Archives for June 2024

God and Man, Part 15: Unity 1

June 27, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Now we get to the hard part. It’s not difficult for us to think of Jesus as human; he walked among us. It’s a little more difficult, but not impossible, to think of him as God, given the Trinity, the miracles, the ascension. But what’s really difficult is to think of him as both, at the same time. How does God exist in a human body? How does that even work?

Some of the greatest minds in history wrestled with that question over a span of four centuries, and at the end of a complex and tumultuous process, they said, “Well, here’s what we think happened, but we’re not even going to try to explain how.”

You see, the whole idea seems fraught with contradiction. God is omnipotent; Jesus was beaten by evil men. God is omniscient; Jesus said he didn’t know when he would come back (Mk 13.32). God is omnipresent; Jesus traveled from place to place, even speaking of his need to go someplace else (Lk 4.43; Jn 14.1-2). God is eternal and immortal; Jesus died.

What?!

And again I say, how does that even work?

Let’s start with some basics.

As both God and man, Jesus must have had a divine nature, one that existed from all eternity past. He has always had all the attributes of God. I’ve mentioned the four standard non-communicable attributes above, but he also has all the communicable attributes as well—grace, mercy, peace, love, justice, and so on.

Then, at a point in time, he became human, and at that moment he added all the attributes that make someone human—most importantly mortality, but also corporality (being limited to a body). As I’ve noted in an earlier post, he did not add the attribute of sinfulness, but that is not a necessary human attribute, since Adam and Eve were not initially sinful.

Now, the problem comes in that some of these attributes appear to be contradictory, most obviously immortality and mortality, but also corporality and omnipresence. And as we noted above, Jesus appears to demonstrate lack of knowledge, which seems to contradict omniscience.

The standard way of dealing with this is with the following carefully worded proposition: When he became incarnate, Jesus added to his eternal divine nature a human nature, thereby voluntarily (and temporarily) setting aside the independent exercise of his divine attributes and placing himself in dependence upon the Father.

Note that he did not set aside the divine attributes—say, his omnipotence—for then he would no longer be God. He set aside the exercise of those attributes.

Now, that helps us a little, but it still doesn’t solve our conundrum. I can understand how he might choose not to use his infinite strength, for example, but how does he set aside the exercise of his omniscience? How do you not know something that you know?

Have you ever been stumped doing a crossword puzzle and looked up a single answer in the back? And when you did that, you accidentally saw another answer that you hadn’t gotten to yet? And then you went back to the puzzle and tried to disremember what you saw?

Didn’t work, did it?

It’s fine to say that Jesus knew certain things—say, what people were thinking (Jn 2.25)—because the Father revealed that to him; but how can we say he’s omniscient at the same time?

We’ll continue this puzzlement in the next post.

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Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3

God and Man, Part 14: Humanity 4 

June 24, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Why did God the Son become human, just like us? I think there are several reasons.

First, the Scripture had prophesied the incarnation, and God’s Word must be fulfilled. Now, obviously, this is not the primary reason; God would not have prophesied the incarnation for the sole or even foundational purpose of fulfilling an otherwise random prophecy. But it serves as a reminder that God is true, faithful, and reliable, and he does keep his promises. This teaches us, therefore, about his character, and it also assures us that he will keep his other promises as well.

Second, by becoming man, the Son positions himself as the Second Adam, the un-Adam, so to speak, who does perfectly what Adam failed to do—or undoes what Adam did, if you will. As Adam had an agreement with God to obey him, an agreement that he did not keep, so Christ enters the same arrangement of obedience, and as a man, keeps it. The incarnation is in many ways a new beginning, a second chance, and a successful one at that.

A key passage that addresses this idea is Romans 5.12-21, and especially verses 12 and 19:

¹²Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. … ¹⁸Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. ¹⁹For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Third, the Son became man in order to substitute himself for us. The best substitute for anyone or anything is something that is from the same class of things, and so Jesus becomes human in order to stand in the humans’ place (He 2.16-17).

By far the most important element in this substitution is the paying of the death penalty for sin. As God, the Son cannot die; it is not part of his nature to die. But as man, he can (Php 2.8; He 2.9). And so, though under no compulsion to do so, God the Son became man—eternally—to rescue us from our own failure.

There is a fourth reason, and this one is by far the most difficult to understand. The Bible says that one of the results of the incarnation is that he now sympathizes with us:

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (He 2.18).

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (He 4.15).

Of course, if we know that someone has also experienced our pain, then we find it easier to believe that he will sympathize with our pain. We see that principle worked out in human experience all the time.

But here’s why I say that this is hard to understand. Does God have to experience something in order to understand it? Does the Father, who has never experienced being human, sympathize less well with us than the Son?

We can’t say that; the Father and the Son are One, and the Father is perfect just as the Son is.

Well, then, is this sympathy that the Son has for us just an exercise in accommodation? Does God know that we’ll more strongly believe that he sympathizes because the Son has been (and continues to be) human? In this just a little trick to help us believe?

We can’t say that, either. God does not pretend just so we’ll believe.

In some way, far beyond our understanding, God the Son sympathizes with us because he is one of us. That’s what the text says, and that’s what we must believe, even if we don’t understand.

That sort of thing happens all the time in theology.

Next time, we’ll start into the really puzzling stuff.

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Part 15: Unity 1 | Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3

God and Man, Part 13: Humanity 3

June 20, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

In the previous two posts we’ve established that Jesus’ existence as a historical person is a reasonable belief. We turn now to the biblical evidences for his humanity—that is, that he is just as human as you and I are.

We note that he began his earthly existence in the normal human way: he was gestated for nine months in the womb of his mother, and he was born through the normal process, through the birth canal. Paul writes that he was “born of a woman” (Ga 4.4), and we have multiple accounts of his mother’s pregnancy and delivery (Mt 1.18-25; Lk 1.26-56; 2.1-7).

It’s worth noting that this is very different from the “birth” accounts of some of the gods or founders of other religions. He did not arrive, like Athena, fully grown, from Zeus’s forehead (Hesiod, Theogony, 929a), or, like Aphrodite, from sea foam (ibid, 176), or, like Dionysus, from Zeus’s thigh, or, like the Japanese Momotaro, from a giant peach. His birth was normal.

But, as we all know, his birth was abnormal as well; he was born of a virgin. That abnormality was prophesied, first and obliquely in Genesis 3.15, where he is called “the seed of the woman” (a very unusual phrasing), and then directly in Isaiah 7.14, which reads, “A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Skeptics have alleged that the Hebrew word translated “virgin” here actually means just “young woman,” and on that basis the RSV famously translated it that way. Without going into all the technical details (there is some breadth to the Hebrew word), I would note that the translators of the Septuagint about 250 BC rendered the Hebrew word with the Greek parthenos (as in “Parthenon”), which unambiguously means “virgin,” and their professional knowledge should be worth something. (As Jewish scholars before the time of Christ, they were clearly not trying to set the stage for Jesus’ birth.) Further, Matthew, writing under inspiration, chose to use the Septuagint’s rendering, rather than translating the allegedly ambiguous Hebrew word directly so that he could correct the alleged error in the Septuagint. Matthew’s account, I would argue, settles the question.

By the way, there’s one more prophecy of the virgin birth, given by an angel to Mary just before she agreed to the conception (Lk 1.34-37). Mary asserts her virginity and asks how she could become pregnant, and the angel ascribes the conception to a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit.

So yes, Jesus was born of a virgin. But everything else about his acquired nature is completely human. Like other humans, he has human ancestors; we have two genealogies, one of Joseph, his stepfather (and thus only Jesus’ legal ancestors [Mt 1.1-17]), and the other of Mary, his biological mother (Lk 3.23-38). And long after his death, his “beloved disciple,” John, pauses to make the point emphatically that he was not a phantom:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; ²(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1J 1.1-2).

We touched him, he says. And as he writes, sixty years after Jesus’ death, he remembers that touch as though it were yesterday.

Human. Entirely, completely, comprehensively. Just like you and me.

One further point.

I would suggest that he is more human than you and I are, because he is sinless.

Wait. Doesn’t that make him less human?

I can see how we might feel that way, but a little further thought supports my claim.

We, sinful humans, are not the original design; we’re defective copies. Adam, the original, was created sinless, as was Eve, his wife. That’s the original blueprint. Sinfulness is not inherent to full humanity.

We’re busted. But Jesus, the sinless one, is the way humans were designed to be. More human, if you will.

Now, all this raises a question.

Why did Jesus become a human?

We’ll address that next time.

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Part 14: Humanity 4 | Part 15: Unity 1 | Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3

God and Man, Part 12: Humanity 2

June 17, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We’re examining the historical evidence that the man Jesus lived in Israel in the first century, and we’re excluding from that evidence—for the moment—the Bible and writings derived from it, such as the writings of the Church Fathers.

In the previous post we noted a couple of references in the first-century Jewish historian, Josephus, one of which we identified as not completely from Josephus’s pen, and therefore not entirely valid. We also noted a reference in Tacitus’s Annals. Both Josephus and Tacitus were unbelievers and therefore not inclined to give Jesus undeserved historical weight.

I think it’s reasonable to acknowledge the historicity of Jesus on the basis of just these two references.

But there are others.

I would point you to this article, which lists some (but not all) of them. Let me share a few here.

Lucian of Samosata was a 2^nd-century satirist, author of The Death of Peregrine, in which he writes,

“The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day,–the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. … They … deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws” (11-13).

Lucian, like Josephus, was an unbeliever, and, like Tacitus, a hostile one. But he accepts Jesus’ life as a fact.

Mara bar Serapion was a Syrian philosopher, imprisoned by the Romans, who wrote a letter to his son during his imprisonment. In it he writes,

“What advantage did the Athenians gain by murdering Socrates, for which they were repaid with famine and pestilence? Or the people of Samos by the burning of Pythagoras, because their country was completely covered in sand in just one hour? Or the Jews by killing their wise king, because their kingdom was taken away at that very time? God justly repaid the wisdom of these three men: the Athenians died of famine; the Samians were completely overwhelmed by the sea; and the Jews, desolate and driven from their own kingdom, are scattered through every nation.”

Mara does not name Jesus, but he speaks of a “king” whom the Jews killed just before the fall of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews. And he parallels this king with Socrates and Pythagoras, who were certainly historical characters. There’s some uncertainty about the date of Mara and his letter, but some would put it in the 1^st century, shortly after the fall of Jerusalem; others as late as the 3^rd century.

Pliny the Younger, imperial governor of the Roman province of Bithynia in the early 2^nd century, wrote a letter to the emperor, Trajan at the time, asking for advice on how to deal with the Christians there. He writes that they worshiped Christ “as though he were a god” and that some eventually denied him and worshiped Caesar (Book 10, Letter 96). Pliny of course objects to their regarding Jesus as a god—in his practice that’s a capital offense—but he does not question his historicity.

Suetonius, the Roman historian of the early second century, wrote The Lives of the Caesars, short biographies of the caesars who had lived up to his time. As we know, Claudius had expelled the Jews from Rome; Priscilla and Aquila were part of that exile (Ac 18.2). Suetonius writes that “the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus,” a fact that motivated the exile. Skeptics will of course argue that “Chrestus” is not Jesus, but there is broad consensus among historians, religious and secular, that Jesus is the one being referred to.

There is more evidence, but this series is getting pretty long. For more depth, consider a couple of helpful relevant books:

Robert Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Eerdmans, 2000). 262p

Craig Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the Background Literature (Hendrickson, 2005). 539 p

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Part 13: Humanity 3 | Part 14: Humanity 4 | Part 15: Unity 1 | Part 16: Unity 2 | Part 17: Unity 3

God and Man, Part 11: Humanity 1

June 13, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Waaay back at the beginning of this series I listed 3 propositions that we would be demonstrating here:

Jesus is God
Jesus is Man
Jesus is both

So far we’ve reviewed the clearest evidence that Jesus is God; it’s time now to turn to the second proposition, that he is man.

You might think that’s too obvious even to investigate. But there have been those who denied Christ’s humanity, and as we’ll see, his humanity is every bit as important as his deity, though less controversial. We do the truth no favors if we highlight the deity of Christ but ignore his humanity.

I’m going to begin with the very basic fact of the incarnation: there was once a human being who walked on this earth, whose name was Jesus (bar Joseph) of Nazareth. There are also those—not many, but a few—who would deny this as well.

Is Jesus just a fable, like Hercules or Rip van Winkle or the boy who cried wolf?

It’s a question worth answering.

It’s a historical question, one we should answer the way a historian does, by looking at the various historical documents (and perhaps artifacts) available to us.

For the moment I’m going to exclude the Bible, since we’ll be getting to that later. I’m also going to exclude all of the Christian writings throughout church history, because they’re based on the Bible. It’s historically noteworthy, of course, that this allegedly mythical person has incited such a flood of literature, but for now we’ll focus on very early secular records.

Josephus, the first-century Jewish writer and collaborator with the Romans, mentioned Jesus in two passages. I think one of them was later edited by a Christian to make it sound as though Josephus was a believer, and I would view that edited version as spurious. We have it as Antiquities 18.3.3; if you’re interested, you can read more details here and even more here (free login required).

There’s a second passage in Josephus that appears genuine. In Antiquities 20.9.1 Josephus describes a trial of James, “the brother of Jesus who was called Christ,” before Ananus the high priest and the Sanhedrin. This reference is significant because it’s off-handed; neither Josephus nor the Sanhedrin were addressing the question of the historical Jesus, but were just assuming it as fact. Their focus of interest was the historical James. Given that this is a first-century account of an earlier first-century event, at which the historical existence of Jesus was assumed without controversy, this is a noteworthy testimony.

Another first-century writer, Tacitus, in his Annals.15.44, describes Nero’s response to the fire at Rome in AD 64. He notes that many citizens suspected Nero himself of having set the fire—to which he responded this way:

Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.

This seems to be a genuine reference particularly because Tacitus is not friend of the Christians; he would have no interest in giving their Messiah undeserved historical authenticity.

Those few who deny the historical existence of Jesus will typically dismiss these historical references outright as “copyists’ errors” or “interpolations.”* While I’m happy to grant that the first reference in Josephus is deeply suspect at best, there is no scholarly historical evidence for dismissing the others.

And in any case, there are other secular references. We’ll get to them next time.

* The essay linked here includes some other arguments that are demonstrably inaccurate or weak. That’s outside the scope of this series, but scholarly responses are readily available. If you want to wade into those weeds, please let me know.

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God and Man, Part 10: Deity 9

June 10, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

There’s one more category of evidence for Christ’s deity that I’d like to cover.

Worship.

Jesus is worshiped. That worship is both tolerated and commanded—and not just by Jesus himself.

Let’s run through a few passages.

⁸ When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. ⁹ For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken (Lk 5.8-9).

Falling at someone’s knees may or may not be an act of worship. But then Peter refers to the owner of those knees as “Lord.” We’ve seen earlier that this term is often indicated by context to be an ascription of deity—which it seems to be here as well. And Peter’s reaction follows an act by Jesus which this lifelong experienced fisherman immediately recognized as supernatural.

⁹Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: ¹⁰That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; ¹¹And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Php 2.9-11).

Several things to note about how this passage significantly extends the previous one. First, it’s God the Father speaking, not Peter the occasionally bumbling disciple. Second, the worshipers include not just the aforesaid disciple, but all beings, natural and supernatural; and Paul seems to be piling on parallel phrases to make just that point. And third, to the ascription of “Lord” is added the observation that this ascription brings glory to God—which is the very definition of worship.

⁶And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him (He 1.6).

Here we have two additional factors: the worshipers are specifically named as “all the angels of God,” and the text specifically uses the term “worship.”

I’ll also note that Jesus is here called “the first-begotten.” This word usually means “natural firstborn,” whether of humans or animals (Ne 10.36); but it sometimes means “highest ranking,” since the firstborn in the family was culturally the highest ranking (Ps 89.27; Jer 31.9). Given that this is in a context of worship, “highest ranking” is the much more likely nuance. There is no indication here of any limitation on Jesus’ status.

¹²Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. ¹³And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. ¹⁴And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever (Re 5.12-14).

Here we have the fulfilment of the Philippians 2 passage. It is hard to imagine any description of this scene other than worship.

I should note that two divine figures are in view here; he “that sitteth upon the throne” is the Father, while “the Lamb that was slain” is obviously the Son. I think he “that liveth for ever and ever” and is worshiped in verse 14 is most likely the Father. But at the end of verse 13 the two appear in perfect grammatical and functional parallel, equally the objects of the worship.

One closing comment.

Scripture is very clear that no one but God is to be worshiped (Dt 6.13; Mt. 4.10). When John tries to worship an angel, he is rebuked (Re 22.8-9).

Jesus is God.

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God and Man, Part 9: Deity 8

June 6, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We have one more piece of biblical evidence demonstrating that Jesus does the work of providence.

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high (He 1.3),

The “who” here is “the Son,” from the previous verse. The operative phrase in this verse is “upholding all things by the word of his power”—or, we could translate it, “by his powerful word.”

How about that. He maintains the world the same way he created it: by speaking.

This is divine work.

Miracles

Now it’s pretty clear that this divine work is different. God is not the only being who works miracles in the Scripture, though he is certainly the one in whose power and by whose authority all miracles are done. So the fact that someone does miracles may not prove that he is God, but merely that he is empowered by God. Moses and Joshua did miracles; Elijah and Elisha did miracles; the apostles did miracles; and every last one of them would deny energetically that he was God. We even have examples of such denials, from Peter (Ac 3.12) and Paul (Ac 14.14-15).

I would suggest, though, that Jesus’ miracles—at least some of them—were different. In an earlier post in this series, I’ve already noted that just the first 2 of Jesus’ “sign miracles” in John’s Gospel demonstrate his authority over time and space, which include all four dimensions of our universe. Here I would offer another sign miracle, and that is Jesus’ own resurrection. Jesus raised several others from the dead, of course, but so did “ordinary” humans such as Elisha (and even Elisha’s bones!) and Peter. But Jesus claimed more than that ability; he said that he would lay down his life and take it up again. Recall when he was speaking to the Jewish leaders and said he would “destroy this temple” and then “raise it up” (Jn 2.19). And John quickly tells us, “He was speaking about the temple of his body” (Jn 2.21). Later in the same Gospel Jesus notes that no one will take his life from him; he will lay it down, and he will take it up again (Jn 10.18).

Now, it’s quite a trick to raise somebody from the dead; but raising yourself from the dead is on another level.

Yes, Jesus’ miracles were of a different sort from your average everyday miracles (irony absolutely intended).

To this point I’ve demonstrated that Jesus performs all three of the standard works of God. But I’d like to take second look at the second one, providence, and more specifically government. For this is where God has exercised his great plan of salvation.

You may recall that earlier in this series I made the case that “Jesus” is a divine name, because the angelic messenger said that Mary’s baby “would save his people from their sins” (Mt 1.21). Jesus, Jehovah, is the one who saves.

But there are other evidences in the works of salvation. For one, Jesus forgives sins (Mt 9.2). And the religious experts looking on ask the obvious question: “Who can forgive sins but God only?” (Mk 2.7). Jesus responds, “The Son of Man has authority to forgive sins” (Mt 9.6)—no waffling, no qualifications, no explanations, no reservations.

A second work of salvation that we should consider is his claim to be the Judge. In the Olivet Discourse he famously positions himself on a glorious throne—made glorious by his own glory—and judges all the nations of the earth, sending some to the kingdom and others to perdition (Mt 25.31-46). Similarly, he says elsewhere that “the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (Jn 5.22)—and lest we read that as implying that he is something less than God, he says immediately, “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father” (Jn 5.23).

This is divine work.

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God and Man, Part 8: Deity 7

June 3, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

The next category of biblical evidence for the deity of Christ is passages that declare that he does things that only God does; they ascribe divine works to him.

Most theologians will tell you that the works of God are three: Creation, Providence, and Miracles. You’ll be shocked to learn, of course, that Jesus is said to perform all three.

Creation

Three different New Testament books, written by three different authors, begin by saying that Jesus is the creator of the world:

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made (Jn 1.3).

The “him” here is referring back to “the Word” in John 1.1, and later in the same chapter John writes that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld his glory” (Jn 1.14). And as is obvious, the rest of the book is about Jesus.

By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him (Co 1.16).

This is Paul, writing three decades before John wrote his Gospel, and thus very early in Christian history. And note that Paul says more than John did; Paul says that creation—all of it, physical and spiritual—was created not only by Jesus, but for him. That is a remarkable claim. This was not some doctrine that developed slowly, over time, like the size of the fish some guy caught.

[God] hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds (He 1.2).

Now, since I’ve said that these three statements are by three different authors, it’s obvious that I don’t think Paul wrote Hebrews. (That’s a topic for a different post, if ever.) This remarkable sermon-in-a-letter paints a picture of Christ as exalted as anything said about God by any of the Old Testament prophets.

A threefold cord is not easily broken. These three statements make it clear that Jesus, who “became flesh and walked among us,” is the same as the Elohim who spoke, and there was light; who created the heavens and the earth; and who filled the heavens with stars and the earth with all that has the breath of life.

This is God’s work.

Providence

Two of the three passages we’ve just cited go further and ascribe the second work of God to Jesus as well. Providence is God’s care for and direction of what he has created. We call his care Preservation, and his direction Government. I like to say that in school we call Preservation “science,” and we call Government “history.”

And, it turns out, Jesus does those works too:

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist (Co 1.17).

You’ve likely heard it taught that this word consist means “hold together.” I find that phrasing intriguing. If you were Paul, living with first-century scientific understanding, what direction would you say things go when they wear out? Well, down, of course. Buildings fall down; trees fall down; people fall down when they die.

But Paul doesn’t say that; he says they ”are held together,” which implies that without Jesus’ action they would … fly apart, I suppose.

What’s intriguing about that?

Well, what Paul could not have known is that all matter consists of atoms, in the nucleus of which are two kinds of subatomic particles: protons and neutrons. Now, protons have a positive charge, which is no problem for hydrogen, the simplest atom, but becomes a problem as soon as you get 2 or more protons together in the nucleus. Why? Because positive charges are supposed to repel; those 2 (helium), or 8 (oxygen), or 103 (Lawrencium) protons are supposed to fly apart. But they don’t.

Physicists have noticed this, of course, and they have given a name to the force that must be holding them together; they call it the “strong nuclear force.” (They’ve gotten considerably more imaginative in coming up with names for other subatomic things, like spin quarks.)

Now, I’m not saying that Jesus is the strong nuclear force; I suspect that creation is far more complex than that. But I am intrigued by the fact that Paul doesn’t seem to reflect the scientific understanding of his day when he chooses his words.

I’m running long here, so I’ll save the second Providence passage for next time.

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