PREDESTINED

So God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are gathered together around a table. The Father’s body language is indicating that he’s a little flustered, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are tense, wondering what he’s messed up this time.

“Well it seems we might have a bit of an issue,” begins the Father, met by much eye-rolling from the other two. “I’m not sure that heaven is big enough.”

“What in creation do you mean?” asks Jesus. “This should be good,” mutters the Holy Spirit under his breath, so that only Jesus can hear him.

“Well you know we had the list of people we predestined to be ours? I had a chat with that angel chappie who’s in charge of the statistics. What’s his name?”

“Ronald.”

“I thought he was in charge of burgers?”

“Different Ronald. We have thousands of legions of angels, there’s bound to be at least two Ronnies.”

“Hmmm. Well anyway, Ronald was telling me that, based on the number of people on the predestined list who have died so far, there must be quite a few extras who are getting into heaven.”

“Are we letting them slip in with a Not Yet Achieved?”

“Certainly not. But it seems that quite a lot of people who aren’t on the list have decided to believe in us anyway.”

“That’s funny,” says the Holy Spirit, “I was just down there in Auckland doing a few baptisms, and there didn’t seem to be many believers at all.”

“Ah well, Ronald did some segmentation. There are virtually no extras from the developing world like Europe and New Zealand, where they still quaintly think that they are cleverer than us. All the extras are coming from the spiritually developed world like Africa, India and China.”

“Was that list really a final, exclusive one?” asks Jesus.

“I’ve always found those verses in Romans 8 very confusing,” replies the Father. “All that predestination and calling and justifying and glorifying. I’m never quite sure whether I was supposed to have picked them beforehand, or just gone with the flow.”

“How can you be confused by Romans 8?” splutters the Holy Spirit. “You inspired Paul when he wrote it!”

“Well if you’re going to be technical, it was actually you. You’re the pneuma, the Spirit and the breath, you breathed it into Paul.”

“Good grief,” interjects Jesus, “Theology 101 for the Holy Trinity. What would the liberal Anglicans think of this?”

“Well they’d deny you were God, for a start-off,” retorts the Holy Spirit.

“Hmmmph!” says Jesus.

“Thank you so much,” says the Father, “That will do. The point is, I created heaven so that everyone on the list could fit in very comfortably, and now it appears that I ought to have made it a bit bigger. I was wondering if anyone had some smart ideas about what to do?”

Well, it’s not like that. Some people tie themselves in knots about predestination, thinking “I don’t have to make a decision. If God has predestined me, he’ll save me no matter what I do. And if he hasn’t predestined me, nothing I do will change his mind.” The main point is this – if you make a decision to believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, you are saved. That is a matter of your free will right now. The fact that God already knows what you will decide fries the mind a little bit, but the ball’s in your court. Whatever you decide, God will honour it.

We can argue till the cows come home about whether God has created each of us in a way that will cause us to respond positively or negatively to his promise, but right here, right now, you have consciousness and self-awareness. You can exert your God-given free will to accept the gift of salvation. There is nothing that can stop you from doing that, except you.

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24.

And don’t worry, if you sign up, there’ll still be plenty of room.

God bless,
Chris

NICK AND DICK

NICK AND DICK

Once upon a time there were two goldfish called Nick and Dick. They lived in a very smart goldfish bowl in a lovely villa halfway down Dominion Road.

Nick and Dick were smarter than the average goldfish, to the extent that they were self aware, and were able to have discussions about metaphysics, existential philosophy, and God. They frequently argued and annoyed each other about these things.

Dick was of the opinion that he and Nick had evolved into their current highly intelligent form over many millions of years, having started out as primitive land based creatures with legs and lungs and iPhones.

Nick took a different view. He told Dick that the chances of a perfectly round, flat-bottomed glass bowl evolving unaided from the universe’s core matter were about 1 in 10,000^42. Instead, Nick believed that there was a being called the Almighty One, who had infinite love and infinite power, who made the goldfish bowl for them, was responsible for the wonderfully nutritious food landing in their water every day, and wanted Nick and Dick to believe in him and love him back. Dick told Nick that that was pathetic, superstitious nonsense and wondered aloud how in bowl Nick had managed to develop gills and crawl into the water with a brain which was obviously not much longer than the Planck length.

One thing neither of them could figure out was how their goldfish bowl stayed in such a fantastic state all the time. About once a week, the Big Net plunged into their bowl, swept them both up and deposited them into a smaller metal bowl with no decorations. After about three minutes, the Big Net came back, picked them out of the plain metal bowl and dropped them back into their goldfish bowl, which was suddenly pristine again.

Nick said the chances of the Big Net doing that all by itself was about 1 in 3 trillion trillion trillion trillion, to say nothing of the conveniently available plain metal bowl, and that this was such a huge number that you could basically write off the universe making it happen unaided. Dick replied that there was in fact a multiverse with an infinite number of universes in it, and therefore it was indeed very plausible that the Big Net would evolve spontaneously in one of those universes, and that they were lucky enough to live in that one.

Nick answered, rather smugly it must be said, that if there were an infinite number of universes, there must be one in which the laws of physics dictated that it must be the only universe in existence, that if Nick and Dick lived in any other universe than that one they would of course not exist in that universe’s reality, and that as the multiverse is posited as one cohesive reality, their universe would have disappeared in a puff of logic long ago. As there was only universe they could possibly live in, they were back to the 1 chance in 3 trillion trillion trillion trillion regarding the Big Net.

Dick got so angry that he had to swim away to the other side of the goldfish bowl for two seconds, until he had forgotten everything Nick had said that day.

Anyway, one day both Nick and Dick died. They both found out that Nick was right. Dick got flushed down to goldfish hell, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Mangere sewage ponds in the 1970s.

Nick got taken up to goldfish heaven, and was given a resurrection body that resembled a 4 metre kingfish, and lived happily ever after.

Don’t be a Dick, be more like Nick. Same eternal life, just much, much happier.

God bless, Merry Christmas,
Chris

RUNNING THE RACE

The last half of Hebrews 12:1 says “and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,” Or in the New Living Translation, “and let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.”

Aided by reading Derek Prince’s comments on this verse, the more I thought about it, the more there seemed to be in those few words. Here’s what I got out of them.

“Let us.” Not “I will” or “you should.” Not “let us all, except those who would really rather do their own thing.” Everyone’s in a race. The writer doesn’t seem to let anyone off the hook.

“Run.” Not “walk” or “amble” or even “power walk while carrying quaint turquoise half kilogram dumbells.” This is not necessarily about actual physical running, but whichever ministries we have, whatever we are involved in, we need to be setting a pace. We need to be making good progress. We need to be capable of “running,” whatever “running” is in our ministry/calling. We need to study ways of “running” better, learn from other “runners.” We need to be the best “runner” we can be, so we can be the most effective we can be. I’m not saying we should work on this running in our own strength, but neither do I think we should do nothing and expect God to turn us miraculously into a superb runner.

“With endurance.” I think this is more than a dogged determination to keep going. It means having the fitness to keep up a competitive pace throughout the whole race. Sure, some of us may lead out from the start and hang on at the end, and others may start slower and have a sprint finish, but we need to have a plan to get to the end in as short a time as possible. Of course endurance is obtained the hard way – constant training and pushing ourselves to run 1 more kilometre, do 5 more crunches. Star athletes not only train hard for their race, they configure their lives around it. What they eat, what they drink, how long they sleep, what other activities they undertake, and how they prioritise everything, are all part of a comprehensive plan to hone their fitness to the best it can possibly be.

“The race.” Races have a course. If you don’t follow the course, you get disqualified. There’s a start time, a set distance to run, and as Team New Zealand recently found out catastrophically in the America’s Cup, there’s often a maximum time limit to finish in. You can’t finish the race by saying, “I know the course goes over there, but I really like the view over here so I’m just going to go this way for a while.” I need to get better at listening to the Race Director about where the course goes next.

“The race that God has set before us.” Derek Prince made the point, and I think it’s a great one, that we’re not all in the same race. God’s marked out my race, and he’s marked out your race. You’re different from me, and he’s put you here for a different purpose than he’s put me here for. I’m supposed to run my race, and you’re supposed to run your race. There’s no point in running someone else’s race. You can’t win the Olympics 800m gold medal by chucking a shotput further than everybody else. Whatever race God’s entered you into, that’s the one you need to run. All of our races will have some similarities, for example obeying the 10 Commandments as we run it, but probably every person’s race will be slightly different than everybody else’s. He’s made you especially and perfectly for your race. Good luck!

God bless,
Chris

GOD IS FAITHFUL AND JUST

A couple of weeks ago in church, a phrase used by Sarah our vicar caught my attention:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

It turns out this is in the Bible, at I John 1:9. The thing that struck me about this phrase was the word “just.”

If you believe in Jesus, the price for all of your sins, past and present, has been paid for by him.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23.

I think of it like this – the gift mentioned in Romans 6 is the sacrifice – arranging for Jesus to die on the cross when he did not deserve to, so that we wouldn’t have to even though we deserve to.

But if you sign up for the deal, accept Jesus as your saviour, it’s a contract. A fair deal – you committed sin and deserved death, but Jesus stepped in and died for you – price paid and you’re free. IT WOULD ACTUALLY BE UNJUST FOR GOD TO DEMAND YOUR DEATH AS WELL!

If John owes Bill $1000, and Geoff pays John’s debt to Bill, then it’s not on for Bill to chase John for the $1000. He’s already been paid! The gift is from Geoff to John.

There is a cast-iron contract for eternal life in heaven on the desk in front of you. God has already signed it, and he’s already done everything that he would have to do, if the contract between you and him were finalised. He is just, he will never renege on that deal.

Pick up the pen.

God bless,
Chris

JESUS THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT

God the Father has called another emergency meeting. This time they’re in a bar, and Jesus is having a hard time with the wine waiter.
“Do you have a Central Otago Pinot Noir?”
“I’m afraid not, Lord. We do have a very nice Bordeaux?”
“Hmm. I prefer a nice Akarua, or similar.”
“Most of the experts recommend Bordeaux, Lord.”
“Look, I’m omniscient, and I’m telling you, a good Central Otago Pinot knocks the pants off Bordeaux, any day of the week.”
“Including the Sabbath, Lord?”
“Don’t you come the raw prawn with me!”
The Father interjects by harrumphing loudly.
“Fine. Bring me a stone jar of clean water. And don’t even think about charging corkage.”
The Holy Spirit says testily, “If we’ve got the refreshments sorted, perhaps we might gently wend our way towards the agenda?”
“Well,” says the Father, “I’m sure you’re both aware of the issue that’s developing at Alpha Centauri?”
“The Black Hole?”
“Yes. I’ve sent Michael over to have a look, and he says it’s going to be a biggie. Sol and all its planets will be sucked into it, no question.”
“Including …?”
“Yes, including Earth, I’m afraid. I wish I’d foreseen this at the moment of creation, but all this horribly complex interaction of gazillions of molecules got me stumped.”
“I did say at the time,” replies Jesus, “That I didn’t think that entropy was one of your better ideas.”
“Yes, well, nevertheless, I’m afraid that if we want to proceed with Plan A, we’re going to have to bring Armageddon forward to next Thursday.”
“Oh,” says the Holy Spirit, “When was it going to be originally?”
“Never you mind.”
“Good grief!” exclaims Jesus, “Where am I going to get a white horse by next Thursday?”
“Leave it to me,” says the Holy Spirit.
The next day, at Badminton, in the last round of showjumping, Mark Todd is leading the event and jumping a clear round on a magnificent white stallion, when the horse suddenly disappears from under him, halfway through the water jump, to rapturous applause. Being the nuggety competitor he is, Toddy gets up and completes the round sans cheval, but is disqualified for being too bedraggled while saluting the Queen at the end. He decides to celebrate well into the night anyway, with a couple of bottles of extra specially wonderful Akarua that mysteriously appeared in his hotel room while he was at the showjumping.
Of course none of this is actually going to happen. In particular, I’m fairly certain that even Mark Todd isn’t going to win Badminton without a horse.
The Bible says of Jesus, in Colossians 1:17, “He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together.” God, through his divine power, actively sustains his creation to ensure that all things come to pass in accordance with his will.
Albert Einstein, when working on his theory of General Relativity, could not figure out how to balance out the force of gravity, so he fudged his equations with a “cosmological constant.” He went on to call this his greatest blunder, but later developments reinforced the need for this element of the equation.
I certainly do not understand the theory of General Relativity, but I am enamoured of the idea that the active, creation-sustaining force used by Jesus is enshrined as the cosmological constant in one of our most advanced theories of how the universe works.
Be that as it may, is the Jesus described in Colossians going to let our world be destroyed by a random cosmological event, before he has fulfilled all his promises to us?
I think not.

God bless,
Chris

UNSCIENTIFIC SCIENTISTS

A while ago, I did a couple of posts on the topic “God and Science are not Enemies.” I chose my words carefully. Science, practised rigorously, following the evidence where it leads and no further, is not an enemy of God. It seems though, that some eminent scientists allow their thinking to be influenced by an a priori assumption that God does not exist.

The most famous atheist at the moment is probably biologist Richard Dawkins. This guy has made an artform of dismissively skimming across the top of theology. Leader of an aggressive group called the New Atheists, he recently encouraged a group of them to “mock religion with contempt.” Dawkins has no objective credibility with which to make this suggestion. He is a noted and well-respected biologist, but apparently is not much of a theologian.

Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, says when commenting on two books, “The God Delusion” by Dawkins and “The Dawkins Delusion” by Alister McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath, “McGrath dismantles the argument that science should lead to atheism, and demonstrates instead that Dawkins has abandoned his much-cherished rationality to embrace an embittered manifesto of dogmatic atheist fundamentalism.”

According to Dawkins, Christians deserve contempt because, amongst other things, we:

1. Rely on blind faith rather than logical analysis.
2. Need a crutch to lean on, in order to get through life.
3. Along with adherents of other religions, have caused wars and death and destruction.

In his book “Gunning For God,” John Lennox deals fairly crisply with these allegations.

Atheism can also be seen as a crutch – as a means to escape judgement. If we say there is no God, he can’t judge us at the end of our lives, and we can avoid the angst of worrying about that and concentrate on enjoying ourselves. “As the work of prominent atheists indicates, those who have stopped worrying have done so only because they have stopped thinking,” writes mathematician David Berlinski. Atheists who object to this description of their stance can empathise with Christians when their faith is so defined.

And of course with regard to wars, death and destruction, Dawkins completely and conveniently forgets to mention Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, communist China, and Cambodia. Explicitly atheistic regimes, they were responsible for horrific levels of carnage and brutality in a century widely described by historians as the most violent yet. If I may borrow from the US gun lobby, people create misery, faiths and worldviews do not.

The allegation of blind faith is a common one, and it, like the other two, is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Some atheists rely on blind faith just as much as some Christians do.

Biochemist Franklin M. Harold: “We should reject as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”

Dawkins and one of his colleagues, Christopher Hitchens, have themselves challenged even “the highly questionable existence of Jesus.” Whereas those who actually know what they are talking about, say:

“There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus’ life… Jesus was born c. 4 BCE … he was baptized by John the Baptist; he called disciples… he preached the “kingdom of God” … he had a final meal with the disciples… he was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.” Professor Ed Sanders, Duke University and a leading figure in the historical study of Jesus.

Christopher Tuckett, Professor at the University of Oxford: “All this does at least render highly implausible any far-fetched theories that even Jesus’ very existence was a Christian invention… If nothing else, the non-Christian evidence can provide us with certainty on that score.”

Either Dawkins and Hitchens are operating on blind faith, or maybe they are just working on Lenin’s principle of “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Especially for those atheists who faithfully swallow everything they say.

There were sighs of relief from the New Atheists when Stephen Hawking, perhaps the most famous scientist alive, said “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” Who caused the law of gravity to exist, Steve?

I imagine a group of New Atheists having a few wines as they attend the launch of Stephen Hawking’s new book, “The Grand Design.” Hawking comes out with his line about there being no longer any room for the creator. The celebrations start:

“Fantastic!”
“Go, Steve!”
”At last! We can all relax and worship our own brains!”
“Yeehah!”
“Thank G…” [Deafening silence from the rest of the room] “Arrgghh! Thank… Thank… Thank GRAVITY! That’s what I meant! Yeehah, thank gravity!”

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12.

God bless,
Chris

AUTHENTIC HAPPINESS

I’ve just finished reading a book called “Authentic Happiness” by Martin Seligman. I think it is a great book, and worth a read. It is not a superficial “self-help” book, Dr Seligman is a highly respected psychologist and academic, and for most of the book works with rigorous research to identify the main ways that you can, with some effort, make yourself lastingly happier.

What interests me about the book, and persuaded me to write a post about it, is that most of the findings are extremely closely aligned to a Christian approach to happiness, even though Dr Seligman has “wavered between the comfortable certainty of atheism and the gnawing doubts of agnosticism my entire life …”

Dr Seligman divides up lasting happiness into the past, the present and the future, and provides suggestions for increasing happiness about each of those times in our lives. In order to be more happy about our pasts, he recommends that we cultivate an attitude of gratitude for the good things, and forgiveness for the bad things, that have happened to us.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his loves endures forever.” Psalm 106:1.

“… Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:20.

“A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offence.” Proverbs 19:11.

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:21-22.

Regarding the future, Dr Seligman recommends that we teach ourselves to be more optimistic. He says that “Positive emotions about the future include faith, trust, confidence, hope, and optimism.”

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” Hebrews 11:1-2.

To increase our happiness in the present, Dr Seligman focuses on two things – pleasures, and the use of personal strengths to experience gratifications. Pleasures are transitory and involve positive emotions, gratifications are activities that we like doing, that create “flow” for us.

Dr Seligman advises that, in order to maximise happiness through pleasures, we need to savour them, and be mindful of the present instead of racing through life. Also he warns about “habituation,” the lessening of pleasure caused by repeating a specific type of pleasure too often or too frequently, starting to take it for granted. This approach to pleasure is much more in line with the Christian approach (even though he credits Buddhism for savouring and mindfulness).

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: … a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Ecclesiastes 3:1,4.

Lastly, regarding our own unique strengths:

“For we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body … But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” I Corinthians 12:13,18.

We all have our own God-given personalities, traits, and strengths.

For me, this book fell at the last hurdle. The topic is “The meaningful life, using your signature strengths and virtues in the service of something much larger than you are.” While Dr Seligman acknowledges that the Christian faith provides meaning for a lot of people and does not object to it, he steps away from the academic rigour he uses in the rest of the book to propound his own opinion of how God fits into the scheme of things. By his own admission, he is not an expert in this field (“I do not read the theology literature.”), he deals shallowly and dismissively with fundamental questions such as free will and pain and suffering, and he has nothing solid with which to back up his ideas.

This in itself is fine, everyone is entitled to their point of view, but I was disappointed that Dr Seligman chose to include this type of opinion in a book, the majority of which is subject matter that rightly accords him the status of a deep expert. His last chapter was not of that quality.

More generally, this seems to be quite a regular occurrence – very clever academics writing expertly on their own topics, but then weaving their own, normally atheistic, views on faith and religion into their text. I think it is difficult but important to weed out their inexpert theology from their expert science.

God bless,
Chris

RANDOM COOL PARTS OF THE BIBLE

I’ve got quite a few favourite parts of the Bible – here are four of them. Two from the New Testament that I can’t help laughing about, and two from the Old Testament that contain surprising material.

First up, it’s the famous “water into wine” miracle in John 2:1-11. This reads like a Monty Python skit! Mary (Jesus’ mother) tells Jesus the wedding hosts have run out of wine. At this point I picture Jesus leaning down, talking through clenched teeth in a stage whisper, “Dear woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.”

Completely ignoring the God of the universe, Mary, in full-blown Eric Idle shrill old woman mode, goes “Do whatever he tells you.” The implied message (still in shrill old woman mode) is, “Listen sonny, you might be God, but I pushed you out in the middle of the night in a smelly barn. Put up with all those shepherds and wise men, I did, never mind a bit of peace and quiet and privacy for your poor old mother. Walked down to Egypt with you, I did, save you from that nasty Herod. So just turn some water into wine for your old Mum, there’s a good lad.”

Jesus’ headslap and “D’oh!” are omitted from the official version. But I can almost see the majestic eyeroll as Jesus, with heavy resignation, tells the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And on to his first miracle.

The second one is Jesus having a bit of a rant in Matthew 16:8-11. The disciples were mixing up an analogy Jesus had used that involved yeast, and the fact that they had forgotten to take bread on their journey. So Jesus rips into them like Basil Fawlty talking to 12 Manuels, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves …? Or the seven loaves …? How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread?” Matthew does not record whether he hit them on the forehead with a spoon.

On to the Old Testament and a couple of surprises.

In some circles, if you believe in God, you aren’t allowed to believe in dinosaurs. You have to pretend the palaeontologists are making it up. Not so, have a read of Job 40:15-41:34. Read about the behemoth that sounds a lot like a brachiosaurus, and the leviathan that resembles a plesiosaurus. God talks about them as if Job and his friends are familiar with them.

And finally, how about a nuclear war in the Bible, or at least its aftermath? Ezekiel chapter 39 describes the clean-up after a failed invasion of Israel. Experts, waiting seven months after the battle, will then spend another seven months clearing away and burying the dead. And get this, the people of Israel will use the weapons of the attackers for fuel for seven years. Early scholars said this story had to be symbolic, because no fuel would burn for seven years. Now, of course, we know better.

The battle that Ezekiel is prophesying about is the famous Battle of Armageddon (yet to happen). And the main reason the invaders fail is because God has promised to personally intervene to defend Israel.

Wouldn’t want to find myself on the wrong side that day!

God bless,
Chris

THE HOLY TRINITY

I can quite easily spend a lot of time going round in circles, thinking about The Holy Trinity. We don’t have a similar example to compare it with or draw insight from. Our language doesn’t give us the tools to describe it well. It doesn’t stop it being the truth though.

There is only one God. And God is three in one – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Both facts are reinforced throughout the Bible. I’ve talked about the one God bit in earlier posts, so I’ll focus on the Trinity here. The very first verse of the Bible gives a hint: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. In the original Hebrew text, the word translated “God” is plural, but the rest of the sentence is constructed as if that word were singular – evoking an image of the three persons of God working so closely in harmony that their creative act is recorded as though only one person is doing it – which is true.

Throughout the gospels, especially John’s, Jesus makes reference to he himself being one with the Father. Some commentators try to play this down, but those Jews of the time who did not believe in Jesus knew what he was saying – in John 10:22-39 they twice tried to kill him for blasphemy, explicitly because the words he used amounted to claiming that he was God.

Later on, in John 14:15-21 and 16:5-16, Jesus clearly includes the Holy Spirit as also being God. But for me, the clincher is at the end of Matthew’s gospel: “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28:18-19. Jesus clearly believed in the Holy Trinity.

Each of the three persons is wholly, fully God. There is no part of God that is not present in each of the three persons. I have a tendency to pigeon-hole them. I think of the Father in terms of authority, wrath and judgement. Jesus is love, grace and forgiveness, while the Holy Spirit is healing, joy and power. But this is misleading – all three persons will reflect all of God’s attributes as the situation requires. For example, when Jesus comes back, he will be the judge, and he will certainly whack the hell out of Satan. Or more accurately, he will whack Satan into hell.

Apparently, there are two heretical theories. One is that only the Father is God. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are just helpers, like Santa’s elves. Not so.

The other is that there are three separate gods. Nope.

Three persons in one being. Three personal distinctions within one divine essence. Three persons, yet so as not to form separate, distinct individuals. (Finlayson R.A., “Trinity”)

A bit mindboggling. You couldn’t make it up.

God bless,
Chris

P.S. – I relied heavily on “Know What You Believe” by Paul E. Little for this post.

UNPLEASANT TESTIMONY

Today, I am publishing what appears to be a personal testimony – from a being I really don’t want to meet!

Inspired by “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis.

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” I Peter 5:8.

God bless,
Chris

“In the mornings, I like to watch from the top of a particular hill, as they go to work. It’s quite a big hill, but the long, gentle slope makes it seem smaller than it is. I enjoy watching the despair and the misery, as they work their way down that slope, into a small valley and out the other side, on their sordid little journey through life.

I hate them. They are nasty, petty, self-absorbed weaklings. They are pathetically ignorant – hilariously, they think themselves worldly-wise and sophisticated – hah! They lie, they cheat, they steal, they refuse to accept blame for their many failings. They hate each other almost as much as we hate them. I can’t for the life of me understand why He made them the way they are. Of course, His excuse is that He did it out of love, but the kind of love He is talking about is completely absent from their daily, carnal struggle to find a meaning for their existence. The more of them we can destroy, the better the universe will be.

Most of them manage to combine a smug complacency with a repressed, desperate terror. Every now and again, this terror bursts out into their consciousness, creating crises of hopelessness and panic. Whenever we can trigger these crises we do, because they deserve it. Our objective is to ruin their short, brutish lives as much as possible without causing them to think too deeply about spiritual matters.

The truth is hanging out there for them all to see, but most of them don’t want to confront it. Every now and again, they glimpse for a millisecond, the eternal consequences of the decisions they have made and the assumptions they have allowed to direct their lives. But then they put it out of their mind! Wonderful!

I try not to think about the fact that one day I will share their fate. He is so sentimental toward these vermin that He would not agree with our demands to take their place as more deserving objects of His affection. We thought we had spotted an opportunity to scuttle His plan. We set about getting them to kill His begotten Son, and they did it! Haha! What fools! We were at the very point of victory, we thought He would have to admit that these maggots were unsaveable. We were so close! SO CLOSE! But at the last possible moment He pulled out His killer blow. He raised him up from death, and we had lost.

So now we know how everything ends. That just makes me hate them even more, and I swear I will do my utmost to destroy as many of them as I can, before I too face the final judgement.

Most of them you can play with as a cat plays with a mouse. Allow them to glimpse happiness, then ensure that they never properly experience it. Use them against each other to maim and murder, arrange financial setbacks, cause family strife, keep their deepest desires just tantalizingly out of reach forever. Watch them become broken and dispirited. Laugh at them as they try to be stoic. Hopefully they go off the rails and spread the misery to those few who care for them. Enjoy them losing completely the concept of blessing.

I like what we have done to the “intellectuals” even more. We have taught them to worship their own feeble brains. They have come to believe that there cannot possibly be a higher power. How deluded can you be?!

But I digress. I am on the hill most mornings, watching and planning. I decide who to destroy, and who to use, and who to leave alone to destroy themselves.”