empty…yet God is speaking substance into us—light and life into us. Empty…yet God is speaking His Word into the void that is us and our world. 177

Empty... yet God is speaking Faith, Hope and Love; He is speaking His good choice; He is speaking freedom into the dark prison that is me. He does it over the span of seven days (six days and one day), a pattern which we’re called to repeat as the pattern of our lives. It’s called a week. Over the six days, the Father is telling us who we are. We’re not orphans that make our own world. He’s making us. And we’re not finished until we come to judgment, which is the cross where Jesus—God’s Word—cries, “It is finished!” and “delivers up His Spirit,” which the Father then sends into the depths of our heart crying “Abba, Daddy.” It is the “spirit of sonship” (Romans 8:15 RSV) It is the Spirit of the Son. The cross is the edge of the seventh day—God’s Sabbath rest where God finishes creation and you. If you think I’ve been harping on that, I’m sorry. I just want you to believe God is making you in His image, He is doing it with a Word and His Word “shall not return …empty” (Is. 55:11) It shall not return void. “It shall accomplish that which I purpose” says the Lord God. What does He purpose? Genesis 1:26-2:3 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. (“Every tree:” Wouldn’t that include the tree in the middle of the garden? And what is its fruit? And what is its seed?)2 …and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. “It is finished.” As I’ve studied Genesis 1, I’ve had a vision stuck in my head and even more in my heart. I didn’t see the vision; I’ve rarely, if ever, seen a vision. But my friend Dale 178

did. He received it during three worship services several years ago as we preached through the gospel of Matthew. God speaks through visions, and God speaks through Scripture. Scripture always takes priority over modern day visions, but sometimes visions open up Scripture and help all of us to see. This is Dale’s vision. Try to see it: I saw God the Father, having made himself small, standing on the stage behind the cross and tall enough that His head hit the ceiling. He had a robe that covered the cross, and the train flowed over the entire stage and spilled onto the floor. His robe shimmered such that when I looked on it one minute it looked like silver, the next like a starry night, the next like water, the next like fire. [He is the Lord of all creation.] The only parts of His body that were not covered by the robe were His head and hands, and from these issued such a light, brighter than staring directly at the sun, that I could not look anywhere near them or discern any details or form. As Peter was preaching, standing in front of God with His robe flowing around Peter’s legs, the Word issued from Peter’s mouth like water, and it flowed off the stage and mingled with blood coming from under the robe. Now please understand: I am nothing, in and of myself. But the Word I preach and the Word you preach are called to proclaim. That Word is everything. The water and blood filled the room all the way to the ceiling. The people sat in the rising flood and some breathed in the Word while others tried to hold their breath . . . they were afraid of drowning. As the blood and water reached the ceiling, the Glory of God sparkled through the water as light through the most brilliant and perfect diamond, except the diamond was red. It’s a blood diamond. So can you see the picture? The Word in the air in the sanctuary was like a brilliant, red diamond full of light. Dale says we were like empty, jagged holes in that brilliant red fluid—jagged holes, the edges of which burned like paper on fire. “This is the judgment:” writes John (3:19) “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light…” The Light is Life. The life is in The Word. (John 1:4) Dale writes that those who held their breath and refused the Word slowly shriveled up or burned away until there was nothing left. You see, the light of the Word burns our minds; our old ways of thinking; or darkness. Love consumes “not Love.” It/He consumes the darkness. Some were destroyed… I suppose… like Sodom was destroyed by “Eternal Fire (Jude 8).” Yet God even restores destroyed things like Sodom (Ezekiel 16:53-63). Those who refused the Word were consumed, but then Dale writes that those who received the Word and breathed it in began to sing and dance. Dale asked the Lord, “Where is the music coming from?” Then he saw the Father open His robe revealing Jesus hanging on the tree—the source of the blood. And the 179

music came from His mouth. Dale then saw orphans dancing around the foot of the tree, the cross. The orphans were like the people: empty vessels—people shaped voids. We are all like empty vessels that God wants to fill with light, life, and meaning. And we are all like orphans to whom God the Father is revealing our story. He’s giving us our identity: no longer orphans but sons and daughters. Dale continues: All those empty and identity-less vessels began to float around in the blood. And then I noticed that the inside of the church had become so large that it encompassed the entire earth, and the stage was filled with thousands upon thousands of “Peters” and the sanctuary was filled with billions more empty vessels, all floating. And God had grown proportionally large and the number of orphans had grown into the millions . . . . However, the cross and Jesus did NOT change size. It was still the same as the little cross in our little LMCC building. And then Jesus opened a door . . . that is, while He was hanging there and continuing to bleed, He opened His chest, and through it I could see daylight on the other side. And that “door” became like a drain and all of the flood, filled with us vessels, poured through the drain. You know that Jesus is “the door” to God’s finished creation—the seventh day. At His tree, the cross, we surrender ourselves and the isolated, lonely, empty worlds we have created. We surrender our emptiness and are filled with God’s fullness: light, life, faith, hope love, mercy, and blood. Dale writes: When we each reached the drain, our clay vessels were broken so we would be small enough to fit through. On the other side we would suddenly realize that we had a body and we could see with our eyes . . . except that our body, every limb, was connected, fused to someone else so that the blood that flowed through our veins also flowed through theirs, and the only thing we could see was light. We were all now literally part of Jesus’ body; we were… blood vessels. Then I watched as God the Father hugged His Son, Jesus, took the hand of the Holy Spirit, and together they picked up what was left of this now empty “hell hole,” crumpled it, swallowed it, and said to each other, “It is finished!” It is finished We are created with God’s Word: the good news of God’s love in Christ Jesus, the proclamation of God’s Grace. 1. In the beginning, we are empty and void. If we create anything with our own word, it is the dark, meaningless, loveless, lifeless, lonely, self-centered worlds in which we are each imprisoned. But . . . 180

2. God speaks light, meaning, love, life, Himself into us and separates heaven and hell. 3. The Word He speaks is more solid than anything in our empty, little worlds. It is His kingdom of love that is at hand (like dry land under our feet). 4. The Word He speaks is Jesus, who descends into our darkness and through His Spirit causes us to see the good and want the good. He makes us to want Him. He separates night from day. 5. The Word is God’s grace revealed in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. A. Nothing is more offensive, for it reveals our emptiness and sin. The reality is that we can’t make ourselves, save ourselves, or redeem ourselves. B. Nothing is more offensive, and nothing is more desirable than God’s grace. Grace is what we each truly want but are terrified to receive, for when we receive it, we lose our lives and find them. We lose our emptiness but find our fullness in Him. Born of His seed, no longer orphans, but sons and daughters. 6. Through the Word, God makes us in His image and is still making us in His image, not prisoner’s of fear caught in the Twilight Zone, but sons and daughters who love in freedom, so “want” and “will” what God “wills,” and so live in one World. He does it with one Word. His Word given to us on the sixth day on the tree on the mountain— not fear, but Love. 7. God will finish what He has started. So God creates the world with His Word. And God creates you with His Word. And God creates you in His image, the image of the one who creates worlds with a Word. He calls you to preach that Word. That means proclaim that Word, announce that Word to His unfinished creation, and create in His image. You are a herald. How to make a world with a Word In the image of God We proclaim The Word: Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the “power of God and the wisdom of God…whom God has “made our wisdom, our righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.” (1 Cor.1:23-24, 30) To our dark, little hearts, the Word seems unsubstantial, inconsequential, weak, and foolish. But nothing is more substantial, consequential, powerful, and wise than the Word of God. I want you to trust God’s Word so you’ll hear God’s Word and speak God’s Word. The Word 1. The Word is a thing more substantial, more solid, than all creation. In Hebrew, the word for word is “davar,” which also means thing. The Word of God is the thing of God on which all things rest. The Word isn’t empty; we are empty. 181

2. The Word is seed. Six times Genesis 1 has referred to seed, and Scripture says the Word is seed—eternal seed (1 Peter 1:23). A farmer only sows seed. He doesn’t make it grow. If he thinks he makes it grow, he’ll dig it up and keep it from growing. We don’t have to argue the seed, defend the seed, or measure and judge the growth of the seed; just sow the seed. The Word carries its future in its bosom, like a seed. • • • •

So when my friends Andrew and Paul preach in Cambodia, they don’t topple empires, but they sow a seed that will topple all empires. Kiss your kids before bed and tell them, “God loves you.” You sow a seed that will change a life. The Word is a seed, like the Big Bang was a seed. The Word is an entire universe ready to spring into existence. You can’t create a universe, but you can sow a seed that does—a seed of eternal consequence.

3. The Word is living and active (Heb. 4:12). The seed is living and active. We think people are living and active and the Word is dead. But people are dead and passive; the Word is living and active. • • •

It’s not you that must make the Word come to life; it’s the Word that makes you come to life. The Word spoke you, long before you ever spoke the Word. So the Word really doesn’t ride on your tongue; your tongue rides on the Word. We don’t judge the Word; the Word judges us. We don’t choose the Word; the Word chooses us.

4. The Word is Jesus. He is revealed in infallible Scripture, but the Word is Jesus. He’s not a formula; He’s not print on a page. So when you speak the Word, you’re not speaking a formula. You’re not just speaking words on a page or steps in a booklet. You’re not just making sound waves in the air. You’re literally “expressing” the love of God, who is a person named Jesus. Jesus, the Word, is living and active. So we really don’t choose the Word, the Word chooses us. Jesus said to his disciples (John 15:16) “You didn’t choose me; I chose you.” 5. The Word is Faith, Hope and Love. The Word in you is God’s good choice in you. God’s good choice is Jesus the Christ. St. Augustine wrote: "If there is faith in us, Christ is in us. For what else says the apostle: 'That Christ may dwell in you hearts by faith' [Eph 3:17]. Therefore thy faith in Christ is Christ himself in thy heart." • In Col. 1:27 Paul reveals a great mystery which is “Christ in you, the hope of Glory.” Hope in you is Christ in you. • And we all know that God is Love. Faith, Hope and Love in you is Christ in you. Faith, Hope and Love in you is God’s good choice in you. A “good choice” in you is Christ in you—The Word in you. •

Your “choice,” your “will,” didn’t save you (actually it damned you.) God saved you. Your “faith,” didn’t save you. God’s grace—Jesus—saved you, and that’s why you have faith. It’s His faithfulness in you. 182

In Romans 10:6-10 Paul makes it clear that the Word in you is Christ in you which is the “word of faith we proclaim.” In Galatians 3:23-26, “faith came,” just as “Christ came.” Have you ever tried to “create faith?” Hard, huh? That’s because Faith creates you. Faith is the “substance of things hoped for.” (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV) Our hope is in Christ. You don’t create Christ. He creates you. No wonder we’re stressed! No wonder we’re afraid! No wonder church feels like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. If we try to manufacture our own faith, hope and love in fear, we become like Anthony’s prisoners in the Twilight Zone. If I try to force people into the kingdom through threats, I don’t create new people, I create religious people—Pharisees. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), but not the End, for “perfect love casts our fear” (1 John 4:18). “The kindness of God leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4 NASB). It’s the proclamation of God’s Love revealed on the cross that causes men and women to love God in Freedom. That’s called faith. Faith is trust. It’s not to your credit as if you could boast. Faith is a gift. It’s the Word, having found a place in you.3 6. The Word is a Promise. The “child of the Promise” is Jesus. His body and blood form the new covenant; the “eternal covenant (Hebrews 13:20)” A covenant is a promise; an oath. That’s why, “above all,” we are not to make “oaths” (James 5:17), because Jesus is the oath that makes us (Hebrews 6 and 7). Recently I heard a speaker say, “Did you realize, you can take the Ten Commandments as a promise or a threat?” In my Bible God doesn’t say “You should have no other God’s before me.” He says “You shall have no other God’s before me.” (Ex. 20:3) That sounds like a promise. Well, Hebrew can be rather obscure, and people argue over “shall” and “will” in English, however Greek is very precise. When Jesus sums up the Law in the Gospels, it is recorded in Greek. He says, “You shall love (Matt.22:37).” It’s very simple. The verb is “Future active indicative.” It “indicates” what will happen in the future. It means, “You will love.” NOT “you might love,” or “you could love,” or “you should love.” The commandment is a promise. Jesus is that promise. He is the one that fulfills the commandment, the law… in you. Do you wonder if you ever will be good? The harder you try to love God, the more you hate God--terrified of God? The harder you try to act “good,” “rejoice always,” and seem “blessed,” the more you feel cursed; the more you try to forget yourself, the more you’re stuck in yourself; the more you try to joyfully love in freedom, the more you don’t, the more you are terrified that you won’t measure up and can’t measure up? GOOD NEWS: you don’t measure up and can’t measure up, but He does measure up and has measured up and He makes you a promise. The commandment is a promise. When God commands things; when God speaks His Word what happens? Reality happens. Praise God! He is still speaking His Word. He is still making you in His image. So this is His Promise. Are you ready? This is THE WORD. This is THE END. This 183

is your CREATOR: “You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And a second is like it you will love your neighbor as yourself” On a tree, on a mountain, at the end of the sixth day “he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” …It is that Spirit, in your heart, that cries “Abba, Father.” You are finished and perfected with His Spirit spoken into you; His choice in you; His Faith Hope and Love in the void that was you. It has already happened in eternity and it is happening now in time. 7. The Word is The End. Jesus is more solid than all creation. Jesus is imperishable seed. Jesus is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” Jesus is a rider on a white horse, called the “Word of God,” the armies of heaven follow in His train. “On his robe and on his thigh He has a name written, ‘King of kings and Lord of lords, (Rev.19:16)’” Jesus is the judgment of God and the wisdom of God; “the author and finisher of our faith.”(Hebrews 12:2 KJV) Jesus does not return void. He is Faith, Hope and Love spoken into the void that is us. He is the End of us. That means He is the perfection of us. We are finished in Him. Jesus is the Beginning and the End; the Plot; the Reason; The Logos; The Word. Jesus can take care of Himself. Speak the Word that makes a World You see, I think we get so scared to preach Jesus; to proclaim the Word, because we think that He cannot take care of himself. We think the Word cannot take care of himself, so we must take care of him… twist him, tamper with him. We don’t proclaim Him, we sell Him, bargain with Him. We say, “If you do your part, He’ll do his.” “This is how you can apply Him to your life” This is how you can make Him work.” “This is how you can use Jesus to create your world.” Did you hear that? ...that sounds like a snake. Why don’t you tell more people about Jesus? (I don’t mean this as an accusation. Perhaps you shouldn’t tell people about Jesus. He spent a lot of time asking folks not to talk about him: Matt.16:20, 17:9 Mark 7:36, 8:30, 9:9 Luke 5:14, 8:56.) But why don’t you? I’ll tell you about me. I don’t want to tell people about Jesus when I think I have to protect him, make him work and thus need to “create someone’s world” and give Jesus the credit. And it seems that every time I’ve tried to create a world with my words, I create chaos and the void. And yet if I just proclaim Jesus, because I like Jesus, who is God’s Word, He makes the world. I don’t have to make Him work. And if I do, it’s not the Word that I’m preaching. I don’t have to convince folks to choose Him. And if I do, it’s not the Word that they’re choosing. 184

I don’t have to know everything about the Word. And if I do, it’s not the Word. I don’t have to know everything about the Word, just testify to the Word I know. I don’t have to make a world. But I “get to make a world.” I get to make a world the way my three year old daughter used to drive our van. She’d sit on my lap and put her hands on the wheel and we’d drive three thousand pounds of steel to the mailbox, and when we’d return she’d say, “Mommy guess what?” I drove the van! And I’d say, “Yep! She drove the Van.” Like Becky drove the van, proclaim The Word. The Word is in the driver’s seat, sit on his lap, turn to your neighbor and say “Jesus is pretty cool… and He likes you.” Drive the van. There is a Word, that you will speak, that creates a world. The Word is Jesus, and the world is the kingdom of heaven. And when you speak that Word, you yourself are being created in the image of God, for God is the one who creates a world with a Word. In Mark 16:15, Jesus says to His disciples: “Go into all the world and preach”— that means proclaim, announce, not argue or threaten. “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel”—that means good news. Go tell them who God is; what He’s done; how He loves them; who they really are and what it is that they really want. When my children were little and I was creating them, I told them what they wanted, for they were confused and didn’t always know. They wanted me (and their mother.) They wanted me more than chocolate, hot wheels and the toys on TV . . . and even more than their own way. So tell the world, “God is your Father. He makes you and forgives you with His own blood. You are His child, and He wants you to come home. He is what you really want.” Tell them, “God saves;” “Yeshua” in Aramaic; “Jesus” in English. Tell them because you want to. Tell them because it doesn’t depend on you. Tell them their story, like God the Father has been telling us our story in Genesis 1. Tell them and help create them in God’s image. They are God’s treasure. They are His blood diamond, which He is creating with His Word… even through you. Have you seen the movie Blood Diamond? It’s about a father named Solomon and his son Dia in Sierra Leone, Africa. The father works hard as a fisherman to support his family and keep his son Dia in school. Dia is his world. One day rebels come to their village and take Solomon captive to work in the diamond mines, the pit. But they conscript Dia into the rebel army financed by the same diamond mines. They brainwash Dia and tell him he has no father—no story. So he must create his own story. Worse than that, they make him do terrible things, their things, which they tell him, are his things--his story. They want him to write his story in their image. One day Solomon, the father escapes from the pit, having found and frantically buried a priceless red diamond—a blood diamond. A diamond smuggler, Danny Archer played by Leonardo Dicaprio, wants to find that diamond. Solomon wants to find his son, who is his blood diamond—his treasure. In a partnership of necessity they return to the pit: Archer looking for one diamond, Solomon for another. At night Solomon descends into the enemy camp, but 185

when he finds his son, Dia has forgotten who he is . . . or it’s too painful for him to remember who he is, where he’s from, and what he really wants. He’s trapped in his own hell. He wants what he hates, and hates what he wants. Deep in his soul, he’s lost faith hope and love in his father. And will not leave… hell. He screams at his father, “Leave me alone. I don’t know you.” Solomon is caught by the warlord and Solomon’s son stands at the warlord’s side. Solomon has sacrificed his life for his son, who has betrayed his father to “the devil” in “hell.” Just then another group attacks. Chaos ensues. There is a remarkable scene at the end of the movie. Dia is with Solomon and Archer, but terribly confused. They’ve just barely escaped two groups of mercenaries and are frantically digging when Solomon finds the diamond—both of them. Solomon means peace. This is how the “prince of peace find his treasure in the field.” He finds it with a Word. He is the Word. As Solomon digs the diamond form the earth, Dia grabs a hand gun and points it at Archer. Solomon looks up and says “Dia… what are you doing? Dia? Look at me.” As he does he walks in front of the gun. Dia points the gun at his father. Tears run down Solomon’s cheeks as he stares his son in the face and speaks the word: You are Dia Vandy, of the proud Mende tribe…You are a good boy who loves soccer and school. Your mother loves you so much. [Solomon moves towards his son.] She waits by the fire making plantains and red palm stew with your sister, N’yanda, and the new baby. [a tear rolls down Dia’s cheek.] The cows wait for you, and Babu the wild dog, who minds no one but you. I know they made you do bad things. But you are not a bad boy… I am your father who loves you. And you will come home with me and be my son again. Solomon reaches out, strokes his son’s head and holds him to his heart, his blood diamond. At a tree on a mountain at the edge of the “City of peace,” we held a gun to our father’s heart. There he speaks and we see the glory of God shining in the face of Christ. He is the “Prince of Peace.” He says: I am your Father who loves you. You will come home and live with me. You are my son. You are my daughter. I know you’ve been made to do bad things. But you are not bad, for now I call you “good.” I wash you. I fill you. I tell you who you are and what you want. You are made for me. It is finished. He spoke and He’s still speaking. He is the Word of God and this is the end of the sixth day. Your Father is telling you who you are. Believe his Word. Soon you will feel his arms wrapped around you and you will be home. He speaks the world into existence. This is your father’s world. He speaks you into existence. You are your father’s world. 186

He speaks Jesus: He gives everything to tell you who you are, make you who you are, and bring you home. Hear the Word and let him make His world. Speak the Word and help him make other worlds… until we all hear the same Word and live in the same World; until we’re all home. “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a Word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’” (Is. 45:22-23) “So shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Is. 55:11) “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen. 1:26) “And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good.”(Gen. 1:31)

Epiphany: That’s the History of Time and the Genesis of You.

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Endnotes and Pertinent Quotes 1.

Jesus also said (Matt. 21:21), “If you have faith and do not doubt, you will… say to this mountain”—this mountain. This mountain is Mt. Zion, and it did and does move. It’s actually where faith comes from—a tree on that mountain. Faith is a Word in us. It’s The One Word in us. Many persons, but one Faith—then we can all live in one world. 2. Did you catch that: “Every tree… for food”? If He meant that, he must have said it some “time” after Genesis 2:16, “…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” This is the topic of a book to come, but for now ask yourself this question: Is there a tree of which eating the fruit will kill you, yet having eaten and died, you then eat and live? I believe there is. From that tree comes judgment: knowledge of the law and our sin. And from that tree comes Life, which is Grace—the life of God poured out—Blood. We die there and live there. The life from that tree, within us, is called Faith, Hope and Love. At that tree we are “finished” in the image of God. This Hebrew word for “tree” is also translated “timber” or “gallows.” It is the Hebrew word for “cross.” Was there ever a greater evil, than taking the life of God on that tree? Was there ever a greater good, than God giving His life on that tree? In the New Jerusalem there is one tree (Rev. 22:2). The fruit is for the “healing of the nations.” “His body broken and His blood shed” is for the healing of the nations. It is food. It is the fruit of that tree. It contains a seed, an imperishable eternal seed, the Word of God. 3. Faith is a gift, not the result of human effort (Eph. 2:8). This was the glorious rediscovery of the Reformers, but we have forgotten it… we have even translated it out of our bibles. In Galatians Paul tells us that we are “justified” by the “faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ.” (2:16 KJV) Believing “in Jesus” is having the “faith of Jesus.” Modern translations often change “the faith of Jesus” to “faith in Jesus.” In which case, we’re not justified by Jesus’ faith, or God’s faith, but our faith. They do it in several places (Romans 3: 22, 26; Galatians 2:16, 20, 3:22; Phil. 3:9, Eph. 3:12) and violate the mystery: “Christ in us.”

~ When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. ~ John 19:30 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. . . . Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. ~ Hebrews 4:11-13, 11:1-3 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. ~ John 15:16-17 "We did not search you out, Padri," he said to me. "We did not even want you to come to us. You searched us out. You followed us away from your house into the bush, into the planes, into the steppes where our cattle are, into the hills where we take our cattle for water, into our villages, 188

into our homes. You told us of the High God, how we must search for him, even leave our land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not left our land. We have not searched for him. He has searched for us. He has searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God.” The lion is God. Of course. Goodness and kindness and holiness and grace and divine presence and creating power and salvation were here before I got here. Even the fuller understanding of God’s revelation to man, of the gospel, of the salvific act that had been accomplished once and for all for the human race was here before I got here. My role as a herald of that gospel, as a messenger of the news of what had already happened in the world, as the person whose task it was to point to “the one who had stood in their midst whom they did not recognize” was only a small part of the mission of God to the world. It was a mysterious part, a part barely understood. It was a necessary part, a demanded part— “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” It was a role that would require every talent and insight and skill and gift and strength I had, to be spent without question, without stint, and yet in the humbling knowledge that only that part of it would be made use of which fit into the immeasurably greater plan of the relentless pursuing God whose will on the world must not be thwarted. The lion is God. ~ Vincent J. Donovan, Rediscovering Christianity And he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.” ~ Mark 16:15 (RSV)

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Appendix:

Everything Good and

What the Hell? In several places Scripture testifies to the idea that there is a reality in which “everything” is “very good” (Gen. 1:31); a reality in which “all things” are made new (Rev. 21:5); where “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them,” praises God and the Lamb that was slain (Rev. 5:13); a place where Jesus, the Light, fills “all things” (Eph. 4:9) and every knee bows and every tongue gives praise (Romans 14:11, Phil. 2:10-11, Isaiah 45:23)… Well, if that’s the case – and Jesus said, “Scripture cannot be broken.” – Where the hell is Hell? I mean, how do we reconcile Scripture with “popular” notions of “Hell?” That question comes as a surprise for many. For we’ve been told that the “popular” view of Hell—a place where God tortures people or allows people to be tortured forever without end—is a Biblical idea. The more I’ve studied it, the more I’ve become convinced that this “doctrine” is a very unbiblical idea… perhaps it’s even a satanic idea. I hope that you don’t simply believe me in these matters. I hope that you “examine the Scriptures daily to see if these things are so.” (Acts 17:11) Some time ago I pulled together a long document in which I tried to list the most pertinent Scripture and wrestle a bit with each text individually. We have it posted on our church website, www.thesanctuarydowntown.org. It’s titled, “All things new?” and perhaps it would be a help to you. At the end of this appendix I’ll also suggest some helpful books on the topic. However, my strongest suggestion is that you “examine the Scriptures,” not simply relying on one English translation but several. Even better, get your hands on some good Bible software. With modern advances in technology and some good software, you can do language studies that would have required busloads of graduate school in years past. Don’t rely on Scholars comments, they’re all human. With Bible software (I use Libronix) you can click on a word like “Hell” in the Old Testament in the King James Version, find that it’s the Hebrew word “Sheol,” then click on a prompt and find all the places that word is used in the Old Testament and observe how it’s been translated. The process can be rather discombobulating, if you’re trying to fit what you find into the old paradigm. Indeed it’s time for a new paradigm. Our culture is ripe for a new paradigm. Modern (or post-modern) physics is giving us that paradigm… or perhaps I should say, giving back that paradigm. And now modern society and the deinstitutionalization of the church is giving back to believers, a freedom to “examine the Scriptures,” which we really haven’t had since the 4th century AD. At which time, the church was conscripted by a very powerful human institution interested in control gained through power and threats--the Roman Empire. Up until that time many would argue that the idea of “unending conscious torment” was the minority opinion in the early church— a church which did not grow through the exercise of power and threats, but through the romance of sacrificial love. 190

If you’re interested in that topic I would suggest Thomas Talbott’s wonderful book, The Inescapable Love of God and reading some respected early church historians particularly in regard early church fathers like Origen, Athanasius and Clement of Alexandria. In recent years the church has been largely divided between two camps: Liberals and conservatives. Liberals like to talk about “love,” but often argue that Scripture can’t be taken at face value, and tend to sacrifice truth for tolerance. Conservative like to talk about “truth,” argue that they take Scripture “literally,” and tend to sacrifice love for law. That’s a tragedy, for us and especially for Jesus. It’s his body that get’s torn and the reality in Scripture is the God is Truth and God is Love. If we’re willing to sacrifice our ideological camps, perhaps we can begin to see Truth and Love, our Lord Jesus. I fear that we have been sacrificing Him. He is the reputation of God. It seems to me that he is “just not that into” torture and that He’s not willing to stop seeking the lost, until all are found. So would you consider that perhaps, “Hell” (Sheol, Hades) does not have the last word… or last Word.? (I feel rather strongly about this.) And would you consider one other thing? That God just might really make “all things new?” Perhaps some things will turn out to be “no things,” like shadows and lies, but “all things” is a pretty big order. Perhaps we’ve built an unbiblical box for God and missed the glory of “Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Perhaps, God is better than we thought; the Love of Jesus is deeper than we know; and the Spirit is everywhere working the wonders of Mercy. In the following paragraphs, I’d just like to offer the beginning of what might be for you, a new perspective. In the first section--A New Biblical Perspective, I’ll flood you with some seeds, a set of ideas, that I hope will nurture a new perspective on the Biblical text. In the next section “Theology,” I’ll suggest a few ways that this might effect our theological paradigms. In the last section, rather quickly, I’ll suggest some reasons as to why this matters.

Scripture: A. “Hell” It’s rather shocking to discover that the modern American Church has used this one term to describe at least two very different Biblical realities (Hades and The Fire) and perhaps the place where those two realities come together (Gehenna).

1. Hades/Sheol: I believe that Hades is temporal. Scripture indicates that it will come to an End. Hades may very well last “forever,” yet even “forever” (temporality as we know it, “chronos”) comes to an End. “Hades” is the normative Greek translation of the Hebrew word, “Sheol.” In the Old Testament, Sheol is the realm of the dead…basically all dead (Psalm 89:48). People like Samuel and Jonah come up from Sheol. God raises things from Sheol (1 Samuel 191

2:6). The Psalmist speaks of his soul being brought up from Sheol (Psalm 30:3) or being “entangled” by the “cords of Sheol” (18:5). Job wants to hide from God’s wrath in Sheol (Job14:3). However in Deuteronomy (32:22), God reveals that the fire of his anger burns even to the depths of Sheol. God’s fiery wrath does not appear to be the same thing as Sheol. Indeed Sheol is considered a place to hide from God’s fiery wrath. In the New Testament Jesus speaks of a place of “outer darkness” into which “sons of the kingdom” are cast (Matt. 8:12). He also speaks of “The Son of Man” three days and three nights in the heart of the earth as Jonah was in the belly of the whale (Sheol- Jonah 2:2). He prophesies that the gates of Hades will not be able to withstand His Church (Matt. 16:18). When Christ dies on the cross, graves are opened in Jerusalem. Ezekiel had prophesied that God would raise “the whole house of Israel” (Ezekiel 37:11). Ephesians 4:8 and 1 Peter 3:19 both seem to speak of Jesus descending and preaching in Hades. We state this in the Apostle’s Creed. According to 2 Peter and Jude, angels appear to be kept in this place until the “judgment of the great day.” Hades is at least a temporal reality. That is, it is a place in the flow of chronological time. In Revelation 20:13, “Death and Hades” are “thrown into the Lake of Fire.” It seems that Hades CANNOT be the same thing as The Lake of Fire, if in fact God casts Hades into the Lake of Fire. Revelation 21:4 then states that, “death shall be no more.” It does not explicitly state that “Hades” will be no more, yet it seems understood by the text. And if it does exist after, outside of, or beyond this temporal experience it must not be a place of “death” for “death is no more.” Scripture seems to indicate that Hades comes to an End in The Lake of Fire. It may be that even “temporality” (“chronos”—time as we experience it now) comes to an End in The Lake of Fire. As the Angel states in Rev. 10:6 KJV, “Time (chronos) shall be no more.”

2. The Fire: “The Fire” (including: the lake of fire, the pillar of fire, the fire on Sodom, the burning bush, the fire in the temple, the fire that ignites Gehenna, the fire in Daniel’s fiery furnace, and the fire of Pentecost) is Eternal and in some way divinity Himself. By Eternal I mean beyond temporality and without End, because It/He is the End. In Old Testament theophanies, God often appears as fire. “God IS a consuming fire” (Deuteronomy 4:24). In Scripture fire seems to belong to God in a special way. In Numbers 3 the sons of Aaron offer “unauthorized fire” before the Lord and suffer punishment. In Rev. 13, the false prophet must be “allowed” to bring fire down from heaven. God “answers by fire” (1 Kings 18:24). Fire comes from heaven to consume the sacrifices. In 2 Chronicles 7 fire comes down and consumes the sacrifices in the temple and fills the temple with glory. In Isaiah 6, the burning coal from the alter atones for sin and takes Isaiah’s guilt away. The fire was to be kept burning in the temple at all times. The sinners in Zion wonder, “Who can dwell with the consuming fire?” (Isaiah 33:14). Yet in Acts 2, the fire descends and fills the new temple—the Church—and instead of “consuming” the sacrifices in pain, the fire fills the living sacrifices with joy—in fact the very Spirit of God.

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God is a consuming fire. His Word is “like fire” (Jeremiah 23:29). The Angel of Yahweh, Son of Man appears as fire. Yet Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are not burned by this fire as are the Babylonians. The whole earth will be consumed with God’s fire (Zephaniah 3:8). Yet one day the Lord himself will be a wall of fire around Jerusalem and “the glory” in her midst (Zechariah 2:5). Glory is closely associated with fire. In biblical times, light was also closely associated with fire. God is light and “a fire.” Jesus came to baptize with fire. He transfigures into one who looks like he’s on fire. In the Revelation his eyes are like a “flame of fire.” In Luke 12 Jesus states that he came to cast fire on the earth and that he wished it were already kindled. In Acts 2 the fire falls and is experienced ecstatically. Paul tells us that in being kind we heap “burning coals” on the heads of our enemies, as if Love is Fire (Song of Solomon 8:6). He also speaks of persons being saved, “as through fire.” Peter teaches that our faith is refined like gold as through fire. In Mark 9:49, Jesus states that we will all be salted with fire. It seems that the same fire can consume some, purify others, and even fill some with ecstatic joy. In Matthew 25 Jesus speaks of “eternal fire” and “eternal punishment” that is analogous to “eternal life.” The life is God’s and the fire is God’s. I think these five statements are true: God is Light. God is Holy. God is Fire. God is Love. God is one. I don’t think God changes. However, our experience of him does. I don’t think He’s 25% light, 25% holy, 25% fire and 25% steadfast love. I don’t think He’s “merciful to a point” and then is no longer “steadfast love.” He is 100% Light, 100% Holy, 100% Fire, and 100% Steadfast Love, Mercy, Grace, Hesed. Jesus himself is our Judgment. In the Revelation the Lake of Fire is often referred to as the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. In the Old Testament “brimstone” falls from the heavens and the breath of Yahweh is like brimstone (Isaiah 30:33). In the Revelation the Greek word for “brimstone” is “theion.” “Theos” is Greek word rendered “God.” Theion is and adjective, that can be used as a “substantive.” I am NO language scholar but according to the Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains, “theion” can also be translated as “divine being”. Perhaps this lake is the “Lake of Fire and Divinity” or “Lake of Fire that is Divinity” (if the “kai” is epexegetical), or “Lake of Fire that burns with Divinity” (Rev. 19:20). Some would disagree, but whatever the case, it seems that “theion” is closely tied to “Theos.” Of course the fire is eternal if the fire is in some sense divinity. The fire has no end because it is the End. Torment for darkness is to be exposed to the Light. Torment for lies is to be exposed to Truth. Torment for death is to be exposed to Life. Torment for any impurity is to be exposed to the Consuming Fire. Because the agent of torment is eternal, it does not mean the experience of torment is unending. Sodom and Gomorrah underwent “the punishment of Eternal Fire” (Jude 7). This does not mean that Sodom and Gomorrah continually and without end experience the torment of Eternal Fire. Indeed Ezekiel prophecies that Sodom and her daughters will be restored. (Ez. 16:53-63)

3. Gehenna: It appears to me that Gehenna is the place where death (Hades) and impurity (sin) is consumed by the fire.

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In Isaiah 30:33 we read that, “the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles” Tophet. Tophet is in the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom, which is Gehenna. This valley surrounds two sides of Jerusalem, yet Zechariah prophesied that one day the Lord would himself be a wall of fire around the city. The valley of Hinnom contains the Potter’s Field, which Jeremiah prophesied in, regarding the destruction and ultimate redemption of Jerusalem. The Potter’s Field was later purchased with the “blood money” Judas received and returned to the temple. It was purchased with Jesus’ Blood, and then used as a burial place for gentiles. Jeremiah prophesies that when Jerusalem is rebuilt, this valley of “dead bodies” will be included within the city itself (Jeremiah 31:40). In ancient times great abominations were committed in this valley. It’s my understanding that in Jesus’ day it was used as a trash dump. Perhaps Gehenna is like the ultimate trash dump and disposal service. Before entering the New Jerusalem all must pass through the fire of Gehenna. We pass through judgment in Christ. “Now is the Judgment of this world” (John 12). His Spirit is fire. He baptizes with fire. The world is judged by fire. God himself is the wall of fire around the heavenly city. The only way into the city is through Christ. Everything else will be destroyed. Jesus said, “Better to cut off the hand that causes you to sin etc., than to be thrown into Gehenna with it.” At the cross I am judged. I surrender my sin. Jesus cuts it out of me and bears it to destruction on my behalf. My sin hurts Jesus. Sin is devoured by the very substance of God—like dark is destroyed by light; like lies are destroyed by truth; like “unlove” is devoured by Love.

B. Annihilation: Some of these observations have led some (many modern evangelicals), to take the position that even if “Hell” is in some form unending, the experience of torment must not be unending. They argue that those who go to “Hell” are immediately or eventually annihilated and cease to exist. If this is the case, perhaps some that appear to be people are really only “shadows” of people; simply “vessels of wrath;” that is, Golem without a soul; those that do not contain the Breath (the Spirit) of God. If so, perhaps they never “died in Adam.” Paul writes, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor.15:22, also Romans 6:15-21) This view makes some good biblical sense, however, it struggles to explain the inclusive texts of Scripture, that argue for the restoration of all things. Perhaps some things are only “no-things,” like shadows and lies. Perhaps some things are really “nothings,” so don’t count as part of “all things” made new. Perhaps some people are really “not people” and never were people. “Endless Torment” appears entirely unbiblical to me, yet some form of annihilationism at least seems defensible. And yet it’s hard to conceive, and hard to argue, that some people are only no people; that some are nothing but nothing, mere “vessels of wrath.” Furthermore, as we’ll see below, the “destruction” of a thing does NOT seem to limit God’s ability to remake that thing. And things destroyed in chronological time, may indeed show up in “God’s time.” In Scripture, “not ‘ever’” (never) appears to often mean, “not ‘age’” or not in this “age” (aion). Actually Scripture seems fairly clear that “all things” will be annihilated (Zephaniah 3:8) but also fairly clear that “all things” will be made new (Zephaniah 3:9). 194

Paul was annihilated, by the fiery presence of Jesus (Acts 9:3, Gal. 2:20). Some then argue that Christ will do exactly what He says He will do, and in fact, make “all things new.” Some say that’s impossible, because the things that God says in other places render that impossible. I have trouble telling God what is impossible based on my limited understanding of my very limited reality.

C. Ultimate Redemption: Is it “impossible?” I was asked to affirm that it is. But Scripture states that this is God’s desire (1 Tim. 2:1-6, 2 Peter 3:8-10). And Jesus tells us that with God, “all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). Paul tells us that God, “works all things according to the council of his will” (Eph. 1:11). In numerous places Scripture certainly seems to say that God will redeem all. This obviously seems to conflict with other texts, but even if the conflicts are insurmountable, how could I, or any believer, ever affirm that God desires the impossible? We are no doubt, speaking of great mysteries here, but… Perhaps, it’s possible. If we can’t affirm that it is impossible for God to redeem all, than aren’t we affirming that it may at least be possible for God to redeem all? I think it certainly is. I stop short of taking a dogmatic stance with a bunch of theological labels, because the terms are so hard to define, our words never measure up to God’s reality and there is still so much debate around this topic. I prefer to say, “Every knee will bow and every tongue give praise;” Jesus will “make all things new;” “As in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive;” Jesus is “the savior of all men.” I prefer to say that for that is just what Scripture says. I prefer to quote Scripture. In conservative denominations pastors are called to affirm the authority of Scripture, but then taught there are certain texts (“inclusive texts”) you can only read if you then proceed to immediately explain them away. In liberal denominations you may preach those texts, but none of the texts are seen as very “authoritative.” I think it’s best to preach all Scripture as authoritative and “embrace mystery” when you can’t reconcile various passages. I’ve found that many agree with that last statement, yet panic when the texts can be reconciled. Indeed I think that most can be, but in a way that implies God will actually save all… and that seems to really worry some…which should give all… pause. Why do we love the idea of endless torture? Below I have listed some of the “biblical considerations” which make it easier for me to see “eventual redemption for all” as a real possibility. Even if all these “considerations” are wrong or misguided, I still could not affirm that it is impossible for God to accomplish that which he says He wills. If it is possible for God to redeem all, and He wills to redeem all, then it seems to me that He may very well redeem all. Maybe we should even count on it… for if we don’t count on it, maybe we won’t want it when we get it. Maybe we’ll judge ourselves out of the great banquet (Matt. 20:15, Luke 15:28)… 1. Jesus preaches in Hades: Scripture rather strongly indicates that Jesus preached in Hades and led a host of captives free. He came to seek and to save the “lost.” (Like 195

19:10) The Greek, translated “lost,” is “apollumi” also translated “perished” and “destroyed.” I don’t see good biblical reason to say that Jesus can no longer save the “lost” in Hades. The story of Dives and Lazarus indicates that there is a chasm that none can cross; however, Jesus appears to have crossed it or leveled it in his death and resurrection. 2. Destroyed Things that Come Back: In Scripture, destroyed and damned things sometimes come back. Sodom is the premiere example of the destructive power of God’s fiery judgment; however, Ezekiel prophesies that “Sodom and her daughters will return to their former state” (Ezekiel 16: 55). Ezekiel doesn’t just prophesy this about Sodom but also Samaria and Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be destroyed like Sodom, yet God will restore her as well. God is not simply restoring a city when he restores Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is made up of redeemed people. Jeremiah prophesied in the Potter’s field that Jerusalem would be broken like a shattered pot, broken so that she could not be mended (Jeremiah 19:11). Yet we know God is an astounding potter who does wondrous things with “earthen vessels” like us and he’s certainly not through with Jerusalem. In Ezekiel 37, Israel is “clean cut off” a valley of dry bones. However, the bones come to life. Those bones are “the whole house of Israel.” In Galatians 2:20, Paul writes, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” What happened to the old Paul? He was destroyed, and yet he lives. 3. The Old Man and the New Man: Scripture indicates that I have an “old man” (like old Paul) and a “new man.” Perhaps I am“wheat” and a “tare.” Perhaps I am a “vessel of wrath” and a “vessel of mercy.” I was once a child of wrath “like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). Is my Earthen Vessel destroyed while I remain, such that I am destroyed and yet saved? Does my earthen vessel form the mold which gets filled by the liquid gold of God’s Mercy, such that my old self of sin is replaced by the love that is God’s very life poured into me? Is the new me, the inverse of an obverse—that is the old empty me—full of self and sin? Does the form of God’s Grace take the unique form of my sin, such that one day I will look like me but be solid gold? In Isaiah 66:23 “all flesh” comes to the New Jerusalem to worship. In verse 24 they all go out and look on the “dead bodies of the men that have rebelled.” When we study Isaiah we realize that he clearly states that all people including all Israel have rebelled. Therefore, “all flesh” look into Gehenna and see “all bodies.” Whose bodies are “all flesh” looking at, if not their own? When we take an honest look at Matthew 25 and our Lord’s description of Judgment, we each must confess that we are both sheep and goat, or else we do terrible violence to the text. Who has never “visited a sick person” or never neglected to “visit a sick person?” Christ’s word makes us realize we are sheep and goat. It cuts us (krisis) in two. We must cry out for mercy, for we realize that part of us must go into the eternal fire, while part of us is a fragrant offering (gift). We look to the throne and behold “a lamb standing as if it had been slain.” Jesus describes Judgment in Matt. 25, then the next sentence reads, “When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.’”

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I don’t believe that Jesus is telling a simple story of some sheep and goats. He taps into thousands of years of complex temple sacrifices even as he looks at the temple prophesying its destruction and revealing that he will rebuild it in three days, fulfilling all the ceremonial law. Every good work in me is Him: the fragrant offering, the sacrificial lamb. He pays for every sin in me: He is my sin offering (Numbers 28—one male goat) and my scapegoat. He is my Passover lamb (to be taken from the sheep or the goats). He is my sheep and He is my goat. He is my Judgment. 4. Time and Eternity: “Aion” (forever, age etc.) and “Aionios” (of the age, eternal, forever) appear to be very difficult words to translate out of the Greek. Even if we translate them correctly we don’t even know what our translation means. Is “eternal” the same as “forever” or the opposite of “forever”? Is it all time or the absence of time? I don’t think most people have considered what Einstein’s laws of relativity imply, let alone the eternal nature of God who spoke space and time into existence. We speak about “eternal” things and things that “last forever” but have not specified our terms. I suspect that “aionios” can loosely be translated “eternal” (as in “timeless”) and that “aion” can be translated “age” or “ever” (as in “all time”). Eternal things can’t end because they are not bound by time (chronological time). Perhaps I should say they can’t end, because they are the End. Jesus is The End. I AM is The End. The Fire is The End. “World without end” is the world full of Jesus who will “fill all things” (Eph. 4:10) and is himself The End. The “ages,” the “evers,” and the “aions” do come to an end (The End). Hebrews 9:26, “But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages (aion) to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” 1 Cor. 10:11 makes it clear that, “the end of the ages (aion) has come” upon us. At the Cross, the Eternal Judgment of God invaded time. I believe that there is one judgment and that judgment is the cross of Christ (John 12:31). We may encounter it in time, at the end of our time, or at the end of all time, but no one gets to the Father or to the eternal city except through Christ and His Cross. Eph. 1:9-10, “… the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Col. 1:19-20, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” We have developed unbiblical (dare I say, absurd) eschatological systems because we have tried to adapt scripture to the space-time cosmology of modernism. I think this has been a tremendous failure and a disservice to the text. Ironically, this modern world is no longer modern and physicists are saying that a modernistic view of space and time is no longer valid scientifically. We live in an age where we can take the cosmology of scripture quite literally and be entirely scientific in doing so. However, to do so we must re-examine our old modern ways of thinking, taking extra care with words like eternity, forever, never, and always. Considering the nature of time and eternity (perhaps, “chronos” and “kairos”) it becomes apparent that some things may last “forever” yet not be “eternal.” Perhaps, one may suffer in “Hell” (Hades) forever (all time), yet be redeemed in eternity. We each suffer on earth some time and yet are redeemed in eternity. The “Jerusalem above IS our

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mother” and we are seated with him in the “heavenly places,” even though now, in time, we also suffer in this “body of death.” 5. The “Inclusive” Passages: In numerous passages, Scripture seems to say that “all” will be redeemed. In numerous passages, Scripture also seems to say that some won’t be redeemed. In light of the considerations above and through the process of studying these texts more carefully, I’ve found that it’s easier for me to understand the “exclusive passages” in light of the “inclusive passages” rather than the other way around. There are too many “inclusive texts” to consider them all here, but the ones that are most convincing to me are those that come at central points of theological discourse, are affirmed with declaratory statements like “truly I say,” are affirmed by the theological context, and are affirmed by linguistic context. The following are some of the “inclusive texts” that I deem most difficult or impossible to explain in an “exclusive” sense: ü Genesis 1:31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” ü Isaiah 45:22-23 (and parallel passages: Romans 14:ll, Philippians 2:10) “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’” The context is clearly salvation and not forced submission. This is affirmed by the New Testament Parallels. ü John 12:30-32 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” As the next verse explains, Jesus is here speaking of his crucifixion. I consider this to be a key verse for understanding judgment and God’s redemptive purposes. If the “all” (panta) in verse 32, doesn’t mean “all” it must mean something else. I can’t figure out what that “something else” would be. This is a problem with numerous similar texts containing “all” or “every.” ü Romans 5:15-19 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 198

This appears to be a central theological statement for Paul as it is repeated in Corinthians 15. The “alls” and the “manys” are in parallel and amplified by the “much more.” Karl Barth wrote Christ and Adam as an exegesis of this text. I recommend it highly. ü Romans 11:32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. This text seems to be the absolute pinnacle of Paul’s theology in Romans. ü 1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. This text repeats Romans 5. The “all” who die in Adam are the “all” who are made alive in Christ. I have a hard time understanding how “all” wouldn’t mean “all.” I’ve wondered if some don’t die in Adam, such that some would not be made alive in Christ, such that some might be mere vessels of wrath made for destruction and without a soul. This may raise all sorts of anthropological problems and exegetical issues, but I see few other ways around “all” meaning “all.” ü Colossians 1:15-20 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. The “alls” are in Parallel here. If I try to make them say anything other than “all,” I am entirely out of Orthodox Christian tradition. ü 1 Timothy 4:9-11 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things. ü Revelation 5:11-14 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped. I have wondered if this “all” might only be the “all” alive at that time, however this hardly fits the context of the opening of the seven sealed scroll. And furthermore they praise the lamb that was slain and join the elders who 199

praise the lamb because he “ransomed people for God” (v.9). These creatures seem to be aware that the lamb ransomed them. Even if it is only those alive at “this time,” it seems clear that “Hades” has ceased to exist. ü Revelation 21:5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” I am very uncomfortable arguing that “all things” really isn’t “all things,” especially when the resurrected Christ speaks it from the throne saying, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” After this scene there are those portrayed as outside the New Jerusalem and therefore not “new,” but to be outside the “New Jerusalem” is to be still stuck in this current age that will come to an End. These “inclusive texts” do not exclude the “exclusive texts,” however I think they do demand that we give them more attention and that we at least be willing to question any theological box that simply explains them away. 6. Inscrutable Judgments: Romans 11:33, “How unsearchable are his judgments and inscrutable his ways.” Paul writes this just after writing, “God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all” and just before writing, “for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” If scripture is clear that I can’t understand his judgments, how can I conclude that God cannot save all people based on my understanding of his judgments? However, if scripture reveals, or seems to reveal, that He will redeem all people, I should at least consider it possible, even if I don’t understand how something could be destroyed, condemned, or judged and yet live. Romans 11:33, demands that we embrace a certain degree of mystery in the biblical text. This is true in affirming the “inclusive texts,” yet also true in affirming the “exclusive texts.” I do not feel comfortable with a label like “Universalist” because I don’t know what it means (sometimes it means just the opposite of everything I stand for). I also want to avoid dogmatic labels regarding an area of theology that embraces the topic of God’s Judgments. I want to destroy false theological boxes, but be very cautious about constructing new ones. Karl Barth rejected the term, “Universalist,” because it seemed to imply that God must save “all” when in fact salvation is always God’s gracious choice in Christ. The idea that people have been very dogmatic about “unending conscious torment” is a bit horrifying to me. “With the Judgment you pronounce you will be judged,” said Jesus. (Matt. 7:1) It should absolutely terrify us to announce that there are some that God is “unable or unwilling” to save, let alone, some that God will intentionally torture without end. In Scripture, God’s Wrath OR the experience of God’s Wrath as wrath, comes to an end: teleo (Rev. 15:1, also Is. 57:16, Jer. 3:12, Lam. 3:31). Yet, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.” (Lam. 3:22) “His steadfast love endures forever.” That phrase is repeated 42 times in my Bible (ESV). If we are going to be dogmatic at all; if we are going to judge at all; if we 200

are going to hand out “measures” at all, let’s hand out Grace. Jesus is the “measure” I want to give. Jesus is the Judgment I’m called to pronounce. “Now is the Judgment of this world.” (John 12:31) I’m called to announce that Judgment: Jesus Christ and Him Crucified—outrageous Love. 7. The Direction of Our Hope: To me scripture seems abundantly clear on this point (1 Tim. 2:1-6, 2 Peter 3:8-10, etc.). If there are two possibilities in scripture regarding ultimate redemption and two possibilities in any one person’s story regarding ultimate redemption, we are to always hope for and desire redemption. This means that I joyfully join the Lord in HIS work of redemption and that I rejoice at news that His Grace may be effectively extended to others. I proclaim the Gospel!

Theology: I. Scripture reveals that “God is one.” If God predestines some for unending torment due to no merit of their own, it would seem that God ultimately has two purposes: to exhibit mercy to some and no mercy to others. This is a difficult proposition on many levels: philosophical, exegetical and theological. A wonderful book on this topic is The One Purpose of God, by Jan Bonda. II. I am a Calvinist who has a hard time believing in “limited atonement.” The Scriptural evidence for an unlimited atonement seems fairly convincing to me (especially 1 John 2:2). Arguments for a “limited atonement” appear to be an effort to make sure that some folks are destroyed or tortured in Hell without end. It’s tragically fascinating to me: Calvinists affirm that God is all-powerful, but not all-loving (willing that some suffer endless torment). Arminians affirm that God is allloving but not all-powerful (Unable to save some from endless torment – He wills that there will would be stronger than his will.) Calvinists tolerate Arminians and Arminians tolerate Calvinists, but neither tolerate those who tolerate both. In other words, one may believe that God is all-loving or one may believe that God is all-powerful, but if one believes that God is both all-powerful and all-loving, he or she is accused of heresy, because he or she can no longer subscribe to a doctrine of endless torment. Thomas Talbot has pointed this out: Logically speaking it seems impossible to subscribe to the following three propositions at once: • God is all-loving • God is all-powerful • “Hell” is “endless” torment Calvinists (Presbyterians, Reformed, some Baptists etc.) find ways to “fudge” on the first proposition. Arminians (Most Baptists, Methodists etc.) find ways to “fudge” on the second. I advocate eliminating the last. We don’t even have to “fudge.” Endless Torment is an unbiblical doctrine. III. This implies that “Hell” is not simply retributive but remedial and restorative. I do not believe that God’s Judgment is established through “endless torture.” How could it 201

be, unless God’s Justice is endlessly frustrated… in which case His Judgment would never be established and never satisfied? God’s Judgment is established and revealed at the cross, where it is “finished.” That God’s Justice is established through torturing the creatures that He has made is an unbiblical idea handed to us from the middle ages (Jan Bonda’s book, The One Purpose of God, is very helpful in this regard). “Hell” (Hades or Sheol) is a means to an end rather than an end in it’s self. The Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory is a nod in this direction. IV. I realize that I’m just a guy that went to Fuller. I’m not a language scholar or a great theologian. I also realize that many would disagree with things I’ve suggested. Therefore it’s been important to me to know that some well respected theological minds have honored Scripture and also argued in the same direction as myself. I have not raised these issues because of these theologians, but because of the Biblical text that I’m called to preach. Nonetheless it’s been encouraging to know that things I’ve suggested have also been advocated by great theologians such as Karl Barth, Hans Von Balthasar, and John Paul II., as well as popular theologians like C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald and William Barclay, who either affirm ultimate redemption or it’s “possibility.” I’ve also been encouraged by the fact that several of the early church fathers, who spoke the language of the New Testament as their mother tongue, argued in much the same direction: Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa to name a few. V. I believe that the Church in America desperately needs to wrestle with these issues. On the left many would gladly embrace these ideas but not hold to a high view of Scripture (they like to talk about “love,” but love without truth isn’t love). On the right many hold to a high view of Scripture, but are so deeply committed to a cultural Christianity that they are unwilling to struggle significantly with the Biblical text (they like to talk about “truth,” but truth without love isn’t truth). We need the Truth spoken in Love – it’s always better than anything we could invent – it’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We need Jesus. And God longs to be glorified through Jesus.

Why it matters: Well obviously it matters, when one tries to understand how Scripture could say, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” But I hope you see that it matters for far more reasons than just deciphering some ancient Hebrew text. It changes the way you breathe your next breath. Do you breathe in terror or faith, hope and love? Do you live as an orphan or worse—the child of a sadistic father? Or do you live as the child of a Father, who would give everything, and has given everything, to make you in His image and bring you home? Sometimes people ask, “Why does this matter?” I’m still rather shocked that anyone would ask. Nevertheless, this is why I bring the topic up; why I long for a ‘new reformation’ in the American Church; why I think it matters:

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1. I want us to live to the praise of God’s Glory revealed in Christ Jesus. I think we have underestimated the sufficiency and power of Christ’s work of redemption on the cross. In American Evangelicalism we do this in the name of “free will,” which I believe then diminishes the sovereign and gracious choice of God. In this way we claim merit for our own redemption. We thus “serve” God out of a carnal sense of “responsibility” (which is to not serve God), rather than serving him as an act of worship, which is the “chief end of man.” (Westminster Confession, Larger Catechism) 2. I want us to not idolize our selves and our “free will.” I am concerned that we American believers have come to view life as a great competition. We say that we are saved by grace, but what we mean is that we are saved by our “good choices” or the quality of our will. I don’t believe that we have “free will” until God grants us “free will” through his grace. 3. I want us to stop competing with each other and the world. When we view life as a competition and judgment as the finish line; when we compare ourselves to each other and measure ourselves against each other; when we judge each other and our selves; when we suspect that God grades on a curve, we need losers so that we can feel like winners. We need failures to define ourselves as successful. We need scapegoats. We already have a scapegoat. One has lost that we all might win. If I have any emotional stake in any other human being suffering in “Hell” other than Jesus, I probably do not understand the Gospel… He suffered “Hell” for me. 4. I want us to preach biblically. I am concerned that we no longer wrestle with the biblical text and therefore end up preaching societal convention. My understanding is that we are to be “reformed and always reforming”(This was a seminal statement defining the reformation) as the living Word leads us in expositing the written word. Expository preaching has forced me to wrestle with numerous texts that I would have otherwise dismissed. 5. I want us to be honest. I have faith that the Truth sets us free and that we can only arrive at the truth by being truthful. I do not believe I serve the Kingdom by hiding my questions, but by being honest. I also believe in the “Priesthood of all believers.” All believers are called to wrestle with The Word. I do not need to protect the church from The Word. Some have told me this is my job. I believe it’s a Pharisees’ job. 6. I don’t want people to go to Hell. By “Hell” I mean both Hades and Gehenna (where the rebellious are consumed by the eternal punishment and Fire). I know that no one’s salvation is dependent on me, yet I believe that God has called me to participate in the proclamation and plan of his redemption. In the Gospels it becomes very clear that those who are most in danger of being cast into outer darkness are the “Sons of the Kingdom,” those who struggle with the extent of God’s Mercy in Christ. I don’t want anyone to be cast into the outer darkness whether for three days or several million years. Furthermore, I do not want them to be devoured by Fire on the Day of Judgment. I want all people to see the glory of God in Christ Jesus NOW, no matter how long “forever” is.

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7. I want us to serve God out of Love rather than Fear. I am to preach the gospel as an act of worship, not because I arrogantly think that God “needs me.” I am to obey him out of Love, not because I’m afraid that He might torture me in Hell. To serve God out of dreadful fear is to serve God out of faithlessness. Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Fear is the beginning of wisdom, but perfect love casts out fear. I want us to be perfected in love. 8. I want us to love our enemies. This is immensely hard, yet it appears that we only love Jesus as much as we love “the least of these.” By asking the question “What if they all are saved?” we are forced to examine our hearts. I’m concerned that for some, possible redemption for all is viewed as terrible news, rather than gospel—great news. Are we hanging on to resentment, hatred, and un-forgiveness? Jesus said, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses (Matt. 6:15).” 9. I want us to trust the heart of our Heavenly Father. “Jesus from the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” If someone were to tell one of my children that I had other children that I planned to torture in unspeakable torment forever and ever without end, it would create some serious doubt about my character in the heart of my child. It would also fill me with intense wrath for the person that said such a thing. However, if someone told my child that I had other children that I disciplined in Love (even severely), it would create an entirely different response in me, and my child. If scripture is not exceedingly clear about “unending conscious torment with the wrath of God,” we better not say such things. I know that it may be a way to “win” converts at evangelistic rallies, but I can think of nothing else that would infuriate me more as a father than to be misrepresented in such a way. Obviously, God is not determined by my anthropomorphic views of fatherhood; however, He calls himself “Father” for a reason. Perhaps “Hell” is not retributive, but remedial. That makes sense to a Father’s heart. 10. I want others to trust the heart of our Heavenly Father. I want them to trust Jesus. If I were to ask most unbelievers why they did not WANT to believe in the “Christian God,” I think the first answer given would probably be something like: “I can’t believe in a god that would eternally torture a junior high kid who died in a bicycle accident just because he didn’t say the sinner’s prayer or believe that God had forgiven him.” I’ve always explained God’s prerogative to do so in the way we evangelicals have been trained, but maybe we’ve been defending a picture of God that is not honoring to God and deceptive to unbelievers. God is a consuming fire. Yes, he will discipline us severely at times. But Yes, He is always Love. And He always loves you more than you are even able to love yourself. 11. The Truth matters. Is there anything else that does matter? Jesus is “the Truth.” If you would like more information on these topics: Please visit our website at www.TheSanctuaryDowntown.org.

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There are many resources available in print and on the internet. The following are a few books that I have found to be particularly helpful: The Inescapable Love of God, Thomas Talbott The Evangelical Universalist, Gregory MacDonald The One Purpose of God, Jan Bonda Christ and Adam, Karl Barth Many consider Karl Barth to be the greatest of modern day theologians. His writing is absolutely prolific, but his verbiage is dense and difficult to decipher. If you can handle Barth, he’s well worth the struggle. In my very humble estimation, I believe he offers the most biblical and comprehensive of systematic theologies.

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Chapter Summaries 1. Questions too big for any Specialist

(Genesis 1:1)

Those questions to big for any specialist, are the ones we all ask with every nervous glance in the mirror; with every doubt about truth, beauty, goodness, love and justice. The questions are: “Do I matter?” “Is there a God?” and “Does that God even care?” These questions are as big as the Universe and as small as your soul. I argue that these are questions which no “expert” can answer for you, but that the creator wants to answer within you. It’s crazy to relegate these questions to Religious “experts” (theologians) or Secular “experts” (scientists). God is bigger than everything. Why would an expert in anything, be able to answer questions about the author of everything… unless of course that anything is you. And God is concerned with you. In which case, the expert is you. With all creation God is seeking you and your heart. He is asking, “Do YOU love me? And would you let me love you?” 2. The Day You Were Born: your Father’s story and the ramblings of mad scientists and Pharisees (Genesis 1:1) Written into rocks and DNA, there appears to be something of a record of our creation. However in Genesis One, The Father is telling us the story of our creation – our birth. In your case, there is a “birth record” at a hospital, which tells you your length, weight and blood type. There is also the story your Father tells, of the day you were born – it reveals what your mother felt about you; perhaps what your father said when he first laid eyes on you. The birth record and the father’s story reference the same event, yet they communicate entirely different information. Science is like the “birth record.” Genesis is your father’s story. They are both good, and each should complement the other. Yet each can be distorted. Both mad scientists and Pharisees try to control the record and the story. Mad scientists distort the birth record to make themselves like God. Pharisees distort the Father’s story to make themselves like God. Mad Scientists like to think they can explain everything, explain themselves and explain you. And by explaining everything, seize control of the birth record and you. Pharisees are basically the same, but they like to control the Father’s story. They love to direct. They – quite literally - dissect the plot and miss the story. They make rules, set limits, construct calendars and miss the point. Jesus is the plot and the point. Mad Scientists and Pharisees love to play God. We’re all a bit of each, but to know the Father, we must be humble with our birth record and surrender our hearts to our Father’s story. We must let His Story comprehend us 206

before we try to comprehend the story. Like little children (two years old and afraid), we must lose ourselves in the story that’s being told, and then we’ll be found (a princess or noble warrior) by the story – the story our father is telling. 3. The Deepest Story: not your failure, but God’s success

(Genesis 1:1-2:4)

Your Life is a story that God is telling – it’s filled with mystery, confusion, sorrow and pain – but it’s good. Scripture and Science reveal that the Seven Days of Creation are the History of Time – The Index to Everything. In the End everything is GOOD! Which means: you are a good story that’s being told… a good story that’s half finished… a good creation that’s only half baked. Which means: every bad page in your story, turns into good story, in the End - transformed by the good plot which gives new meaning to every page. Jesus is the Plot. Jesus is the Beginning. And Jesus is the End. In the End, which is Jesus, everything is Good. Even though we can choose the bad, the Narrator only chooses the good. Even though we write ourselves out of the story (every time we sin), the author/narrator writes us back in… and that’s the story: Grace. The story of all things is the story of Mercy; that is, the story of all things is the story of God; that is, Jesus Christ and Him Crucified; that is, your sin is not the deepest story. Your Father’s good creation (you in His image, in Jesus image) is the deepest story. Do you understand? Genesis One is the revelation of Mercy and an unquenchable Hope. 4. The Deepest Story: not Darwinism, but the 7th Day

(Genesis 1:1-2:4)

Your Father is writing/telling your story. And He does not fail. Your Father is Love. Love is the deepest story. Darwinism (survival of the fittest, competition, the will to power, hate) is not. Competition (sin) does not explain life. It explains the limits of life. Any biologist would have to agree. Competition explains death. Cooperation (love) explains life. One cell serving another cell; one molecule sacrificing for the many; the first being last and the last being first – a body – that is life. Many (perhaps most) that claim to follow God are Darwinists at heart. If we don’t like the idea that God might just make everyone in His Image in the End; if we don’t like the idea that Love wins, sacrifice wins, the last will be first and the first last. If we don’t like the idea that at the end of time, on the 7th day, there are no losers – to make us feel like winners… perhaps we’re Darwinists at heart. Even though we picket against the evolution taught in public schools, even though we love to brag that we have eternal life…perhaps we’ve put our faith in death, perhaps we’re Darwinists at heart. Perhaps that’s why we’re miserable, consumed with ourselves, addicted to “winning,” and so limited in Love. Perhaps we’ve been secretly hoping that only the fit would survive; that only the “found” would survive, and the lost would be lost; that the first would be first and the last would be last; perhaps we’ve been hoping against life, which is hoping against Jesus, for he is Life. Love is Life.

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5. Sabbath

(Genesis 1:1-2:4)

On the 7th day ALL is good, finished, accomplished – God rests. On the cross at the end of the sixth day, Jesus cried “It is finished.” In Christ we can enter God’s rest, because God’s rest has entered us in Christ. Faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross, which is faith in God’s ability to create out of chaos and faith that God has created out of chaos, puts our restless hearts to rest. We Sabbath, for the Lord of the Sabbath takes up residence in our hearts. We Sabbath for we know that He will finish his good creation. We’ve seen the End. It’s Jesus the Christ. In this world, in the sixth day, although we are unfinished, our spirits can be “finished” with Christ. In faith, we can move out of deep rest, rather than anxiety, desperation and fear. If we don’t believe God’s finished story, we will try to write the story ourselves and write ourselves out of that story with anxiety, desperation and fear - sin. If we don’t believe that God makes our world, WE will try to “make” our world. With anxiety, desperation and fear, we’ll try to create our world and only desecrate our world. We’ll make hell… the Abyss. 6. The Abyss

(Genesis 1:1-3)

In this chapter we’ll wrestle with the hardest of theological and philosophical questions. It’s one we wrestle with every day, every moment we lose courage: “Why is everything broken? God, if you’re so good how could this world be so evil? Did you create evil? Why do you even allow such evil? What is evil?” Perhaps to get at “why” it is, we need to wrestle with “what” it is… or isn’t. The effects of evil are horrendously real: babies without limbs, starvation, genocide and rape… but what is evil? Perhaps evil is NOT, more than IS. It’s the presence of an absence - like death is the absence of life, dark is the absence of light, lie is the absence of truth, lost is the absence of way. Yet Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life and the Light. God is “I AM.” He is ISness! Perhaps God cannot create evil, like you cannot create dark… You can only eliminate the presence of light. Perhaps God makes space for the dark, in order to reveal the light, for “The light shines in the darkness.” Perhaps, God suffers the darkness in this world to reveal his heart in this world – the light of the world: Jesus. If we’re past the end of the story (the 7th day), evil is an unspeakable terror. If God’s still telling the story, and it’s a good story, perhaps it’s time to really pay attention, it’s about to get really good. The House lights have been dimmed. Look to the stage… there’s a cross and a dead body. It’s always darkest, just before the dawn. 7. The Abyss in Me

(Genesis 1:1-4)

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It’s one thing to ask, “Why is there evil in the world?” It’s another thing to ask, “Why is there evil in me?” “Is my evil terminal? Can it be redeemed? Why am I the failure that I am… the unique failure that I am?” Perhaps the unique failure that I am, is an expression of the unique emptiness that I contain, the abyss in me. Scripture tells us that God will fill all things and indeed, He has on the seventh day. In the New Creation, “everything is good.” Jesus said, “God alone is Good.” He will fill all things and He will fill us. He is Mercy (Hesed). We are “vessels of wrath” that become and are becoming “vessels of mercy.” Our “flesh”, our “matter,” our emptiness, our abyss, is replaced with His Spirit – replaced with Him. Our darkness is filled with Light. Our lies are flooded with truth. Our death is replaced with His life. Our sin is replaced with Mercy. Do you get it? Our unique failure becomes our unique glory! The form of our sin, becomes the form of God’s Grace in us – the form of the new creation. We are like wax statues incased in an earthen ceramic vessel. In the fire of God’s judgment, the old self is melted away and replaced with gold – eternal glary. The abyss in us becomes God in us. In other words, your place of shame will be transformed into the temple of God’s glory – the unique true and eternal YOU. Forever you will sing your song, as others sing there song to you and to God, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me… uniquely, wonderfully me.” Every song is different, yet all are the same. 8. Let there be Light

(Genesis 1:1-5)

This is the message that I preached from a coffin on Easter. We each take refuge in coffins. That is we make our own Hell, Abyss… our own Hades. It feels safe there. It’s the “safety” of darkness, death and lies – the comfort of Hell. God longs for each of us to say, “Let there be Light” That is “Let there be Jesus in me.” Light hurts our eyes at first. It’s terrifying to confess sins, at first. But Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified, reveals that the light is Good. We can trust the light. The Light heals. Light gives new meaning to all time... and all my time. Light is eternal – it is NOW. My time is temporal. God’s grace gives new and eternal meaning to my past, present and future. It releases me from the past and frees me from anxiety over the future. It allows me to live NOW with Jesus. Life is NOW with “I AM.” Now, in the Light, is where “I AM” is. My Easter is God saying, “Let there be light in Peter.” 9. Home: We’re not there yet

(Genesis 1:6-10)

We haven’t arrived. Like the Israelites, to whom Genesis was first given, we’re on a journey to the promised rest, the seventh day. The seventh day is our promised land. In that “place,” everything is Good. However, to get to the New Creation we have to surrender our own creation. To receive the city “whose builder and maker is God,” we must surrender the city whose builder and

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maker is us. To enter the Promised Land, we must surrender the land we currently occupy. That’s terrifying for the land we occupy has felt like home. They say you can’t go home. So, will the new creation be home? Well… on the seventh day, “everything that God had made” is good. Jesus says, “Behold, I make all things new.” Doesn’t that mean everything old becomes new; everything “half-made” will be fully made; and so everything we’ve surrendered, we will receive back? So we can go home! …once we leave home. The truth is that we’ve never been “home,” only dreamed of home. So we don’t need to hang onto Egypt. We can let go of our addictions. We don’t need to hang onto the wilderness. We can let go of our sorrows. We can even surrender the old temple of stone. We can lose our lives, for our lives will be found. Everything that was anything will be given back to you, yet made brand new. Alcoholics, you haven’t really tasted wine yet. Sexaholics, you haven’t really experienced ecstatic communion yet. Sinners, you can let go of your sin, for you’re not home yet… but you will be. We’re not home, however by faith, home has invaded our hearts. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. 10. Beauty: Road Signs for Pilgrims

(Genesis 1: 9-26)

“And God saw that it was good/ beautiful.” God delights in Beauty, however we are enslaved by beauty and terrified of beauty, in this world. We’re tempted to worship it, then, tempted to destroy it. Tempted to idolatry, then, tempted to abstinence and legalism. We’re tempted to idolize beauty or destroy beauty (Church History, illustrates this abundantly), and in either case we make ourselves ugly. Created beauty - women, men, broiled lobster in drawn butter, the Grand Canyon – they are signs pointing to “The Beautiful One,” their author and maker. The signs fade by design: we get old; the lobster makes us fat; the Grand Canyon get’s boring. If you hang on to the signs, they kill you and you kill them. If you read them and keep walking they’ll direct you to the source of all beauty, goodness and life. God uses created beauty to entice us toward the “Beautiful One.” When we worship the “Beautiful One,” the author of beauty, he makes us beautiful. You are created beauty and your life is to exhibit the “Beautiful One.” God is an artist. You are being made in his image: an artist. And you are his art. 11. Care for Creation and Creation cares for You

(Genesis 1:24-26)

The environment is a huge topic on everyone’s mind these days. In reaction to the idolatry of creation (pantheism), Christians have sometimes abused and belittled creation. Because we’ve assaulted creation, the world has turned to others to explain the longing in their hearts; the longing to value and care for creation; care for the environment; the longing “to till it and keep it.” (Gen. 2:15)

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Some worship the environment (pantheists and pagans), some worship themselves (secular Darwinists). However, none of these idolatries, explains us and our desire to “care for” creation. If we worship creation, we will desecrate creation (our idolatry will destroy us and creation). God calls us to care for creation. The Judeo/Christian view of reality is the only viable basis for environmentalism. When we care for creation, God uses creation to care for us - speak his Word to us. His Word is Jesus, by whom and through whom all things are created. To go camping, to go for a walk in the woods, to stare at a bug is a spiritual discipline. True Science is worship. 12. How to make a world with just a Word

(Genesis 1:26-2:3)

God made our world with his Word. We can speak the same Word. The Word is Jesus. When we speak, “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified;” when we speak the Gospel; when we speak The Father’s love; when we speak Grace we create another’s world. In Genesis One, the Father speaks and we are born. Even so, we speak and others are born, we are dispensing “eternal seed,” we are “giving birth.” We speak light and life into the darkness and in Christ’s name create another in the Father’s image. We are creators being created in the Creators Image.

                                 

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