Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

 

Retired Bible Professor,

Bob Jones University

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Firstborn! You and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Part 1

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To engage or not to engage

It’s not a question of “if.”

It’s only a question of “when.”

You’re going to open your front door, and two Jehovah’s Witnesses are going to be standing there. And they’re going to want to talk.

There was a time in this country when door-to-door salesmen were common and generally welcome, as another supply vector—for Fuller brushes or Hoover vacuum cleaners or Schwan’s ice cream. But those days are gone; today Americans are unanimously thinking How can I get this bozo off my porch and get on with my life? That’s not true in many other countries, but it’s true here.

So I know what you’re going to be thinking about those JWs.

Great. Just great. This is not a good time. Come to think of it, it’ll never be a good time. I have better things to do.

But. Do you? Really? Unless you’ve just called 911, and somebody’s exsanguinating on your kitchen floor, I’m not so sure you really do have better things to do.

There is a heaven, and there is a hell. And everyone’s going one place or the other. And here are two people, in the image of God, who have gone to the trouble of coming right to your door, and who want to talk about Jesus.

Now, exactly what better things do you have to do?

First question: do you invite them in? or do you talk on the porch?

Most Christians know about 2 John 7-11—I suspect mostly because it’s a great way to get yourself out of talking to them and back to those “better” things you have to do:

7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. 8 Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. 9 Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, 11 for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

So someone who “does not abide in the teaching of Christ,” who, as in this case, denies the deity of Christ, is a false teacher, and we’re not supposed to let him into the house.

Several years ago, I was helping a pastor friend plant a church in a Boston suburb. One afternoon we were planning the next Sunday’s service when the doorbell rang, and there were two JWs. My pastor’s words to them were curt:

“I know who you are; you’re Jehovah’s Witness; you’re heretics, Arians, and your heresy was condemned by the church in the fourth century. The Bible says I can’t invite you into my house, so I have nothing to say to you. If Dan wants to talk to you out here on the porch, he’s welcome to do so, but as far as I’m concerned, this conversation is over.”

And he closed the door in their faces. (I was young and a seminary student and spoilin’ for a fight, so I engaged them for quite a bit there on the porch—but that’s a story for another time.)

My pastor friend interpreted the 2 John passage very literally—on the porch, OK, but not in the house.

Other students of the Bible have read the passage differently. They suggest that in the first century, to “receive [someone] into your house” meant to give him a place to stay, and that meant that you were effectively endorsing him in your community. They note that when Jason, a man from Thessalonica, offered Paul and his team a place to stay, the locals took that as support and endorsement and even threatened Jason with civil forfeiture (Acts 17.1-9). Long before that, Lot took strangers (actually angels) into his house and felt obligated to protect them from the townsmen to the point that he offered the mob his own daughters for sexual assault (Gen 19.1-11). Hospitality in the ancient Near East was a very serious business indeed.

So, these interpreters suggest, the issue isn’t whether the conversation takes place inside or outside the house; the issue is whether you act toward them in a way that implies endorsement or recognition as anything other than false teachers. So, they would say, invite them in; show them to a seat; offer them some (sweetened!) ice tea. And then have a gracious but frank conversation with them about the error of their ways.

Whichever interpretation you take, I think you ought to have the conversation. The image of God is very serious business as well.

Next time: then what?

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

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On Existential Providence

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God’s in charge.

He’s sovereign; his will is always accomplished. That includes the big things, and the tiny little things. In my case, tiny little things brought existential results: I wouldn’t exist without them.

My Mom grew up in Brockton, MA, the daughter of hardworking and really interesting Universalists. On graduation from high school, she went to secretarial school and then moved to Baltimore during World War II to work some sort of secretarial job. She got an apartment with a roommate named Nikki.

Dad grew up in the Pacific Northwest, born in Salmon, ID. By age 13 he’d lost both of his parents, and he finished his youth under the freewheeling stewardship of his older siblings, mostly in Spokane, WA, and LA (where he experienced the Long Beach earthquake of 1933). Around 1944 he volunteered for the Army, mostly, I suspect, to get out of the house. Basic training at Camp Roberts in California, then off on a troop ship to the Philippines, as a replacement soldier for the combat-depleted 31st “Dixie” Division, known today as the Alabama National Guard. Spent time on both Leyte and Mindanao, with little combat; made a little extra money by cutting other soldiers’ hair in the jungle.

When the war ended, he returned Stateside and was sent to Fort Meade, MD, during the last days of his enlistment.

One weekend he got a pass and went into Baltimore.

I dunno, I think I’d have gone to Washington. But he went to Baltimore.

He and a buddy or two dropped in to a café to get something to eat. As they were getting seated, Dad noticed another couple of soldiers making a clumsy pass at two girls who were paying their bill at the register. The girls clearly didn’t want to talk, but the guys kept trying.

Dad got up and told them to knock it off. We can all see they don’t want to talk to you; leave them alone, and get out.

They were privates. Dad was a corporal. They got out.

Dad said a few words to one of the girls. Yeah, she was my Mom.

And 8 years later, along came Yours Truly.

So for me, this is really an existential story. I wouldn’t be here if that hadn’t happened. And oh, yeah, neither would my sisters.

What are the odds?

How did a boy from Idaho, 2 miles down from the Continental Divide, end up in the Philippines with a unit from Alabama?

And how did he and the future Mrs. O. end up in Baltimore, where neither of them had ever been before, at the same time for completely unrelated reasons?

And how did they end up at the same hole-in-the-wall café on supper shifts that overlapped by about 10 minutes?

What if he’d come to supper 15 minutes later?

What if a couple of jerks hadn’t hassled the girls on their way out?

What if?

Our lives are an endless stream of details, winding in and out of other endless streams, sometimes apart, but occasionally intersecting. And those intersections are usually brief and trivial and quickly forgotten. What was the name of the guy you greeted on the way into the drugstore yesterday afternoon?

But sometimes those intersections change lives, and those times they change all the world for the people involved.

And God oversees and directs the whole symphony.

The God who raises up kings and sets them down again, who empowers the existence and continuance of the whole universe, who sees that the water cycle and the seasonal cycle continue despite our attempts to contort and convolute them, this God engineers the tiny little details as well.

The tiny little trivial ones, and the tiny little existential ones.

I’m glad of that.

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One Tiny Reason Why I’m Not a Secular Humanist

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One Wednesday evening I was driving to an elders’ meeting at my church. Because I had taught a 4 pm class, I had just 40 minutes, from 4:50 to 5:30, to get to the meeting. And at 5 the traffic picks up considerably on the arterial I need to drive on, so the pressure’s on. Sometimes I just skip supper and wait to eat till I get home, but that day I was hungry—hangry—and there’s a Hardee’s right on the way so, maybe, if I time it just right, I can rush out of class, get on the road before the crush starts, and pop into the drive-through lane for a quick burger that I can eat on the way. Boy, that would be great.

No students need to talk to me after class—that’s the first auspicious sign. I skip dropping my stuff off at the office and hustle to the car, parked right outside the classroom building, and throw the books into the back seat. Fire up the car, straight ahead, left at the gym, out the side gate, right to the light, left to the Hardee’s. Not much traffic so far.

Nobody in line at the drive-through! Awesome! I pull into the parking lot and swing around to the order spot. Hustle, hustle, hustle.

The voice comes on. I order the mushroom and swiss burger, “Just the sandwich, please.”

“Would you like fries with that?”

“No thank you, just the sandwich, please.”

“How about a drink?”

“No, just the sandwich.”

“Could I interest you in a—“

“JUST THE SANDWICH!”

Oh, great. My single-minded focus on my own little problem has just led me to yell at a perfectly nice teen-aged girl who’s working hard and taking responsibility for her own life, just like I always say teen-agers ought to. And in a minute I’m going to pull up at her window and have to talk to her face to face.

What an idiom. What a maroon.

I briefly consider just driving away, but that would be, well, cowardly, and plus, I’m still hungry.

So I pull around to the window, and the little wisp of a thing leans out of the window and says, “I’m sorry, sir, but I have to ask you those questions. I’ll get fired if I don’t.”

I tell her I’m sorry, and I know she was just doing her job, and she’s doing an excellent job at that, and what I said was uncalled for, and I’m sorry, and I’m really, really sorry.

And I was. Because I was wrong. Utterly, completely, abysmally wrong.

Where did that rudeness come from? I was on my way to an elders’ meeting, for crying out loud. At church. All for Jesus!

That rudeness showed up because it was in there. Because it’s a part of who I am. Self-centered. Impatient. Unkind. Just rude.

I want to think otherwise. I really do. I’m a good person, right?

No, I’m not. Not because people are basically good, and not because I had two good parents, and not because I grew up learning to get along with siblings, and not because we didn’t have video games when I was a boy, and not because uphill both ways.

And this after more than 50 years of sanctifying work by the ever-faithful Spirit of God. After all this time, you’d think I’d be better than this.

But I’m not.

And that, my friend, is just one tiny reason, of many, why I’m not a secular humanist.

From every stormy wind that blows,
From every swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat—
’Tis found beneath the mercy seat.

Hugh Stowell

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On Revival

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This week my school is having its annual Bible Conference. The theme for this year is revival. As part of the program, various faculty members and students are presenting brief accounts of American revivals. What follows is my presentation Wednesday morning on the Great Awakening.

——-

It’s 50 years before the American Revolution. What will one day be the United States of America is a collection of 13 British colonies huddled against the Eastern Seaboard. Its people have come here for many reasons. Some have come seeking an economic chance by dint of hard work in land that no one has ever plowed; some have come to escape dark stories in the Old Country. Some have been here for a hundred years; their grandfathers and great-grandfathers came seeking religious freedom, the liberty to worship God after the dictates of their own consciences.

But that path is never easy, and it’s never certain. Eight of the colonies now have established churches, with the financial support and legal backing of the colonial governments. What happens when the church is the same as the governmental power? It’s usually not a pretty picture. Church leaders get comfortable and complacent and sometimes abusive. External conformity and empty formalism become the tradition, and people think that God is on their side because they drop by his house every week and say the right words, even though they don’t think much about what they’re actually saying.

So lots of people are claiming the name of Christ without living like it. Worldliness is common. Rationalism, the rejection of the supernatural, is making inroads. There is no passion.

A preacher in Pennsylvania, with his sons, begins to speak out against the spiritual laziness, exemplifying by personal passion that following Christ is serious business. People begin to listen to William Tennent, to respond to his message. Soon more want to hear the preaching than their little team can reach, and they set out to train more preachers to meet the need. Their little “Log College” (1727), what we today call Princeton University, will encourage a wave of new ministry training schools: Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), Dartmouth (1769)—a good chunk of what we call today the “Ivy League.”

In 1739 British evangelist George Whitefield travels up and down the colonies preaching. People swarm to hear him; when the crowds are so great that no building will hold them, they move to the fields and pastures, where Whitefield’s booming voice reaches them all. Benjamin Franklin, intrigued by the work of a God he does not know, befriends Whitefield and listens to him preach. Franklin writes in his Autobiography,

In 1739 arriv’d among us from England the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, who had made himself remarkable there as an itinerant Preacher. … The Multitudes of all … Denominations that attended his Sermons were enormous and it was [a] matter of Speculation to me who was one of the Number, to observe the extraordinary Influence of his Oratory on his Hearers, and how much they admir’d and respected him, notwithstanding his common Abuse of them, by assuring them they were naturally half Beasts and half Devils. It was wonderful to see the Change soon made in the Manners of our Inhabitants; from being thoughtless or indifferent about Religion, it seem’d as if all the World were growing Religious; so that one could not walk thro’ the Town in an Evening without Hearing Psalms sung in different Families of every Street.

With Whitefield the flame moves northward. Jonathan Edwards, a pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts, preaches his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), and the people respond with cries for mercy.

But there is resistance. The powerful religious leadership is scandalized by the inelegant displays of emotion and by the sometimes overexuberant responses. In defense of the revival, Edwards writes his work “Religious Affections” (1746) to argue that our relationship with God should involve the whole man, our emotions as well as our minds. He writes the work “The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God” (1744) to separate the legitimate outbreaks from the opportunistic ones: a genuine work, he says, will include conversion, a rejection of worldliness, a love for the Scripture, and a love for God and man. In a letter to a friend, Edwards describes what he saw in Northampton:

In the month of May 1741, a sermon was preached to a company at a private house. Near the conclusion of the exercise, one or two persons that were professors were so greatly affected with a sense of the greatness and glory of divine things, and the infinite importance of the things of eternity, that they were not able to conceal it; the affection of their minds overcoming their strength, and having a very visible effect on their bodies. When the exercise was over, the young people that were present removed into the other room for religious conference; and particularly that they might have opportunity to inquire of those that were thus affected what apprehensions they had, and what things they were that thus deeply impressed their minds. And there soon appeared a very great effect of their conversation; the affection was quickly propagated through the room; many of the young people and children that were professors appeared to be overcome with a sense of the greatness and glory of divine things, and with admiration, love, joy and praise, and compassion to others that looked upon themselves as in a state of nature. And many others at the same time were overcome with distress about their sinful and miserable state and condition; so that the whole room was full of nothing but outcries, faintings, and suchlike.

The movement subsides in New England about 1760, just as inexplicably as it had begun.

But its effects continue. Americans see a religious diversity, and they like the freedom of choice that comes with it. All the colonies find a new shared experience that draws them together. It’s no surprise that less than two decades later, the colonies are ready to take on the tyranny of King George himself—and to defeat him. One leader of the Revolution, our second president, John Adams, wrote,

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.

And so it ever is. Unbelieving churches shrivel and die, even as the old “mainline churches” are dying today. But God’s Spirit moves among his people, and the story goes out; and God brings to himself uncounted sinners who find rescue and grace and mercy and peace—and who rejoice in that rescue in ways that shake the world.

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Somewhere Out There

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OK, that car thing was really cool. Sure, it was a waste of a really good car, in the most materialistic of senses, and sure, it was symbol over substance, and sure, they’re saying the radiation will destroy it in a year, and sure, it’ll never actually get to Mars, and sure, even if it did, without any propulsion it would just crash into it and join the rest of the rust.

But still, it was really, really cool. Sometimes symbol is every bit as important as substance.

And it got me thinking.

Wouldn’t it be even cooler if somebody found it, out there, somewhere? What would they think? What would they do?

The half-full folks think, “They’d know we’re here! And they’d come looking for us! And share their technology! And wouldn’t that be just awesome!”

And the half-empty folks think, “Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?! They’d know we’re here! And they’d come looking for us! And make us slaves! Or eat us! Or something!”

Well, I’ll observe that if they come looking for us, then they’re way more advanced than we are, and the outcome is going to be pretty much out of our hands at that point.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Shouldn’t we be asking if there’s a “they” at all?

A lot of people think there is. Are. Whatever.

I suppose we think like that because we want to. We’re social people—God made us that way (Gen 2.18)—and we want there to be Others. And since we’re broken, and everybody we know here is broken (Rom 3.23), maybe we like to hold out hope that there will be less irritating people Out There.

So we posit reasons and evidences. Evolutionists argue that as many galaxies as there are, there must be bazillions of planets, and a lot of them must be in the Goldilocks zone, and surely the odds favor that evolution has happened out there too. (Methinks they misoverestimate the odds that evolution happened even here.)

Even my fellow Christians—using the term fellow relatively loosely—have suggested biblical evidence for life on other planets:

Well, suppose we get a little more, um, down to earth, and give a little theological thought to the subject?

  • Could God have created life on other planets?
    • Of course! He’s omnipotent, and a multivariate creation of life is certainly not inconsistent with his nature.
  • Wouldn’t he have told us?
    • Not necessarily. There’s a LOT he hasn’t told us (Dt 29.29). He’s infinite, you may recall.

This possibility does raise a bunch of questions. For example,

  • Has this hypothetical extraterrestrial race been created in the image of God?
  • If so, has it fallen into sin?
  • If so, has God willed to redeem it? (Would it violate his nature not to redeem his image?)
  • If so, …
    • Is more than one method of redemption possible in some other planetary cosmos? Or is the specific method of redemption tied to the unchanging nature of God?
    • Or does the Son—or even a different member of the Godhead—incarnate with them and endure another death?
    • Or does God simply reveal to them what he has done on another planet (ours) and offer to apply it to them?
    • Are any of the above options completely ruled out by what we know of the nature of God?

I’ll tell you what we do know.

God has invested us with a stewardship here, and now, on this planet, and we need to make that our first priority. Speculation on matters like this are useful in that they can exercise our theological thinking and may provide insights into other theological questions. But they cannot replace direct obedience to the Great Commission (Mt 28.19-20) and to our fundamental purpose as images of God here on earth (1Co 10.31; Rom 11.36).

So that’s enough speculation for today. Let’s get back to Kingdom work, my fellow princes and princesses.

But that car is really cool.

Photo credit: SpaceX

On Blind Faith and God

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I believe in God.

More specifically, I believe in the God of the Bible.

A lot of people don’t.

And once in a while, one of them will ask me, sincerely, how an apparently happy, confident, reasonably intelligent person like me can do that. Isn’t that just blind faith? Isn’t religion just a crutch for the weak, a Magic 8-Ball for the unintelligent, an opiate for the masses?

Sometimes, yes. More than that—I think most religions are all of the above.

But not this one.

So what’s my particular delusion? Why the inconsistency?

Not so fast. Let me explain.

After a lifetime of study and growth, I realize that I’m a believer because God graciously drew me to himself. But from my perspective through that process, it didn’t look like that. It appeared to me that I was making a series of choices (and yes, I was).

  • First I chose to follow the example of my parents. Most children do that.
  • Then I chose to reject all that, and my life got less pleasant in hurry.
  • Motivated more by a selfish desire for happiness than anything numinous, I chose to return to what I had learned earlier, and it worked pretty well. The unpleasantness of the earlier lifestyle went away.
  • And so I stayed, and I began to learn things along the way.
  • I learned, first, that the Bible is an unusual book—one that can’t be explained naturally.
  • As so I began to take it seriously, and I chose to believe what it told me about my sinful self—I’d proved that in the lab already—and about what God had done to restore me to himself. I moved from a largely intellectual belief to an experienced conviction that this—knowing this God—was what I was made for.

Along the way I realized that there were a lot of things about this God that I didn’t understand. And it occurred to me that this was exactly what I should expect. If we had made God up—as an opiate, or whatever—we wouldn’t have made one who occasionally troubled us and, worse, embarrassed us in front of our friends; we’d have made him simpler. But if there really is a God, by definition infinite, then we would expect that he would regularly exceed the limits of our finite minds; he would occasionally go over the horizon of our understanding.

That wasn’t difficult for me to embrace. But the hard question is this:

What do you do when he does that? How do you respond when God mystifies or troubles you—when he seems to disappoint you?

Let me respond to that question with its parallel. What do you do when a long-time friend mystifies or troubles you?

I’ve been married for 33 years. I know my dear wife pretty well. She’s retired, and I’m still working. That means that for several hours each day, I’m unable to be at home, and she’s COMPLETELY unaccountable.

I don’t worry.

And not because “I’m all that,” and she’d be a fool to let me go.

No, it’s because I know this woman. I’ve lived with her for 33 years. I know what she’s like. She’s not going to disappoint me.

That’s how healthy relationships work. You trust your friends. And that’s most certainly not blind faith; it’s solidly founded—scientifically founded, if you will—on experience in the lab and in the field.

Nobody wants a marriage where your spouse is constantly checking up on you, constantly fearing that you’re going to do something awful. I don’t check the odometer on the car every night to see if the wife is putting more miles on it than her account of her day would support. Friends don’t treat each other like that.

And I’m not going to treat God like that either. I’m not going to assume the worst whenever something happens that I don’t understand.

Sometimes God goes over the horizon on me. Sometimes his ways puzzle me, and I can’t figure out what he’s up to. But in those moments, I trust him. I trust him because he has always been faithful to me—despite the many times I’ve been unfaithful to him. I trust him scientifically, because he’s proved himself to me in the lab and in the field.

That’s how healthy relationships work.

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On Threats from a Hostile Culture

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Last week Carl Trueman published a thoughtful piece, entitled “Preparing for Winter,” on the future of Christian colleges. His premise is that they’re threatened, existentially threatened, by the hostile secular culture, particularly as it is expressed by the US government, and particularly in the matter of sexual discrimination, and particularly on the question of transgenderism. If Christian colleges stick to their beliefs, they will run afoul of anti-discrimination laws, thereby losing their accreditation and possibly—probably—even their tax exemption. An existential threat.

I don’t find anything he said directly wrong, but I’d like to balance his thoughts just a little bit.

First, a key piece of his argument is the Bob Jones Supreme Court case, in which my college lost its tax exemption because it violated “public policy” by prohibiting interracial marriage among its students. Something he doesn’t seem to consider, though, is that public-policy decisions arise more out of politics than out of law. It was easy for most Americans to agree with the court’s decision in the Bob Jones case because BJU was, well, wrong. It seems to me that if the government were to seriously consider denying tax exemption to all Christian schools that do not accommodate the policy du jour on transgenderism, the breadth of public outcry, and the consequent threat of political backlash, would render such an incursion politically impossible. There are a lot of people in this country who don’t see current transgender policy as in the same category as the civil rights movement.

There’s a reason that Social Security is the third rail of politics, even though the math underlying it is confessedly bogus. Politics works that way.

But times change, and majority public opinion changes with it. Suppose that, over time, clear biblical teaching on sexual morality is seen by most Americans as the enemy of the people? What then?

Well, several observations.

First, colleges can survive without tax exemption. Bob Jones did (and yes, it got the exemption back after several decades). It’s difficult, and with the passage of time a college will need to change significantly in the way it does things and perhaps even in its basic structure, methods, and size. But people are in the image of God, and that fact makes them creative, among other things. Just as businesses adjust to changes in tax law and all sorts of other elements in their legal environment—and do that every year, routinely—so people who want to run an educational institution can come up with ways to make it work. (And toward the end of his piece, Trueman essentially says that.)

But suppose the environment gets so oppressive that the college model can’t work at all? Well, for most of human existence—and this is true for young-earth creationists as well as old-earth creationists—people have been educating their offspring and preparing them for useful lives without any colleges whatsoever. You think businessmen are creative? Just watch parents trying to ensure their children’s success. There are no limits.

And it’s not just about the motivation and determined action of the parents.

For decades the People’s Republic of China was one of the most oppressive societies on the planet. It was completely cut off from the West; everybody had to dress just like Chairman Mao, and they had to quote his Little Red Book; and Mao had unfettered power to annihilate the scourge of Christianity from his land.

Several years ago I was teaching Christian theology. After class one of the students, who had grown up in China, said to me, “You are telling the [Bible] stories.” “Yes,” I replied. “I know the stories,” she said. “How do you know?” “My grandmother taught me.”

Mao had all the power imaginable, and he used all of it. Millions of his own people died under his orders just because they were Christians. But today Mao is dead—I’ve seen his corpse—and his great effort was foiled by a bunch of wizened 4’10” Chinese grandmothers, who told their grandchildren the stories. And today, by most estimates, there are more Christians in China than there are in the US.

Christian parents of whatever nation, however hostile, will tell those same stories, and Christian sons and daughters will go out as ambassadors for Christ, to spread the Good News, to die if necessary, but they will go out, and they will be faithful.

Christ, whose power well exceeds that of Mao and of any future American autocrat, will build his church, and the very gates of hell will have nothing at hand to stop it.

Fear not.

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The Great Illusion

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This time of year, it’s not unusual for the death rate to rise. And this time around, a lot of people I know have graduated from this life to the next. It started with a former student and advisee of mine, a recent graduate of BJU, a valued team member of an evangelist, another former student, in a car accident. His sudden departure was a shock to all who knew him, and a sobering reminder that we have only a brief time to know and serve God here.

Then came a wave of older friends, showing the wear of their years of faithful service, moving on at a more “normal” age. Dr. Stewart Custer, the teacher I had for more classes than any other, the gentle intellect whose clear faith and love for his God was impossible for any who knew him not to notice. Then Geneva Anderson, a stubbornly godly woman who battled cancer, it seemed, forever, and who in the end did not succumb so much as overcome. “The Lord be praised!” And then Bud Rimel, who taught my EMT certification class and with whom I had the joy of playing criminal during security training simulations. If it weren’t for Bud I never would have had the opportunity to “steal” that police car. (Wish I’d known how to turn off the light bar at the time.) And then Kay Washer, veteran missionary in Africa, whose example is being followed by her own descendants as well as many others.`

Then Don Horton, the California boy who spent his entire ministry life pastoring just one church in Statesville, North Carolina, who 43 years ago spent a year directing my undergraduate ministry internship, from whom I learned lessons that I have never forgotten. Then Gertrude Chennault, unassuming relative of the great Gen. Claire Chennault, whose life as an administrative assistant at BJU facilitated the accomplishment of great things but kept her out of the spotlight, which was just exactly where she wanted to be.

And Saturday I attended the funeral of Dolores Wood, wife of Bill for 72 years, a war bride, a member of the Greatest Generation, but much more importantly, a woman who met Christ at the age of 36 and spent the next 55 years serving him with the kind of love and joy you come across only once in an age. She loved her husband, and her family, and nearly everyone else; everyone who met her came away thinking she was Mom. For years of Wednesday night prayer meetings I heard her share prayer requests for people she was concerned about and ministering to.

And here’s the thing. Every one of these people—every one of them—has died, but only sort of. Death, for them, is just an illusion. For them, it is not death to die.

Every one of them is a child of God by faith, a fellow-heir with Jesus Christ, a sinner forgiven by grace through faith. And that means that every one of them is separated, but only temporarily, from the physical body but alive and well in the presence of Christ, safe and rested and painless and at peace, exponentially better off than they were even on their best days here, let alone during those last painful days or moments. But at the same time, they’re looking forward with eager anticipation to better days to come (2Cor 5.1-9).

What could be better than being instantaneously free of pain and sorrow and in the presence of a loving God? Well, there’s more coming for them. The day will come when their discarded bodies will be raised, reconstituted and flawless, impervious to pain, sickness, and death, and reunited with their waiting consciousnesses (1Th 4.16; 1Co 15.20-23, 42-43, 51-55). They’ll be complete again, embodied as they were designed to be, and prepared to serve their God flawlessly, expertly, and eternally.

What a day that will be.

Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash

The Judgment Believers Face

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The Bible talks a lot about judgment. Jesus anticipates the day when he will sit as judge over the nations (Mat 25.31-46). And readers of the Bible are all struck by the bleakness of John’s description of the Great White Throne judgment in Revelation (Rev 20.11-15). These are harsh and terrifying scenes.

I can remember wondering as a boy if I would come before Christ, confident that I was saved, and learn to my shock that I was mistaken: “Depart from me; I never knew you” (Mat 7.21-23). It’s a frightful thought.

Paul tells us that all believers will stand before Christ for judgment, and that this judgment will be on the basis of our works (2Cor 5.10). And he intensifies the picture with his main verb; the English says, “We must all appear,” but the Greek verb does not mean simply “we must all make an appearance”; it means, “we must all be made transparent.” There will be no hiding, no excuses, no covering up hidden secrets. Everything will be out there.

Is this our lot? Are we going to stand before Christ and face his disappointment with us—even his wrath, the “wrath of the Lamb,” because of our sin? And will all our sin be paraded before everyone, shouted from the housetops, with nothing held back? How can we live in “grace, mercy, and peace” in the face of that prospect?

It’s true that we’ll be made transparent before the judgment seat of Christ. But the description I’ve given is nothing close to accurate. Here’s why.

First, you and I will never have to face the wrath of God for our sin. We deserve to, and we would have no argument had God chosen to do that. But he has not chosen to do that; he has chosen instead to pour out his infinite wrath on his Son, who has equally chosen to receive it. Not only is the wrath of the Lamb not directed at his people, but the love of the Lamb is the very reason that he chose to intercede for us against the Father’s wrath. God’s wrath was poured out on him (Mat 27.45-54), and his wrath has been propitiated (1Jn 4.10); there is no more left for us.

You will never face God for your sins. The mighty Lamb, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, has done that in your place. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5.1).

So what’s the judgment seat of Christ about? The passage tells us: “that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2Co 5.10). We’re giving account, not of our sins, but of our service—whether what we’ve done for Christ has been valuable (“good,” Gk. agathos) or worthless (“bad,” Gk. phaulos). We’re giving account of our stewardship.

Christ often spoke of this in his parables. The master returns from a long journey and sees what his servants have done with the resources he left with them (Mat 25.14-30; Lk 19.11-27); the king calls his servants to evaluate the quality of their service (Mat 18.23); even the crooked servant is commended for his diligence (Lk 16.1-13). Paul describes our works being tested by fire, so that the worthless and insubstantial (“wood, hay, stubble”) will be burned up and the valuable (“gold, silver, precious stones”) will be left for display (1Co 3.10-17).

Paul writes of the judgment seat of Christ in a context of warning—as does Jesus in telling his parables. This is serious business; you don’t want to disappoint the master or position yourself as an incompetent servant. He calls for diligence.

But the judgment seat doesn’t have to be a disappointment. Won’t it be great, if you’re a diligent servant, to present your service to him when he comes? Isn’t it great when a little child joyously and confidently greets her father at the door with “Daddy! Come see what I made for you!” Won’t that be something?!

Our father’s out of town on a trip (metaphorically speaking). He’s left us lots of really important things to do, but things that he’s equipped us for, things we can do well, things that bring great enjoyment. So we devote ourselves to those blessed tasks, and we anticipate his return, when we’ll be able to show him what we’ve done: “See what I made for you!”

There’s nothing to fear here. There’s no need for doubt, or apprehension, or a nagging dread in the pit of your stomach.

Serve with joy, and prepare for the reunion with delight.

Photo credit: Arek Socha

Grace

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I’ve been thinking recently, as I often do, about the many ways God has been kind to me. His greatest kindness, of course, has been in drawing me to himself. It’s a story worth telling.

Early on, my parents were not religious people, at least not so’s you’d notice. Dad was a Westerner, orphaned at 13 and shepherded through his teen years relatively haphazardly by his older siblings. Mom’s family was devoutly Universalist—my uncle, Carleton Fisher, was the last president of the Universalist Church and thus one of the founders of the UU’s, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, back around 1960. As we kids were showing up, the family bounced around southeastern Washington State, living in towns with names like College Place and Colfax and Diamond and Elberton and Trentwood and Greenacres, as Dad followed work available in his two professions, the railroad and printing.

As the kids got a little older, my parents thought it wise for us to go to some kind of church, so we attended a church in Opportunity, of which I have dim memories, but we did not hear the gospel there.

They became interested in politics—like most Westerners of that day, the conservative kind—and there they met a few people who spoke, oddly, of something called being born again, and they began to realize that not all churches were like that. I remember playing on the kitchen floor as they were sitting at the table discussing whether their minister knew about this “saved” thing.

They found a church that was what we today would call evangelical, and one Sunday we all showed up. Fourth Memorial Church in Spokane was officially Presbyterian, but they had just voted to leave their denomination over liberalism, so they were ecclesiastically independent—and I was much older before I realized that an independent Presbyterian church is an oxymoron.

I was 6 and was shuffled off to the age-appropriate Sunday school class.

And none of the other kids showed up that day.

The teacher—I remember her as an impossibly old lady, maybe as old as 60!—set aside her planned lesson and joined me at the table in one of those little kiddie chairs. We just sat and talked. As the conversation progressed, she realized that I knew nothing of the gospel, and so, simply and kindly, she told me The Good News.

I didn’t know much of anything; I knew nothing about the Bible or theology or supralapsarianism.

But I believed. I believed simply and awkwardly, but I believed in the same God as Peter and Paul, the covenant-keeping God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And so, due to the mission focus and caring shepherding of a little “old” lady, I became a child of God, with spiritual life.

I don’t even know her name. I look forward to thanking her in person one day.

There was a lot of growing ahead. I faced a long period of behavioral problems—I suppose I was ADHD, although they weren’t diagnosing it in those days. Shortly later, in the same church, I was removed from another Sunday school class because the teacher couldn’t control me—I like to say that I was the only person I’ve ever heard of who was expelled from Sunday school—and in first grade, at that! I drove my older sisters to tears and frustration with my pestering ways. And once, at 16, I walked away from the faith for a year—or tried to, anyway.

But through those years, a long line of faithful servants of God poured grace and truth into my life, in a series of churches, large and small, on both coasts, and in a Christian school in New England. They endured my shenanigans—I wasn’t malicious, just, well, exuberant—and patiently discipled me, tiny step by tiny step along a rocky path, made so by my own selfishness and general lack of self-control.

That time I walked away from the faith? It was just after graduating from the Christian high school, just after receiving all that care from all those selfless people. Sheeeeeeesh.

I can never repay them. Nor can I ever repay the God who gave them life before he gave it to me, who arranged for them to be alongside my life’s road, and who used them as instruments of his grace.

Who is worthy of such things? How can it be anything but grace?

I am grateful. And content. And satisfied.

The world is broken, and all its people are broken, but God, God, is infinitely good.

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash