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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On Labor Day

September 2, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Today is Labor Day. These days it’s pretty much lost its original meaning and serves for our culture as just a day off that signals the end of summer. And so we have the irony of calling a day off “Labor Day.” 

The kids must wonder about that. 

Originally, of course, it was a fruit of the labor-union movement in the United States, a celebration of and a recognition of the importance of the work done by “laborers,” or what we’ve come today to call “blue-collar workers.”  

Much has been written from a Christian perspective on the importance of work, and particularly of all work; work is a sacred calling, a “vocation,” directed by a wise and loving God. Any obedience to that God has value and meaning. Some people are paid more than others for their work, and some kinds of work are seen as more “respectable,” but theologically speaking, all honest work is a virtue and contributes to the overall good of society and the furtherance of God’s plan. 

I’d like to meditate on the topic from another angle, one of my favorite theological concepts. 

As I think back over my working life, I realize that is filled with good things, great blessings—but things that I didn’t recognize as good at the time. 

At first I wanted to be a pilot. But that costs money, so I thought I’d let the government pay for it. Set out for an Air Force ROTC scholarship; I thought I’d get it, because I had good SAT scores. But I flunked the flight physical—bad hearing from a childhood ear injury—and that was the end of that. I remember riding the Greyhound bus home from Otis Air Force Base, wondering at the age of 16 what on earth I was going to do with my life. (I still get wistful in airports.) 

Well, maybe I can be an aerospace engineer. Applied to UMass Boston and was rejected. Good grades, in-state resident, financial need. No dice. Why? 

Hmmm. Must have applied too late. Reapplied immediately for the next year and worked in a sandwich shop. 

Rejected again. UMass just plain didn’t want me. 

I had applied to BJU to get my Dad off my back, and wouldn’t you know it, they accepted me. Drat. 

Off to college, where within hours I was confronted by my spiritual need and challenged to get serious about life. Everything changed. 

Maybe I should be a pastor. Nope. It became clear that I was not gifted or inclined to what that work entailed. 

OK, maybe I should be a Bible teacher. My senior year I applied to be a Greek GA—had a Greek minor and high grades. Nope. 

After graduation I returned home to Boston and got a job to save for grad school. Midsummer BJU offered me a GA in English. I took it. 

So they paid for the terminal degree—that was handy—and I learned a lot about English grammar and writing style. 

Any chance I could join the Bible faculty? Nope. Those guys are as stable as they come, and since they don’t smoke or drink or drive over the speed limit, they tend to live a long time. 

But with the English skills, I could get a job as an editor at the Press. Maybe I can work there until a spot opens on the faculty. 

A decade later I realized that if no such spot ever opened, I’d be content to work there for the rest of my life. I liked my bosses, my coworkers, the customers, the creativity, the business of navigating the industry’s change from analog to digital. 

A decade after that, I got restless. I could be doing more with the PhD. Maybe I should get a teaching position somewhere else. 

And then one of my Seminary profs stopped me in the Dining Common and asked if I’d like to teach. 

That was 25 years ago, and I’ve been deliriously happy ever since. 

What about that boyhood dream of flying? 

I realized later that, first, I don’t have the kind of personality that keeps pilots alive for any appreciable length of time, and second, I’d have been entering the job market just as all those high-time pilots were coming back from Viet Nam. 

God led differently. 

And, to no surprise, his leading has been good, and fulfilling, and perfect for how he designed me. 

Just saw a headline in the Wall Street Journal: “America’s Teachers Are Burned Out.” 

Not this one. 

Happy Labor Day. 

Photo by Scott Blake on Unsplash

Filed Under: Personal, Theology Tagged With: providence, systematic theology, theology proper, vocation, work

On Providence, Part 6: And the Seed of the Woman

August 10, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Where? | Part 2: How? | Part 3: Joseph, For Example  | Part 4: And Naomi | Part 5: And Esther

I’d like to present one more example of providence, one I think is the crowning example.

God raises up kings and sets them down again. One of those kings, Nebuchadnezzar, comes to recognize that fact when God turns him into the crazy uncle down the street, eating grass in front of the county courthouse, and then restores him again to his throne—and nobody objects (Da 4.28-37).

Just before this episode, God has revealed his plan to Nebuchadnezzar in a dream (Da 2.26-45). The prophet Daniel interprets the dream to predict that after Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian Empire will come the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, and then Greece, and then Rome.

And it all happens, just as God predicted.

Six centuries later Persia and Greece have come and gone, and Rome has conquered the Mediterranean Basin, including the little province of Judaea, the southern tip of the old land of Canaan, waaaay down at the end of the Sea.

It’s on the list of provinces, and it has a governor appointed by Rome, but it is of little if any concern back in the capital.

What is of concern, though, is the stupendous amount of money needed to run an empire, particularly one with an army large enough to keep the conquered peoples in check. Along about 750 AU (on the Roman calendar), the emperor, Caesar Augustus, decides he needs more money. He orders a census to organize the tax rolls. The order means that all the inhabitants of Roman provinces need to report to their family’s town of origin and sign up.

In the backwater village of Nazareth, in what used to be the tribal allotment of Zebulun back in the Israelite days, lives a construction worker named Joseph. We don’t know his age at this time, but we do know that he’s engaged to be married to a young woman—perhaps a teen—named Miriam. He has a lot on his mind; he’s learned that his fiancée is pregnant–without his help–and soon after, he’s learned that the child is the supernaturally conceived, promised Messiah of Israel. Miriam is now approaching full term.

Both he and Miriam are descendants of David, the great king of Israel from a millennium earlier. Everyone in Israel knows that David was from Bethlehem, in the territory of Judah. So Joseph and Miriam now have to travel overland to Judea to register for the census.

I’m sure Joseph thinks, “Look, I really don’t need this right now.” A full-term pregnant woman has no business traveling close to a hundred miles by any conveyance, let alone donkey.

But Rome.

So they go, at great inconvenience and almost certainly against their will.

When they arrive in Bethlehem, she goes into labor.

And she has a Son.

As expected.

Now, we already know that this is no ordinary son. An angelic messenger has told Joseph, “He shall save his people from their sins” (Mt 1.21). He is the promised Messiah.

Promised, indeed. There has been a flotilla of promises made over the centuries about this child, beginning in the Garden of Eden (Ge 3.15).

And one of those promises (Mic 5.2) is that he would be born in Bethlehem.

Not just any Bethlehem, either. There’s a village named Bethlehem just 6 miles northwest of Nazareth (Jos 19.15). Joseph might well have taken care of the census business there with a day trip. But the prophecy says “Bethlehem Ephrata,” which is the one down in Judah, where David was from.

So in far-off Rome, the most powerful man in the world, who doesn’t care about Judea or Jews or Messiahs or construction workers or prophecies, operating from the least religious motive imaginable, decides that the Empire will be upended and millions of people inconvenienced for his own convenience, and thus forces a full-term pregnant woman to travel a hundred miles on the back of a donkey.

And the rest is History.

God rules.

He does.

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: providence, systematic theology, theology proper

On Providence, Part 4: And Naomi

August 3, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Where? | Part 2: How? | Part 3: Joseph, For Example

How about another example?

Another famine. Another family that leaves Canaan (now Israel) to seek sustenance elsewhere.

This time the head of the family is Elimelech. He takes his wife, Naomi, and his two sons, and they cross the Jordan into Moab (Ru 1.1-2).

And then he dies (Ru 1.3).

The boys marry Moabite wives, named Orpah and Ruth (Ru 1.4). And then they die (Ru 1.5).

This is a disaster. A woman with no living sons is effectively unsupported. Such women often end up as beggars or prostitutes. The situation is worse for Naomi than for Orpah and Ruth, for two reasons. First, she’s an expat, a foreigner, a “stranger,” “not from around here.” And second, she’s not young enough to attract another husband. She’s bereft, horizonless, hopeless.

One of those problems she can fix. She can go home again. Which she decides to do (Ru 1.6).

Orpah opts to stay with her people (Ru 1.14). That’s clearly the wise choice. Young enough to have children, she can find a nice Moabite man and marry again.

But Ruth shocks us. She opts to go with Naomi, thereby leaving her people and all the life she has ever known (Ru 1.16-17).

There’s no rational explanation for this. She has seen no reason to follow Israel’s God, and as we shall see, Naomi doesn’t seem to either.

And so they arrive in Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem. Naomi is clearly not pleased with God. She accuses God of emptying her of all that she had (Ru 1.19-21).

And, frankly, she’s right.

Well, these unsupported women have to eat.

Israel’s law says that they can glean grain from the corners of any fields; in fact, farmers are under legal obligation not to harvest the corners (Le 19.9).

So Ruth, the young strong one, goes out looking for a field (Ru 2.2). She goes to the community field in the little town, and she starts gleaning the corners of one section of it. She doesn’t know who it belongs to, and she doesn’t care; it’s all grain to her.

A few hours later the owner shows up (Ru 2.4). He notices the foreigner and inquires of his foreman (Ru 2.5), who says she’s been working hard (Ru 2.6-7). He speaks with her and encourages her to keep gleaning in his section of the field (Ru 2.8-13) and even to eat with his workers (Ru 2.14). He tells his workers to drop grain on purpose for her to pick up (Ru 2.15-16).

Two good people.

By the end of the day she has plenty of grain (Ru 2.17).

Naomi, the empty one, is delighted by what Ruth has gathered (Ru 2.18). And she is astonished when she finds out who the man is. Of all the men in the village, he is the second closest relative, next in line under a legal obligation to restore Elimelech’s property to Naomi (Ru 2.20). She also reads the tea leaves, so to speak: sounds like the man has his eye on the young woman.

So she hatches a plot (Ru 3.1-5), and it works just as she had hoped. Ruth tells the man (whose name, by the way, is Boaz) that he has a legal obligation (Ru 3.6-9), and he demonstrates immediately that he’s willing to do it (Ru 3.10-13); he even fills her apron with seed as a sign of good faith (Ru 3.15). He lays a legal claim to redeem Naomi (Ru 4.1-4) and clears the way to marry Ruth (Ru 4.5-12).

And then, if you’ll pardon my bluntness, he fills her apron with seed a second time, and she has a son (Ru 4.13). Now there is a future for these formerly bereft women.

And what a future it is! Ruth’s son is the grandfather of a boy named David (Ru 4.21-22), Israel’s greatest king and recipient of God’s Messianic covenant (2S 7.8-16). David’s greater Son will redeem Naomi and Ruth and Boaz and you and me and anyone who believes (Ga 4.5; Ti 2.14).

And by the end of the story the baby is not in Ruth’s arms; he’s in Naomi’s (Ru 4.16). God has not emptied her after all; her temporary emptying was simply a step toward a fulfillment far beyond what she could ever have imagined. She becomes a significant part of God’s promise to crush the serpent’s head through the seed of the woman (Ge 3.15)—and an illustration of the process of redemption by which the Seed would accomplish that.

In our pain, let us not dream small dreams. Let us anticipate the kind of good that only God can do.

Part 5: And Esther | Part 6: And the Seed of the Woman

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: providence, systematic theology, theology proper

On Providence, Part 3: Joseph, for Example

July 31, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Where? | Part 2: How?

So far we’ve been considering God’s providential workings more or less in the abstract. I find that it helps me to look at specific, concrete examples of his working to get a better feel for their characteristics; that way I’m more likely to be able to think broadly, positively, and optimistically about what God might be doing in my life, particularly in those times when I’m tempted to think that he’s not paying attention to how hard it is.

I’d like to start with Joseph.

Joseph’s life starts out pretty well. He is the first son of Rachel (Ge 30.22-24), the patriarch Jacob’s great love, the woman for whom he worked seven years (Ge 29.15-18). (Yes, it was actually more complicated than that, but those were the terms he agreed to.) No doubt because of the identity of his mother, Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son (Ge 37.3)—and at the time he had 11 of them. Jacob makes this favoritism obvious in ways that Joseph would have noticed; his brothers certainly did (Ge 37.4).

Joseph has interesting dreams (Ge 37.5, 9). He may not have known that they were divine revelations and thus prophetic, but they certainly showed him in a favorable light. And the fact that he told them to his family (Ge 37.6-11) indicates to me that he was confident around them, perhaps naively so, not suspecting trouble.

In Joseph’s experience, life is very, very good.

And then.

As the Brits would say, it all goes in the loo.

His brothers, unsurprisingly jealous, turn on him, initially planning to kill him (Ge 37.20), then to leave him to die in a pit (probably a cistern) (Ge 37.22-24), but then “improving” the outcome by selling him to slave traders (Ge 37.25-28). He likely walks, hands tied, all the way through the Negeb and the Sinai to Egypt, where he is sold to a government official named Potiphar (Ge 37.36).

We don’t know anything about the early days of his slavery, but it appears that he works hard and well and distinguished himself from day one, to the point where he becomes Potiphar’s house steward (Ge 39.1-4)—better living conditions than a menial slave, certainly, but still slavery. (I once spent an evening in jail. The conditions were reasonably comfortable, but when you’re not free, you’re definitely not having a good time.)

And then.

Potiphar’s wife takes a shine to the young man, and he refuses her advances (Ge 39.7-12). She accuses him of sexual assault (Ge 39.13-18), and Joseph goes to prison (Ge 39.19-20).

I’m told ancient prisons were even unpleasanter than house slavery. (See under “solecism.”)

He has a couple of cellmates who are former slaves from Pharaoh’s court (Ge 40.1-4), and they have dreams (Ge 40.5). Joseph now knows that these dreams are prophetic revelations—maybe he did when he was a kid, but it doesn’t say—and he informs one of the men that he’s going to be released and returned to Pharaoh’s court (Ge 40.9-13).

Which he is. Joseph asks him to put in a good word for him (Ge 40.14-15). He doesn’t (Ge 40.23).

Two years later Pharaoh has a dream himself (Ge 41.1). His slave—finally—remembers the dream interpreter he met in prison (Ge 41.9-13). Pharaoh sends for Joseph (Ge 41.14).

Joseph interprets his dream (Ge 41.15-36), and—here it gets interesting—Pharaoh believes him (Ge 41.37). (Must have been the shave and change of clothes.) Even without any confirmation—there’s no time for that—Pharaoh appoints Joseph to oversee preparation for the famine that his dream predicted (Ge 41.39-45).

And just like that, Joseph is vice-Pharaoh in the most powerful empire of his day—which is worth a lot more than a bucket of warm spit.

Now, here’s what I haven’t mentioned. Four times during this account, the Bible says simply, “Yahweh was with Joseph” (Ge 39.2, 3, 21, 23). The man might well have been tempted to say, “Where is God in my life? Doesn’t he see? Doesn’t he care?”

God was with him. And even though God loved him, and cared about him, Joseph experienced these brutally hard things.

I said, “Even though,” but there’s no contradiction between God’s love for Joseph and the things he endured.

If his brothers hadn’t sold him into slavery, they all would have died in the famine.

If Potiphar hadn’t believed his wife’s lie, Joseph would have lived out his years as a house slave, and his family back in Canaan would still have died in the famine.

If he hadn’t gone to prison, he never would have interacted with a member of Pharaoh’s court.

Could God have accomplished the deliverance of Jacob’s family some other way? Of course he could have. He could have made their jars of oil not run out (1K 17.8-16), or done a thousand other things.

But he didn’t.

His ways are best, even when they’re hard.

Part 4: And Naomi | Part 5: And Esther | Part 6: And the Seed of the Woman

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: providence, systematic theology, theology proper

On Providence, Part 2: How?

July 27, 2023 by Dan Olinger 4 Comments

Part 1: Where?

The Scripture describes God as working providentially in specific ways. These ways seem to reflect his orderliness, in contrast to the mythological gods, who generally act impulsively, selfishly, and even without regard to the consequences of their actions.

Preserving Creation

God is committed to maintaining what he has created, in an orderly state, even in its brokenness. When we create systems, we aim for simplicity; the more complicated something is, the more critical points of failure there are, and the more likely they are to grind to a halt. God has created the most complex physical thing imaginable—the universe—and even though we have broken it, it continues to run with remarkable smoothness.

After the most violent upheaval in history—the Flood—God says to Noah,

While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day  and night Shall not cease (Ge 8.22).

For all its brokenness, it runs like a clock, and the sun will indeed come up tomorrow. He has kept that promise.

Providing for Creation

The Psalmist describes the sea’s creatures as waiting on the Lord for their food:

25 There is the sea, great and broad, In which are swarms without number, Animals both small and great. 26 There the ships move along, And Leviathan, which You have formed to sport in it. 27 They all wait for You To give them their food in due season. 28 You give to them, they gather it up; You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good (Ps 104.25-28).

Now, we know that animals think constantly about what they’re going to eat next. I suspect that the Psalmist is describing not so much the psychological processes of fish as the simple fact that God provides what they will eat. All earth’s creatures, in all its varied biomes, are provided for, often in remarkable ways. (Check out the anglerfish sometime.) And again, this despite that fact that we have broken what he has created.

Directing Natural Events

God most famously sent a three-year drought at the request of the prophet Elijah (1K 17.1-2; Jam 5.17-18), and there are references to other actions as well (2K 8.1; Is 50.2-3). One prophet describes God as having his “way in the whirlwind and in the storm” (Na 1.3), and Jesus demonstrates that fact for his disciples directly (Mk 4.35-41).

Directing Historical Events

Paul tells the Athenians that God has determined where peoples shall live as well as when they shall come into existence and when they shall disappear (Ac 17.26-27). I grew up in Washington State, where the state’s political and social culture is directed by its topography: the Cascade Mountains cause lots of rainfall in the west, and the resulting rainshadow makes the east a desert. Today western Washington is reliably liberal Democrat, and the irrigating dirt farmers in the east are reliably conservative Republican. And never the twain shall meet. :-)

Of course, God also directs in more, um, direct ways. He sets up kings and takes them down again (Da 2.21), and he works in innumerable other ways to direct the outcomes of history.

Directing Personal Events

David tells us that “the steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD” (Ps 37.23), and his wiser son notes that “a man’s heart devises his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Pr 16.9). We see God’s providential direction of human choices and outcomes throughout the Scripture, and we see it in our own lives as well. I’ve recounted one personal example here.

There’s much to learn from all this. We learn that God is involved; in theological terms, he’s immanent as well as transcendent. And that means that he cares—something that opens up the possibility of personal relationship, and a positive one at that. It also begets confidence that God will direct our own lives in love and grace, and also in power—his will in fact will be done in us. That’s a liberating thought.

I think we’d benefit from some specific examples of God’s providential working. The next few posts will dip into that.

Part 3: Joseph, For Example  | Part 4: And Naomi | Part 5: And Esther | Part 6: And the Seed of the Woman

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Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: providence, systematic theology, theology proper

Unchanging God, Part 3: So What?

July 3, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Stated | Part 2: Why?

The fact that God doesn’t change makes a difference to his people, and to everyone else. Let’s talk about that.

Trustworthiness

God keeps his promises. Sometimes we make promises with the best of intentions, but changing circumstances prevent our keeping them. I’ve done that multiple times, once with a big promise, to my daughter.

That doesn’t happen to God. As I noted at the beginning of this series, God told Moses at the burning bush that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and the point of that observation is that now, in Moses’ day, he’s going to keep the promises he made to those patriarchs centuries earlier.

As he states in the Law of Moses,

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? (Nu 23.19).

And again in the Prophets,

The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand (Is 14.24).

That means that he’s not like anybody else you know. He’s not like an unfaithful spouse or a deserting parent. Horrific experiences like those can change the way we think about every aspect of life; but we cannot conclude that God will act similarly.

Mercy

One consequence of keeping promises is mercy. When my wife and I got married, we made promises to one another. And because we intend to keep those promises, she has repeatedly shown me mercy, forgiving my transgressions.

God does the same thing. If you are his child, he shows you mercy.

Many of us, knowing our ongoing sinfulness, feel as though we can’t run to our heavenly Father. That’s exactly the wrong feeling. Because he keeps his promises—even when we don’t—he will show us mercy. He is exactly the person to whom we should run.

After all of Israel’s failings, God told them,

I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed (Mal 3.6).

Confidence

And that means that we can expect him to keep his promises. That is not presumption; it’s faith. It’s exactly what he wants us to do. The Psalmist writes,

The counsel of the LORD standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations (Ps 33.11).

Governments and economies fail. Relationships sour. Joys disappear. But God does not change.

Fear

This one is obviously a shift in tone, but it needs to be said.

God cannot fail, and thus he cannot be overthrown. Those who defy his will, who reject his character, who denounce his ways, will not prevail—and that places them in an infinitely precarious situation, like that of Jonathan Edwards’s famous spider. Apart from repentance, they will be crushed. And yes, they should be afraid. The wisest man who ever lived wrote,

I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him (Ec 3.14).

Victory

But for his people, God’s certain victory is a source of great joy and anticipation. God will never be defeated; his plans will be accomplished; and his people will be delivered.

The Scripture ends with a dazzling presentation of the glory of God the Son, who says to his closest friend on earth,

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, … which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty (Re 1.8).

That friend, John the Apostle, writes,

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead (Re 1.17).

And then John says,

And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: 18  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death (Re 1.17-18).

We can rest in this almighty, unchangeable God.

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Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: immutability, systematic theology, theology proper

Unchanging God, Part 2: Why?

June 29, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Stated

So why do things change? Why do people change? There are many reasons, but I think we can summarize them in a few basic causes.

Maturation

As I noted in the previous post, all of us have experienced change as part of growing up. As we mature, we gain knowledge by observation and education, and we gain skills because our bodies and our brains increase their capacity for work. We get better by practice. And one of the great joys in life is to see that improvement happen—to realize that we can do things that we couldn’t do before, that we understand things that were a complete mystery to us.

Growth is a delight, because it means improvement.

But God isn’t like that. He knows all things; he can do all things; he’s already perfect, so he doesn’t need to improve—in fact, it’s impossible for him to improve. If you’re on the mountaintop, any movement is downhill. For God, any change would be a decline—which would be unthinkable.

Does his perfection deprive him of “one of the great joys in life,” the joy of learning and improving? Au contraire, mon ami. His perfection—or I should say his perfections—are greater joy to him, and to us, than mere improvement could ever be. His attributes—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control, and all the rest—bring him utter satisfaction. And part of that satisfaction, I suppose, comes from our satisfaction in those same attributes as we experience them from him, perfect, unfailing, always sufficient.

No need to grow or learn or improve. Perfect.

Changeless.

Decay

Everything in this world—and every physical thing everywhere else in the universe—is on a determined course to the landfill. Your shiny new car will one day take a trip through a crusher, to either rust away as a nondescript hunk of metal or be recycled into something else. Your house, after some undetermined number of renovations, will fall to pieces and be demolished so the lot can be used for something else—even if along the way it achieves temporary status as a historical landmark.

And don’t even think about that swing set in the back yard; it’ll be nonfunctional far sooner than you can imagine.

Your body, and your mind, will fall into disrepair, if the Lord tarries, and “you” will be placed in a box and laid to rest.

All things must pass.

Except.

God is not like that. He does not decay; he does not even tire or sleep. He is the very definition of life and strength and vitality.

Changeless.

Irresistible Outside Influences

Sometimes change is forced upon us.

Years ago I was on a business trip to Puerto Rico. My task—a delightful one, I might add—was to drive around the island, visit the Christian schools I knew about, and look for any others along the way. (What a great gig!)

As it happened, a hurricane—Georges by name—had been through several weeks earlier. Recovery had been long, slow, and painful. Everywhere I drove I saw evidences of its destructive force. Roofs torn off. Powerlines—and poles—down. Fruit trees heavily damaged.

And this wasn’t “the big one.” Twenty years later Hurricane Maria came through, causing 15 times as much damage, damage that has still not been completely repaired.

People who think they want to ride out a hurricane are just not, um, right in the head. These are forces well beyond our ability to control or resist.

There are other such forces. House fire. Financial setback. Dissolution of relationships. We know how it goes. Sometimes it’s all just too much.

God is never in that situation. There are no forces greater than he is. He has no enemies who can frustrate, stymie, or even delay his plans. Even the greatest evil act of his greatest enemy—the assassination of Messiah—not only didn’t frustrate his plan, but was actually a key part of its accomplishment.

God is that great.

Changeless.

Next time: so what?

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Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: immutability, systematic theology, theology proper

Unchanging God, Part 1: Stated

June 26, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

A couple of years ago I wrote a series here on how we deal with change. I’d like to supplement that by focusing on a balancing and steadying truth—that however much change we find in our circumstances, we belong to a God who does not change. I’d particularly like to explore the reasons for his changelessness.

We experience change in life circumstances from our earliest days. Some of these are changes we anticipate eagerly; as a child grows, he looks forward to every new skill, every new level of freedom. He moves from elementary to middle school (well, in my day we called in junior high …) and then to high school, and then, probably, to college, and maybe even to graduate school. When he’s 16 he can get his driver’s license; when he’s 18 he can vote; when he’s 21 he can rent a car—and do a bunch of other stuff that he really shouldn’t; when he’s 25, his car insurance rates go down, because his prefrontal cortex has finally developed.

But there are other changes that we don’t want. Someone we love moves away or dies; parents separate; a child becomes a stranger; finances fall apart.

When I was boy, and my father’s employment situation was a little tenuous, we moved several times as he followed the work. By the time I was 6, we had lived in at least 5 places in southeastern Washington State, finally ending up in Greenacres, out in the Spokane Valley. But 5 years later we moved away again, and this time all the way across the country, to Massachusetts.

That was hard. New schools in 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. And a longing for a sense of home.

Change unsettles us, takes us off our game.

And we all know that it helps a lot if we have elements of stability throughout the times of change. After the cross-country move I noticed that in Newtonville, MA, we lived a block from the Mass Pike, or I-90—and in Greenacres we’d lived within a mile of the same interstate. So, I joked, I’d moved across the country and still lived on the same street. More seriously, I’m glad that when my houses and friendships were changing during those early years, I had parents and siblings who were with me throughout; there was always family.

We need stability.

By far the greatest source of that stability is God himself. Our experience of him may change over time—Job was certainly aware of that—but he is always the same; he does not change.

How do we know that?

Well, the Bible tells us so. :-)

I find it noteworthy that this stability is implicit in his name—his personal name, that is, what Americans might call his “first name.” When Moses asks God what his name is, God tells him, “I am who I am” (Ex 3.14). Through the centuries, and across the cultural gaps, God remains who he is. And he demonstrates that to Moses there at the burning bush by calling himself “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex 3.6). Four centuries earlier he had made promises to those patriarchs, and now he’s going to keep those promises by bringing their descendants out of slavery in Egypt and into a land of their own, the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Because he keeps his promises. He doesn’t change.

And today, when we call him Yahweh, or Jehovah, or the great I Am, we remind ourselves of that fundamental characteristic. We can count on him.

But Scripture does more than imply God’s changelessness; it states it outright. Both Numbers 23.19 and 1Samuel 15.29 say that God doesn’t lie or repent. James tells us that God has no variation or shifting shadow (Jam 1.17 NASB); and the Hebrew Scriptures end with the direct statement that “I the Lord do not change” (Mal 3.6).

And, perhaps surprisingly, this characteristic is attributed to the Son, Jesus, as well. The author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 102.26-27 and applies it to the Son:

Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail (He 1.12).

And he repeats the concept at the end of the book:

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever (He 13.8).

Even as he became a man, he did not change.

Now. Why does God not change? I’d like to explore that a little bit by looking at why change happens to us and to our world, and then positing that those factors do not apply to God.

Next time.

Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: immutability, systematic theology, theology proper

On Seeing God, Part 2: Elijah

April 27, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Moses

There was another man who desperately needed to see God.

His name was Elijah.

Elijah was a highly unusual fellow. He had a wild appearance, much like a later prophet, John the Baptist. He was confrontational, no-nonsense, not one to back away from a showdown (well, most of the time). Though not the first prophet, he was the initiator of the prophetic era, from the 8th century down to Malachi, the end of special revelation in the Old Testament era.

Elijah’s prophetic calling, like that of many other prophets, brought him into direct confrontation with the perverted and unjust leadership of his nation, most especially Ahab and his pagan Tyrian wife Jezebel. At Elijah’s command, Israel receives no rain for three long years (1K 17.1), a drought that certainly devastated the land economically. As the drought is about to end, Elijah faces down the priests of the Canaanite god Baal on Mt Carmel, calling down fire from heaven and massacring the priests (1K 18.21-40).

Seeking vengeance for her god Baal, Queen Jezebel pronounces a fatwa on the prophet (1K 19.2), who, in a highly uncharacteristic response, runs for his life. (We all have our moments, don’t we?) Elijah heads for the safety and anonymity of the Wilderness, the Negeb, to the south. There, beyond Beersheba, he slumps in the shade of a brush tree and asks God to kill him.

He’s pretty low.

But God will have none of that. He sends a messenger to give him two hearty meals with a good sleep in between (1K 19.5-7). And then he directs him further south, deeper into the desert, to a place that’s familiar to us: Mt Horeb.

We may not recognize the name, but we’ll recognize the place. This is Mt Sinai, the mount of God, where Israel had been constituted as a nation, where Moses had communed with God face to face, where God had given Moses his spoken and written Law, where God had placed him in a crevice of the rock face and covered him with his hand while he passed by in his glory.

This is the place where God has revealed himself in the past, and where he is about to reveal himself again.

But this one is very different.

God speaks calmly to Elijah, asking him simple questions. And then there’s activity reminiscent of the thunderings and lightnings that enveloped the mountain in Moses’ day—there’s a hurricane-force wind that actually breaks off the rocks on the mountain’s face, and then there’s an earthquake, and then a raging fire. Sound and fury.

But God, the text says, is not in these things (1K 19.11-12). Not this time.

God is in the still small voice that follows.

It’s the voice of a call. God calls him, authorizes him, to prepare the next generation of leadership—the next king of Syria, the next king of Israel, and then, last, the next prophet, the one who will take his own place.

God reveals himself not in a visible form, not this time. He reveals himself in a calling.

Both of these men, Moses and Elijah, experienced remarkable things. But we get a sense—the narrator seems to want us to think this way—that the men have been left a little short. Moses has begged to see God’s face, but he hasn’t. Elijah has despaired of God’s presence and protection to the point of death, and he gets a quiet voice.

Is God the kind of person who will leave things there for those men?

Oh no.

Eight centuries later another man takes three close friends to another mountaintop. And in an astonishing moment, this ordinary-looking man, another itinerant prophet, begins to shine with the glory that Moses has begged to see (Mt 17.1-2). He is revealed as not merely a prophet, but God himself in human form, God the Son, the Beloved One—the perfect and complete revelation of the Father.

And suddenly two other men are there.

Moses. And Elijah.

They finally got their vision.

And we receive that vision as well, when we see Jesus, God’s perfect self-revelation, the Living Word revealed perfectly in the Written Word, the Scripture.

You’d think we’d spend more time reading it.

Photo by Gabriel Lamza on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: special revelation, systematic theology, theology proper

On Seeing God, Part 1: Moses

April 24, 2023 by Dan Olinger 3 Comments

Let me tell you a tale of two men who desperately needed to see God.

The first is Moses.

The difficulties Moses faced in leading the Israelites out of Egypt are notorious. He encountered constant fear, dissatisfaction, and complaining. When the crowd finally arrived at Sinai, I suppose he expected that things would get easier, that the people would see the power of God exhibited and come together as a covenant nation.

Of course, they had seen the visible presence of God all along the way in the pillar of cloud that led them, and they had complained anyway. But surely here …

Moses meets God, apparently in view of the people, and receives the Ten Commandments (Ex 20.1-17) and some additional initial laws (Ex 20.22-23.33). He then offers sacrifices in the presence of the people (Ex 24.1-8), before ascending with the other leaders of Israel to the mountaintop (Ex 24.9-11)—and “there they saw the God of Israel” (Ex 24.10). The text doesn’t describe very clearly what they saw, but I’m inclined to think it was less than Moses wanted to see, as we’ll note shortly.

Then God calls Moses to a private audience on the summit, where he gives him the commandments in written form (Ex 24.12). (This is a significant step in the progress of divine revelation.) God and Moses commune there for 40 days, while God explains the design and procedures of the Tabernacle (Ex 25.1-31.18).

But while Moses is having his mountaintop experience, calamity strikes his people back on the desert floor. Assuming that Moses isn’t coming back, they demand that Aaron make them a visible representation of the gods (Ex 32.1)—and he does. This just days after they have received (orally) the Ten Commandments—including the Second One.

At the sight of the orgy, Moses is enraged. He breaks the stone tablets of the Law and destroys the idol—and forces the idolatrous people to drink the powdered gold (Ex 32.20). And then, in a surprising turn, he intercedes with God for the people (Ex 32.31-32).

God tells him there are still things to be resolved between Him and Israel, but he promises to send his angel to accompany the nation into the Land (Ex 32.34). Moses erects a tent outside the camp where he can communicate with God (Ex 33.7). (This is evidently not the Tabernacle, since it clearly hasn’t been constructed yet [Ex 35-40].) And there, hidden from the people, he meets with God and talks “face to face” (Ex 33.11).

But despite all this interaction. Moses is not satisfied with his sight of God. There in the tent he says, “I’m begging you—show me your glory!” (Ex 33.18).

And God replies, “I can’t do that; you wouldn’t survive. No one can see me—really see me—and live.”

Such is the glory of the God of heaven, the Creator of heaven and earth. For Moses, there is no way that he can fulfill his desire to know God that intimately. The distance—the gap—is far too great.

But God offers him a consolation prize. “I’ll put you in a crevice on the face of the mountain,” he says, “and I’ll cover you with my hand to protect you from my glory, and for just a split second I’ll take away my hand and let you see my back. That’s all you’ll be able to endure” (Ex 33.20-23).

And so, for all the special privileges Moses has been given, for all the revelations and meetings and face-to-face conversations, his deepest desire remains unfulfilled. He wants to know God clearly, accurately, fully. He wants to commune with his Maker at a level beyond what a mere creature can survive.

As creatures made in God’s image, we all have within us that desire to know God, to understand him, to love him. Since the Fall, of course, most of God’s images distort that desire into something grotesque. But it’s there, deep inside.

There’s another man in the Bible with a similar longing. We’ll meet him next time.

Part 2

Photo by Gabriel Lamza on Unsplash

Filed Under: Theology Tagged With: special revelation, systematic theology, theology proper

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