Did God Die For Everyone Who Ever Lived, or Just Some?

If some people are in hell, and you believe that Christ died for everyone,
* then Christ died for those in hell. Then His sacrifice was insufficient to save them.
* then God is unjust, committing double jeopardy, because a person's sins are judged once at the cross, and then again in hell.

If no people are in hell,
* then you reject what the Bible clearly teaches, and have asserted the Universalism heresy.

Your only logical choice is to believe that
* Jesus died for all the sins of some people.
* Those not included in the category of "those He died for" are they who populate hell.

Christianity. The thinking faith.

~ Rak Chazak

Topical Bible Study: Manna, Bread of Life, and Communion

Mind Supernovae

Wednesday afternoon and evening into Thursday morning was a day of several "aha" moments that came in rapid succession, making connections in my mind between things I hadn't experienced contemplating together, yet.

Number One: The Justification for Divorce

1 Corinthians 7
"12 If a brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with him, she must not divorce him....15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances, for God has called us to live in peace."

Matthew 19 gives the justification for divorce as being adultery, in pretty strong terms: "I tell you that any man who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery." (Matthew 19:9).

I have good reason to believe, based on my understanding of the character of God, that He would not call it sin to separate from someone who was physically abusive, especially to the point of putting your life in danger. But I had not been able to find any explicit Biblical justification for it outside of Matthew 19. So I had reasoned that the desire to murder your spouse would fall under the category of infidelity, since you'd be blatantly breaking your spousal commitment to honor them and protect them and pursue their best interest. But since Matthew 19:9 didn't directly address violence, it was a bit of a stretch, even if I supposed that Jesus took it for granted that His audience would agree that violence was impermissible in marriage.

I think now that I misread the passage. Assuming for now that the English renders the grammar equivalent to the original Greek, then Jesus isn't saying that sexual immorality is the only permissible reason to divorce. It's more grammatically appropriate to understand Him as saying that sexual immorality is the only permissible reason to remarry. But once again, since His audience is all Jews, it seems to be in the context of divorcing a woman who is of the faith.

So now, the synergy:
* 1 Cor 7 says that divorcing an unbeliever is permissible (not required), on the basis of whether the unbeliever wants to divorce.
* 1 Corinthians 7:11 says that if you divorce a fellow believer, you may not remarry
* Matthew 19 gives the only condition where remarriage is permissible as being if your believing spouse committed sexual immorality against you -- infidelity.

And the application:
* If you're a believer yoked to an unbeliever, you can divorce them if they want to divorce
* If you're a believer who divorces a believer for any reason other than that they committed adultery against you, you may not marry someone else. You must either reconcile with them and remarry them, or (my interpretation) if they marry someone else, you're no longer bound to them because the consequence of remarrying them would require an additional divorce, compounding the sin.
* If your spouse commits a pattern of abuse toward you and/or threatens to murder you, that person is not a believer. I'll stand up and say that anyone who wants to harm their spouse -- let alone murder them -- does not have the Spirit of God in them. And as we saw above, you are free to divorce an unbeliever who clearly doesn't want to live with you as a husband or wife.

So we see then that the Bible justifies divorce in the case of infidelity, physical abuse and terrorization, and attempted murder. You are free to remarry in each of those cases.

What the Bible does not justify is "no-fault divorce." If you separate because you dislike each other's personality, don't enjoy sex any more, are feeling bored or tied down, don't find your spouse attractive, etc, those are not valid reasons to divorce or remarry. Considering that since your divorced spouse is still your spouse, if you marry someone else, the act of consummating that marriage constitutes sexual immorality, which then justifies your first spouse's right to marry someone else.

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Number Three: Bucket Lists Are Borne of the Fear of Death

This one's shorter (gotta get to the Bible Study topic). I got the idea here: http://the-end-time.blogspot.com/2015/03/of-bucket-lists-fear-of-death-and.html

The major premise of having a "Bucket List" is to accomplish a certain amount of things before you die, because after you die you won't have any more opportunities to check off the things you wanted to experience -- be it skydiving, surfing, riding an elephant, climbing a mountain, etc. The problem with this belief is that it's totally contrary to Biblical Christianity. For us, this life doesn't end at death. We have continuity of experience between this life and the future glorified state we'll exist in in eternity. If you don't get the chance to climb Everest or dive to the bottom of the Marianas Trench or orbit the earth or walk on the moon or ride a dolphin or glide over the Alps or any number of exciting adventures, you won't miss anything because the future holds even greater adventures. "Eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, the wonderful things that God has prepared for those who love Him." I don't have to get all the adventure in before earthly death, because I'll have an infinity of adventure to look forward to. What does it matter if I see the Andes through a PBS broadcast and never walk it myself? We can't overlook the adventure that we're a part of in Christ. Just being owned by Him is an adventure all its own, because there are new things to be discovered every day (look at what I'm writing about!). I not only look forward to flying and trekking all over His New Creation after death, but I'm not overlooking the adventure I'm in the midst of right now! I'm free from the fear of death, to pursue things other people might consider mundane, but which are important in the grand scheme of things, if only because it pleases God and is part of His master plan.

And now, for an explanation of how a David Jeremiah Turning Point broadcast led to an epiphany for me about the significance of the bread in the Lord's Supper. I've said before that I'm a lover of symbolism in God's Word. You likely already know that the bread symbolizes Christ. But we're about to go even deeper.

Number Two: What Manna and "Bread from Heaven" do to illuminate the sacrament of communion

"Christ-Mass" Thoughts from Spurgeon

Emphasis in the original for the first paragraph. Other emphases added to show my points of greatest agreement.

"We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas. First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be sung in Latin or in English; and secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Savior's birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. ... It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the Western church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it. ... Probably the fact is that the "holy" days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December.

Nevertheless since, the current of men's thoughts is led this way just now, and I see no evil in the current itself, I shall launch the bark of our discourse upon that stream, and make use of the fact, which I shall neither justify nor condemn, by endeavoring to lead your thoughts in the same direction. Since it is lawful, and even laudable, to meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord upon any day in the year, it cannot be in the power of other men's superstitions to render such a meditation improper for to-day. Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of His dear Son."

"Joy Born at Bethlehem," December 24, 1871

THIS is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ. I hold it to be one of the greatest absurdities under heaven to think that there is any religion in keeping Christmas-day. There are no probabilities whatever that our Savior Jesus Christ was born on that day and the observance of it is purely of Popish origin; doubtless those who are Catholics have a right to hallow it, but I do not see how consistent Protestants can account it in the least sacred. However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt laboring people. Christmas-day is really a boon to us, particularly as it enables us to assemble round the family hearth and meet our friends once more. Still, although we do not fall exactly in the track of other people, I see no harm in thinking of the incarnation and birth of the Lord Jesus. 

"The Incarnation and Birth of Christ," December 1855

So what's the final point? That there's no reason I see to participate in a cultural mandate, except to capitalize on the fact that other people are more (superstitiously, as Spurgeon put it) receptive to hearing messages about Christ on this day and in this season than in others throughout the year,

...and do what? Preach the Gospel, of course. There's no greater way to spend any day no matter what time of year it is, this side of eternity. There is no purpose in marking this one day as an auspicious holiday for my family, since to me EVERY day is a celebration of Christ's redeeming work on the Cross, His human birth being an incidental necessity to that end, and EVERY day is a day worthy of spending meditating on His goodness and how to serve Him better. The purpose of Christmas, then, as with Pearl Harbor Day, 9-11, 4th of July, Halloween, Valentine's Day, and any other day of celebration or tragedy, is in its utility in reaching people through the avenue of a subject that their minds will by custom and tradition be conditioned to thinking about, more then than at any other time.

The idea that Christ should be celebrated on only ONE day of the year is an abominable absurdity. In a theological sense, I abhor the whole concept of the "present economic arrangement called Christmas." But that doesn't mean I don't find some redeeming value in the fact of its existence. The great expository preaching I've heard on the radio this week is a testament to Spurgeon's insight in the second and third paragraph quoted.

~ Rak Chazak

The Purity Principle: A Biologist's Perspective on the Timing of God's Wrath and Salvation

This'll be a long post with lots of pictures, yay! Make sure to click "Read More" so you don't miss out! 

The Purity Principle

Thesis abstract: my observation and speculation that the reason the Fall happened before Adam and Eve had children, and that the Flood destroyed all of mankind except Noah’s family, is that God chose those times to avoid the far more complicated consequences of what would happen if only a part of mankind fell at once, or how to keep the Messianic Line undiluted from Adam to Christ. They appear to be decisions made mainly on the basis of demographics, with respect to their relation to sinfulness and its effects on the righteous who are living, keeping in mind God’s respect for the deterministic autonomy of man.

How can I say that with simple words? = Specific points in history have seen God’s intervention, I speculate, because of an implied, but (to my knowledge) inexplicit, goal of maintaining the spiritual purity of believers: first the patriarchs, then Israel, and then the Church.

Here’s my big idea: have you noticed, for instance, that every single person in Jesus’ lineage as given in Matthew and Luke (as far as can be told from Biblical background information on them) were saved? What are the chances of that? Now, there must certainly be unbelievers in His ancestry somewhere, BUT nevertheless the fact that there is at least one lineage containing an unbroken chain of belief in God, from father to son, from Adam to Christ, is a very conspicuous observation. And it begs analysis of why this might be the case.

I should clarify how I am using the word purity. You may have gotten the idea from the last paragraph, but let me dispel any possible misunderstanding. My notion of purity in this article concerns itself with spiritual genealogy. The physical lineage doesn’t matter; this isn’t promoting nationalism or ethnic divisions between people. In the context of Israel and the Church, Biblically, purity means you have believers inside and unbelievers outside. Let unrepentant ones in, and the passage “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” comes true. The idea is that unbelief is, from a demographic viewpoint, infectious. Leave it alone without a purge of some sort (does not need to be violent), and over time it has the tendency to totally corrupt everything. We see this in the example of Noah, whose culture had become so far removed from God (from the impurity of the God-believing Sethites intermarrying with pagan Cainites, which tainted the succeeding generations with the Cainite godlessness) that he was the ONLY man alive on earth who walked with God!—out of the millions or possibly billions of people alive at that point. As a student trained in biology, this makes me think of serial dilutions. 

Right-click on any of the following images to see them in a full size view.

Faithlessness, if tolerated by the faithful, and absent God’s intervention, has the effect of diluting faithfulness over time so that there is less and less faith on earth, by proportion of the total population, by every succeeding generation.

This is obviously a bad thing, and if God does not desire (as I believe the Bible gives us strong support to believe) for faithfulness to ever disappear completely from the earth, at any one time, then He would have to do something to protect the diminishing remaining faithful from the corrupting godlessness around them.

And this is, I believe, a supporting reason for God’s decisions in history to a) send the Flood, b) call Abraham out of Ur, c) the Israelite Exodus, d) the Zionistic theocratic laws for Israel that forbade intermarriage with foreigners, and ultimately why Jesus came at just the time that He did.

Naturally, the main reasons from a theological point of view, and a historical point of view, are different, more obvious, and more important. But every good thing done has more than one good reason for doing it, and I’m going to use the space after the jump to describe how God’s desire for the spiritual purity of the various people God has dealt with has, I believe, been a supporting reason for His decision making and His perfect timing.

What Was Jesus' Sacrifice? Using Infinity to Contemplate the Gospel

Originally posted in response to a post on an ex-mormon website. The blogger has fallen for the common error of rejecting Christianity after leaving a cultic false religion for very valid reasons. Just because someone lied to you doesn't mean that truth doesn't exist. But on to the subject. The claim is that Jesus didn't really sacrifice anything when He died if He could take it back by coming back to life just a few days later. How do we address this challenge? My answer is below.

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The mistake here is in thinking that physical death is the focus. That's not what the Bible teaches (Reformed, here, not a Mormon). 

Instead it teaches that death is not the cessation of 'life,' but the unnatural separation of a living being from the source of its life. Man-God, Man's body-Man's soul, God-God.

It was not in dying that Jesus did His miraculous deed. That was just the necessary finishing touch, a bit of a technical requirement.

But what He really sacrificed was His relationship to the Father. For 3 hours, He was spiritually separated from the Father and they were not in communion, as they have/are/will be in all other possible places in time and space from eternity past to eternity future.

A Little Joel Rosenberg to Start the Day

Joel is one of many stories like these that I have come across--some of the biggest power players in Christianity are not Gentiles, but Jews. Ray Comfort, perhaps the biggest influence on open-air evangelism in the whole world, is an ethnic Jew; as is Jonathan Sarfati, a prodigy by any human measure, who churns out an amazing variety, amount and quality of work for CMI in that ministry's young-earth creation apologetics capacity.

That's the field of preaching and the field of teaching, to name two spiritual gifts the New Testament mentions as being areas wherein Christians work for the Lord (the point is not to label; there's overlap of gifts and it's indicated that not all possible gifts are listed). The point of the gifts mentioned by Paul and Peter seem primarily to me to be in context of talking about the "Body of Christ." Christians as part of the invisible Church all have a role to play, and the purpose of mentioning gifting is, I think, to enlighten us that there are diversities of ways to serve the Lord. Ray Comfort could not do Jonathan Sarfati's job, and I doubt there's anyone quite like Ray Comfort in his singleminded zeal for evangelizing the lost. Their natural talents and inclinations are divinely given to equip them for the purpose God intended them to fulfill.

Then there's the gift of prophecy, which brings me to another Jewish Christian. No one is quite so heavily involved in current events and politics as he, while still not failing to keep himself and his ministry centered on the Gospel. It's incredibly easy to fall into a trap where Christianity is subsumed into your political activism, and well-intended people and organizations abound where this can be seen. But in every place that I've read Joel's words or heard him speak, he has not lost sight of his ultimate goal--which is not awareness of a political issue, or some larger agenda to influence mid-east relations (though that's in view, but not the endgame)--he knows that his aim is to spread the Gospel first, and that his position of influence in political spheres is an aid to that, not the other way around.

Joel Rosenberg recently addressed criticism of the new Left Behind movie. Mark, he didn't defend the movie--what happened is that it brought out a lot of professing christians who denounced it because allegedly the Rapture is an "unbiblical" doctrine. Here's his article:

http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/hollywood-tackles-the-end-times-with-left-behind-film-but-is-the-rapture-a-biblical-concept-or-a-fictional-plot-device/

The Gospel in 60 Seconds

Self-explanatory.

This is what separates Christianity from all other beliefs. If you don't know this, you don't know anything that matters. Make sure you know this. Reject it or accept it, that is your choice. But if you don't know it, you can't freely choose it.

Therefore listen. Transcript posted below the video.

The Greatest Gospel verse in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:21:

"He made Him, Who knew no sin, sin for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

Lemme unpack those 15 Greek words.
He, God, made Jesus sin.
'Whattya mean He made Jesus sin?' Only in one sense:

He treated Him as if He had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe, 
though in fact He committed none of them.
Hanging on the Cross He was holy, harmless, undefiled,
Hanging on the Cross He was a spotless lamb.
He was never for a split second a sinner.
He is Holy God on the Cross.

But God is treating Him -- I'll put it more practically -- as if He lived my life.
God punished Jesus for my sin, turns right around and treats me as if I lived His life.
That's the great Doctrine of Substitution, and on that doctrine turned the whole Reformation of the Church; that is the heart of the Gospel.

And what you get is complete forgiveness, covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. 
When He looks at the Cross He sees you, when He looks at you He sees Christ.


~ Rak Chazak

Good Friday, Long Friday

I'm Swedish-born. I'm a typical American, in the historical sense of the word, being that I'm a foreign-born person who immigrated to America.

In Sweden, public holidays make up a large part of the substantial volume of vacation-days that all workers get. A Swedish-American living in Sweden has this to say on the subject: http://welcometosweden.blogspot.com/2009/03/moving-to-sweden-public-holidays.html. A number of the holidays tend to be religious ones, probably owing to a trifecta of circumstances: Sweden's Lutheran history, the apparent lack of fundamentalist Christianity such as what began in the USA in response to liberal interpretations around the 1900s, and the lack of any historical documents asserting a "separation of church and state." Today being Good Friday, I was reminded of the Swedish term for the same day:

Long Friday.

Owing to spending my first 7 years of life in Sweden, and learning to read, write and speak fluently in that language first, Long Friday was the name for the day that I was first introduced to as a child.

After moving to the US, I encountered the name "Good Friday," and I recall being perplexed as to how it could have been good. I knew that Jesus had been tortured and then died a painful death on that day, so it seemed unlikely that it was a good day for Him. In contrast, for Him it must have been a long day, that could not have ended too soon, what with the excruciating pain (incidentally, that word in English comes from the Latin ex crucis, or "from the Cross") that must have made the minutes drag on and on...

As a child, I think I did not understand the full message of the Cross. I knew the story, and to be honest I don't remember at what point I knew that He died for us, and it wasn't until 2010 that I know for sure that I 'fully' understood what that meant, in the sense of the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. Now, as a more mature believer, I understand why Good Friday was good. It was a good day for us. Because of what happened on Good Friday -- the Crucifixion of God Himself, charged with the sin of blasphemy, to which we all guilty because of our rebellion -- we are able to be forgiven of our sins and treated as though we lived Jesus' life, after He was treated as if He'd lived ours. This great exchange is the Good News. God has offered us forgiveness.

Now I see how it could have been a good day. Though it was the lowest point for the Creator's dignity, a perfect being being so dishonored, yet it was a glorious day all the same because through His death He won His great victory, purchasing for Himself all those who would humble themselves and throw their crowns at His feet, proclaiming Him as their Lord. And for those who will do so, that day was the Greatest Day. Without Good Friday, there would be no Good News. There would be no salvation. We would all die in our sins and there would be no hope for us. (1 Corinthians 15:18-19)

Here's the bottom line:

It was a Long Friday for Jesus Christ, who saw the plan through to the end despite the ignominy of it.

It was a Good Friday for us, because through His blood, we are forgiven of our sins (Ephesians 1:7)

A poignant comparison, because now we eagerly await an eternity with Him, which will be both good and long. Therefore remember the past, and look to the future, this Easter holiday.

Song: This Man, by Jeremy Camp

~ Rak Chazak