In order to answer that question, one must first define terms and, more specifically, ascertain the meaning behind the original word from which an English translation is taken. After all, the current state of English is such that we use the word “evil” to refer to spiritual, moral evil, i.e., sin or wickedness. But is that the meaning of the Hebrew word that lies behind the word “evil” in this verse?

As a matter of fact, the Hebrew word translated “evil” (rah) has various shades of meaning. It often has the meaning of distress, misery, injury, calamity, and adversity.² For example, consider its use in Amos 6:3—“Woe to you who put far off the day of doom” (NKJV). The NASB has “the day of calamity.” Jeremiah 42:6 reads in the ESV: “Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God.” The NKJV has: “Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God.” Isaiah 31:2 renders the word “disaster” in the NKJV: “Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster.” In Micah 1:12 “good” is contrasted with “disaster.”

Ahab complained to Jehoshaphat that the prophet Micaiah never prophesied “good” concerning him, but only “evil” (1 Kings 22:8,18). He was referring to the misfortune that came upon himself.³ In the great admonition that Moses issued to the younger generation near the end of his life, he urged: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil” (NKJV). The NASB rightly renders the verse: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity” (Deuteronomy 30:15). “Good” and “evil” here refer, not to sin or moral evil, but to “prosperity” vs. “adversity.” The previous generation grumbled against Moses in the desert: “And why have you made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place?” (Numbers 20:5). They did not mean that the desert was immoral or sinful. They meant it was a “wretched place” (NASB/NRSV), a “terrible place” (CJB/ISV/NIV), a “horrible place” (EHV).

The NKJV renders Job 31:29 as: “If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted myself up when evil found him.” A clearer rendering is: “If I have rejoiced at my enemy’s misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him” (NIV). What did Jacob mean when he explained to Pharaoh “few and evil have the days of the years of my life been” (Genesis 47:9)? He used the word to mean “poor, not beneficial.”⁴ The CJB renders it: “they have been few and difficult.” The NCV has: “short and filled with trouble.” Many additional verses manifest similar meanings for rah that have nothing to do with sin, moral evil, or wickedness.

One final observation regarding Isaiah 45:7. Based on the way Hebrew parallelism functions, the verse itself offers assistance in defining its use of the word “evil.” It is placed in antithesis to the word “peace.” The opposite of “peace” is not moral evil or wickedness—but physical disturbance, trouble, and adversity. The same is true in verse 11:

Therefore evil shall come upon you;
You shall not know from where it arises.
And trouble shall fall upon you;
You will not be able to put it off.
And desolation shall come upon you suddenly,
Which you shall not know.”

Hebrew parallelism in this verse demonstrates that “evil” = “trouble” = “desolation.”

Returning to verse 7, the NKJV reflects the parallelism nicely:

“I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.”

God is not the author of evil. Intrinsic evil, by definition, refers to violations of God’s will, i.e., sin (1 John 3:4). Sin is committed when human beings⁵ exercise their free will and choose to transgress God’s laws, thus committing evil. Humans are the source of evil in the world—not God.⁶

 Endnotes

The post Is God the Cause of Evil in the World? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

On September 14, 2018 Hurricane Florence made landfall just south of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Like most hurricanes throughout history, this one left death and destruction in its wake. As shocking and heart-rending as such natural phenomena may seem, many other natural disasters have occurred in human history that exceed Florence, Harvey, Katrina, and even the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in their toll of death and destruction. For example, throughout China’s history, extensive flooding has occurred countless times as a result of the mighty 3,000-mile-long Hwang Ho River. Several of the most terrible floods, with their ensuing famines, have been responsible for the deaths of more than a million people at a time. The southern levee of the river failed in Hunan Province in 1887, affecting a 50,000 square mile area.¹ More than two million people died from drowning, starvation, or the epidemics that followed.²

In reality, such events have occurred repetitiously throughout the history of the world, and continue to do so—constantly: hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes, tornados, floods, tsunamis, droughts, and volcano eruptions. In fact, natural disasters kill one million people around the world each decade, and leave millions more homeless, according to the United Nation’s International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction.³

This circumstance inevitably elicits the pressing question: “WHY?” “Why would God allow such suffering and loss of life, inflicted on countless numbers of seemingly innocent people?” Regarding Florence, a five-year-old boy asked: “‘Daddy, where is God during the hurricane?’”⁴ Indeed, the number one argument marshaled by atheists to advocate their disbelief in God is the presence of widespread, seemingly purposeless suffering. They insist that if an infinite Being existed, He would exercise His perfect compassion and His omnipotence to prevent human suffering.⁵ Even for many people who do not embrace formal atheism, the fact that God apparently seems willing to allow misery and suffering to run rampant in the world, elicits a gamut of reactions—from perplexity and puzzlement to anger and resentment.

THE BIBLE HAS THE ANSWERS

But the Bible provides the perfect explanations for such occurrences. Its handling of the subject is logical, sufficient, and definitive. It sets forth the fact that God created the world to be the most appropriate, suitable environment in which humans are enabled to make their own decisions concerning their ultimate destiny (Genesis 1:27; Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). We humans have been provided with the ideal environment in which we may freely accept or reject God’s will for our lives. Natural disasters and nature’s destructive forces are the result of specific conditions that are necessary to God’s providing humanity with this ideal environment.

God is not blameworthy for having created such a world, since He had a morally justifiable reason for having done so. Human existence on Earth was not intended to be permanent. Rather, the Creator intended life on Earth to serve as a temporary interval of time for the development of one’s spirit. Life on Earth is a probationary period in which people are given the opportunity to attend to their spiritual condition as it relates to God’s will for living. Among other purposes, natural disasters provide people with conclusive evidence that life on Earth is brief and uncertain. God has even harnessed natural calamities for the purpose of punishing wickedness.⁶

Christians understand that no matter how catastrophic, tragic, or disastrous an event may be, it fits into the overall framework of soul-making—preparation for one’s departure from life into eternity. Likewise, the Christian knows that although the great pain and suffering caused by natural disasters may be unpleasant, and may test one’s mettle; nevertheless, such suffering is not intrinsically evil. Nor is it a reflection on the existence of an omnibenevolent God. The only intrinsic evil is violation of God’s will. What is required of all accountable persons is obedience to God’s revealed Word (given in the Bible)—even amid pain, suffering, sickness, disease, death, and, yes, hurricanes.

[NOTE: For further study on this thorny issue, see Thomas Warren (1972), Have Atheists Proved There Is No God? available at https://warrenapologetics.org/bookstore/have-atheists-proved-there-is-no-god and AP’s book Why People Suffer available at http://www.apologeticspress.org/store/Product.aspx?pid=247.]

ENDNOTES

¹ “Hwang Ho” (2004), LoveToKnow 1911 Online Encyclopedia, http://32.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HW/HWANG_HO.htm.

² “Huang He, or Hwang Ho” (2004), Britannica Student Encyclopedia, http://www.britannica.com/ebi/article?tocId=9274966.

³ “Disasters: A Deadly and Costly Toll Around the World” (1997), FEMA News, http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/stats.pdf.

⁴ Bruce Ashford (2018), “‘Daddy, where is God during the hurricane?’” Fox News, September 16, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/09/15/daddy-where-is-god-during-hurricane.html.

⁵ E.g., Roy Jackson (2001), “The Problem of Evil,” The Philosopher’s Magazine Online, http://www.philosophers.co.uk/cafe/rel_six.htm; Jeffery Lowder (2004), “Logical Arguments From Evil,” Internet Infidels, http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/atheism/evil-logical.html.

⁶ See Dave Miller (2005), “Is America’s Iniquity Full?” http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/305.

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Does he [God] accept human sacrifice? In some verses yes, in some verses no. Remember the thing about when Abraham, he asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. By the way, Abraham should have said, “No way, I’m better than you, I’m not going to kill my son.”¹

Ironically, due to the aimless, subjective nature of atheistic “ethics,” atheists have no objective basis or absolute standard by which to evaluate the taking of life—even animal or plant life. Yet, even very liberal thinkers have conceded circumstances under which it might be appropriate to terminate the life of a fellow human being (e.g., if a person were guilty of mass murder). The Bible quite properly identifies a variety of circumstances under which the taking of human life is moral and rational—including God’s own execution of large numbers of people throughout history (e.g., the Flood in Genesis 6-9). The Law of Moses included a minimum of 16 capital crimes.² If at least one instance of taking human life is morally justifiable in the mind of the atheist, God cannot rightly be indicted for stipulating the instance. It becomes merely a matter of determining the ethical appropriateness of any given instance. It is no longer a matter of if it is morally right to require the death of a person, but simply when it is right to do so.

Another factor to consider in ascertaining whether God can rightly order the death of a person pertains to the very nature of human life itself in the great scheme of things. If humans possess an immortal soul, a spirit, then killing the body does not extinguish that life. As Jesus declared: “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5). If there is an afterlife, terminating physical life on Earth is not actually a termination of that life, since conscious existence continues in the afterlife. Hence, again, the question is not whether human life may be terminated in this life, but only the conditions under which life may be taken and who is authorized to do so.

The passage in question is found in Genesis 22. The stated purpose of the incident pertains to God’s desire to “test” Abraham (Genesis 22:1), i.e., enable Abraham to recognize and demonstrate the level of his own faith in God. God’s instruction to Abraham is found in these words: “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (Genesis 22:2). A series of events then transpire over a period of three days—giving Abraham sufficient time to assess in his own mind the depth of his faith and commitment to God. James spotlights this very feature:

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only (2:21-24, emp. added).

Observe that James wrote as if Abraham actually completed God’s directive (“offered”), which shows that the objective was to test Abraham’s willingness to obey—without actually completing the deed.

The Bible clearly affirms that God would never require an immoral act—including child sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21; 20:2). In the book of Kings, God condemned the Israelites for mimicking the abominable practice of the Amorites who offered their children as sacrifices to their pagan gods. He vehemently insisted: “I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination” (e.g., Jeremiah 32:35; cf. 19:5). It did not enter God’s mind to actually have Abraham kill his son. Here, then, is the salient question: is it morally wrong for God to test a person’s faith and commitment by ordering him to perform an act,³ while not actually intending to require (or allow) the person to do so?

The Bible is its own best interpreter, and if one honestly desires to arrive at the truth (John 7:17), and will do what the Bible itself insists is necessary to achieve that goal, i.e., apply oneself diligently to studying, examining, and weighing the biblical evidence (Acts 17:11; 2 Timothy 2:15), one can ascertain whether the Bible actually contradicts itself and whether God is morally irresponsible. The inspired writer of the book of Hebrews solves the dilemma posed by Dan Barker. Read carefully his assessment of Abraham’s action regarding his son:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense (Hebrews 11:17-19, emp. added).

Observe that in Abraham’s mind, Isaac was as good as dead, i.e., he fully intended to sacrifice his son as directed. However, one cannot successfully maintain that Abraham was guilty of agreeing to commit an immoral act—since he fully believed that the death of his son would be immediately reversed. The strength of this conviction (which is the central feature of Abraham’s great faith) is further seen in the fact that he informed the servants: “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you” (Hebrew plural, nasucach, Genesis 22:5, emp. added). Abraham fully recognized that the moral nature of deity would not sanction child sacrifice. God’s prior declaration, that Isaac would be the one through whom He would fulfill His promises to Abraham, was sufficient proof that God would circumvent his action by raising Isaac from the dead.

After a careful evaluation of the textual data, we are forced to conclude that, though God instructed Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice, the purpose of the command was merely to enable Abraham to manifest the strength of his faith and trust in God, and that it did not enter God’s mind actually to have Abraham kill his son. Isaac was, in fact, a foreshadowing of the coming Christ. Incredibly, the perfect nature of God required that He sacrifice Himself in the person of His Son in our behalf: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all…demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 8:32; 5:8).

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All human beings of accountable age and mind have sinned by violating God’s commands (Romans 3:9ff.,23; 1 John 3:4). Sin condemns a person to an eternal hell—there are no exceptions (Matthew 10:28; et al.). The only way a person can escape the consequences of his sin is to be forgiven by God.

But the nature of deity is such that God cannot merely wave aside sin and forgive. To do so would literally violate His infinitely holy, righteous/just nature. So God had to formulate a plan by which He could forgive human sin in harmony with His divinity. The one and only suitable means of atonement (“propitiation”—Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2) was for God to come in person in the flesh and offer Himself for our sins. He did so through the person of Jesus Christ—God in the flesh. This incredible sacrifice/scheme of redemption is what the Gospel is all about: it is the Gospel—the good news that Jesus opened a way for humans to be forgiven.

However, that tremendous plan of salvation requires an obedient faith response (Romans 1:5; 16:26). That response consists of hearing and understanding the Gospel (Acts 8:30-32; Romans 10:17), believing that Gospel and the One Who offers it (John 8:24; Hebrews 11:6), repenting of sin (Acts 2:38; Luke 13:3), orally confessing the deity of Christ (Romans 10:9-10), and being immersed in water to contact the blood of Christ in order for sin to be cleansed (Romans 6:3-4; Acts 22:16).

In view of these plain biblical truths, it clearly follows that all persons who do not contact the blood of Christ cannot be forgiven by God. God is, in fact, powerless to forgive them. It would be completely contrary to His nature—and therefore ungodlike—for Him to try to forgive a person on some other basis than the blood of Christ. But the only way to contact the blood of Christ is to obey the Gospel (Romans 2:5-9). Those who do not obey the Gospel will be lost eternally in hell (2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17). It unmistakably and logically follows that God cannot and will not forgive anyone who has not been immersed into Christ—since they have not contacted the blood of Christ, the one and only means of atonement. We are forced to conclude that no one can be saved who does not hear the Gospel and obey it (Acts 4:12). If a person can be saved without hearing and obeying the Gospel, then Jesus did not need to come to Earth and die for sin.

With these facts in mind, the issue now shifts to a different question: Is God fair for condemning to hell all those who do not come into contact with the Gospel? The Bible offers a clear response. First, all human beings can and must come to the conclusion that God exists based on the readily available evidence of the incredible Creation that reflects the presence of the Creator. After all, “He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Indeed, “[t]he heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Psalm 19:1-4). “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

This knowledge should motivate all persons to seek Him, as Paul explained to the Athenians: “that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27). In seeking Him, they will come into contact with Christianity and the Bible: “those who seek me diligently will find me” (Proverbs 8:17; cf. Matthew 7:7-8). For those persons who possess an honest, noble, and good heart (Luke 8:15), examination of the Bible will cause them to conclude that it is the only book on the planet that possesses the attributes of divine inspiration (John 7:17). Hence, they will learn about the Gospel and the need to obey.

Second, the Bible also teaches that all persons on the planet who have a heart that is receptive to the truth will have access to that truth via the providence of God. God will make certain (without performing any miracles) that they come into contact with His Word. When God spoke to Paul while in the city of Corinth and stated, “I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10), He meant that there were individuals who would be receptive to the divine message once they encountered that message. Hence, Paul was God’s instrumentality for reaching those potential converts (cf. Acts 10:4ff.; 16:9ff.). World evangelism, i.e., announcing the Gospel to the world, is an ongoing task for the Church. All Christians who are yielded to the will of God, willing to be used in His service, will have opportunities to influence people with the truth. God’s purposes will not be thwarted. In His unfathomable providential dealings in the world, God can interface receptive hearts with those who will introduce them to the good news (Acts 8:30; 10:24ff.; Colossians 1:23). (The Internet has only enhanced this accessibility to the Gospel even further.) He will see to it that receptive hearts are contacted.

Third, observe that all those who will not accept the truth, even if presented to them, need not be confronted with that truth, since God knows they would reject it. So the question, “What about those who never hear the Gospel?” suggests that there are innocent, honest people who would accept the truth if they heard it, but never get a chance to hear it. No such people actually exist. All those who will accept God’s truth will be given an opportunity to accept it via God’s providence and their own honest searching (Matthew 7:7-8). All those who never hear the Gospel would not have accepted it anyway.

A fourth and final observation pertains to the fact that the Bible plainly teaches that the vast majority of humanity throughout the 6,000+ years of world history have not desired the truth and would not have received it if presented to them (Matthew 7:13-14; Luke 13:23-24; 1 Corinthians 1:26; 1 Peter 3:20). Hence, the task of getting the Gospel to those who will receive it is considerably reduced in magnitude. Indeed, the multi-pronged combination of avenues through which efforts are made to reach the lost, including missionaries, printed materials, word of mouth, radio/TV, Internet, et al., are such that those whose hearts are receptive will have the opportunity to access the truth.

The nature of God is such that He must allow all human beings to act as free will agents and make their own choices regarding their eternal destiny. Hence, He will not interfere with their will. Nevertheless, He has done everything He can possibly do to enable mankind to access the Gospel message so that all can be forgiven of sin and live with Him forever. After all, God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” and He “is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).

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The Universe is not eternal. For many years, evolutionists attempted to prove that the Universe never had a beginning. For, they reasoned, if scientists were to arrive at the conclusion that the Universe had a beginning, they must turn to the next logical question: What caused the beginning of the Universe? Attempting to answer that question makes rationally thinking evolutionists uncomfortable. Of course, scientists have shown definitively that the Universe has not always existed, and that it will not exist forever. Because it exists, therefore, someone, or something must have always existed. Astronomer Robert Jastrow observed: “The lingering decline predicted by astronomers for the end of the world differs from the explosive conditions they have calculated for its birth, but the impact is the same: modern science denies an eternal existence to the Universe, either in the past or in the future.”¹ In her book, The Fire in the Equations, award-winning science writer Kitty Ferguson wrote in agreement:

Our late twentieth-century picture of the universe is dramatically different from the picture our forebears had at the beginning of the century. Today it’s common knowledge that all the individual stars we see with the naked eye are only the stars of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and that the Milky Way is only one among many billions of galaxies. It’s also common knowledge that the universe isn’t eternal but had a beginning ten to twenty billion years ago, and that it is expanding.²

Furthermore, the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that both matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed, precludes the idea of an eternal Universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that systems become more disorganized, rather than more organized, also establishes that the Universe had to have a starting point. Because matter exists, but has not always existed, then something or someone must have caused its beginning. Some have suggested that the Universe simply created itself. Sproul wrote:

For something to bring itself into being it must have the power of being within itself. It must at least have enough causal power to cause its own being. If it derives its being from some other source, then it clearly would not be either self-existent or self-created. It would be, plainly and simply, an effect. Of course, the problem is complicated by the other necessity we’ve labored so painstakingly to establish: It would have to have the causal power of being before it was. It would have to have the power of being before it had any being with which to exercise that power.³

Obviously, the idea that the Universe was, at one time, nonexistent, but then independently came into being, is contradictory.⁴ Creationists do not have to wonder about the start of the Universe; they understand that God is the cause, and the Universe is the effect. That event is recorded in the first few pages of the Bible (Genesis 1,2).

Humanity is not eternal in the same sense that God is eternal. Humans have immortal souls—souls that will never die (Romans 5:21; 6:22; Galatians 6:8), and bodies that will be resurrected and reunited with their souls (John 5:28-29). And, although humans can access eternal life (Matthew 25:46; 2 Corinthians 4:18), human beings are not eternal, because each human has a beginning. The beginning of humanity itself is described in Genesis 1-2. And, when the Earth ends (see 2 Peter 3:10-12), humanity on Earth will cease. The Greek word translated “eternal” in passages like Mark 10:17,30, Luke 18:18, and John 3:15 is aionios, a word that also is used to denote the eternality of God (Hebrews 9:14; 1 Peter 5:10). “Eternal,” then, has approximately three meanings in the New Testament: (1) without beginning (Romans 16:25; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2); (2) without beginning or end (Hebrews 9:14); and (3) without end (Matthew 25:46; 2 Corinthians 4:18; 2 Thessalonians 1:9).⁵ Humans are eternal in that their souls will never end, but only God possesses eternality in the first two senses of the word.

Why are humans instructed to live in view of, and prepare for, eternity? A few of the many reasons include: (1) Christians will live for a much longer time in heaven than they will on Earth (Philippians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 4:17); (2) dire consequences await those who refuse to prepare for eternity in this life (Matthew 9:44-48; Matthew 23:33; Luke 13:28; John 5:29); (3) and there are great blessings associated with eternal life (Matthew 8:11; Hebrews 9:24; 1 Peter 1:4, 3:22; Revelation 21:2,3, 22).

Marriage is not eternal. Some religious people teach that marriages will endure throughout eternity. For example, James Duke, representing the Mormon religion, wrote:

Latter-day Saints believe that life is more secure and more joyous when it is experienced in the sacred relationships of the eternal family. Those who maintain such worthy relationships on earth will live as families in the Celestial Kingdom following the resurrection. Thus, a person who lives a righteous life in mortality and who has entered into an eternal marriage may look forward to an association in the postmortal world with a worthy spouse, and with those who were earthly children, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters.⁶

Jesus, however, said that, after they are resurrected, no one will be married or given in marriage (Matthew 22:30). Marriage has been created by God, Who is eternal, for the enjoyment and benefit of mortal men, but the institution of marriage will end when Earth ends (Genesis 2:24; Proverbs 18:22; Hebrews 13:4).

Angels are not eternal. Here, we refer to spiritual messengers, and not humans (on occasion, human messengers are also called “angels” in the Bible).⁷ Angels, like humans, are created beings. Paul wrote: “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” (Colossians 1:16). Nehemiah 9:6 reads: “You along are the Lord; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the Earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You” (emp. added; see Genesis 2:1; Exodus 20:11). Job 38:1-7 makes it clear that angels were eyewitnesses to the creation of the Universe, so we are left to wonder if the angels were created during the Creation week, or at some earlier time. Respected Bible scholar Herbert Lockyer commented:

The heavens include all that are in them created by God, and among these must be the angels (Genesis 2:1). Among the hosts of heaven the angels are the principal part. They are expressly called “the heavenly host” and “the armies of heaven” (Luke 2:13).⁸

We cannot be certain when the angels were created, but we do know that no other being beside God is eternal in the fullest sense of the word.⁹

The devil is not eternal. Deity is eternal in the fullest sense (Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalm 102:27), but Satan does not possess the qualities of Deity. Thompson commented:

Scripture affirms: “Greater is he [God] that is in you than he [Satan] that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). When he sought to “sift” the apostles as wheat, he first had to “ask for them” (Luke 22:31). Satan is not omnipresent. His position as “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) was “delivered unto him” (Luke 4:6). When he eventually is cast permanently into his place of eternal torment, the devil will be powerless to resist (Revelation 20:10).¹⁰

Wayne Jackson noted:

…[S]ince the devil is not of the nature of deity, it is obvious that he is a created being, for all things and beings (outside the class of deity) are the result of creation—“for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” (Col. 1:16); this would include Satan as he originally was.¹¹

While it is true that Satan will exist forever, it is obviously also true that he had a beginning. Genesis 1:31 reveals that all things which were created were, originally, “very good.” God did not create Satan to be humankind’s evil adversary; rather, Satan made the choice to become evil, and to work to convince others, both spiritual and human beings, to do wrong. Both Old and New Testament passages imply that Satan, at some point before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, led a revolt, the result of which was the ejection of Satan and “his” angels from heaven (Job 4:18; Matthew 25:41; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). There is every reason to believe that angels still have the ability to choose to do evil. Lloyd Ecrement observed: “They, therefore, have the ability to choose good or evil. It is possible, but certainly not necessary, for them to sin. If they choose evil rather than good, that is no reflection upon their Creator, but simply a rebellion against Him—they abuse the powers of reason and a free will given to them by God.”¹² Little is known about why Satan chose to do evil initially, but it is easier to surmise why he chose to become the archenemy of God and man: he had once inhabited glory with God, but had been cast out.¹³

CONCLUSION

If a man composed a work in which he considered every temporal item, the work would be enormous, because the number of the things that will, at some point, cease to exist, is inestimable. However, there is only One Who possesses eternality. We should be impressed and thankful that our Creator is ageless, timeless, uninterrupted, and perpetual, not only in His existence, but in His personality and attributes. The truth of His message, like His very personage, never will change (Mark 13:31).

ENDNOTES

The post The Eternality of God appeared first on Apologetics Press.

“To err is human,” the poet rightly said, and apologists are humans. But as apologists, it is also inevitable that the writers and speakers for Apologetics Press will be unjustly criticized, viciously and publicly attacked, brazenly misrepresented, unethically plagiarized, or even outright lied about—and not infrequently. After all, Jesus predicted that persecution will come to those who attempt to speak the truth (John 15:18-20). From time to time, individuals will witness examples of such shocking behavior and ask us with incredulity, “Do you guys respond to that kind of behavior? And if so, how!?” Answers range from, “The best we can, though not always perfectly” to “sometimes better than at other times” to “not always in the wisest ways, but always with the desire to defend the faith and trying to speak the truth in love.” The real question in our minds, however, is not “How do we respond?” but how does God tell us to respond to that type of persecution?

Jude 3 tells us that we are to “contend earnestly for the faith,”¹ but how? Jude 3 is a mandate, but it does not prescribe a manner. Scripture certainly has a lot to say about the attitudes we should have when we are publicly mistreated and the ways we should respond to people, making it clear that different people and situations often call for different approaches. While we should always speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), it is also true that sometimes love demands different approaches. The New Testament tells us repeatedly that agape love is fundamental to Christianity.² Without love, one simply cannot be a Christian (1 John 4:7-8). That single motivation—to love—would govern every decision and action that a Christian takes, if he would be perfect. After all, according to the New Testament and Jesus, Himself, sin ultimately boils down to a lack of agape³—love towards God and our fellow man.

Gathering all of the relevant passages on agape, we learn that it can be defined in the following way:

Having such concern for the well-being of someone else that I am willing to unselfishly act on that concern for that person’s well-being, no matter who it is or the cost to me.⁴

Notice, then, that love is not a feeling, but a choice (1 John 3:18). If we were to summarize the definition of agape in one word, it would be unselfishness, and it is always manifested through some form of a selfless act.⁵ That attitude encapsulates Who God is (1 John 4:7-8), while the opposite—being self-serving—is described as being demon-like (James 3:14-16). Truly, if we wish to be like God, we will unselfishly put ourselves aside and do what’s best for others, even when they are mistreating us.

Jesus faces Pilate.

That said, a common misconception about biblical love is that it can be defined solely as being gentle, tolerant, and without judgment. If one were to be anything else in his evangelism or defense of truth, he would be unloving and guilty of sin—according to the common misconception. In truth, biblical love is not always manifested gently,⁶ with tolerance,⁷ or without judgment.⁸ In truth, different approaches are appropriate at different times. Sometimes rebuking—an approach we would not generally deem gentle—might be necessary (Luke 17:3), while at other times admonishing/warning (Romans 15:14), edifying/building up (Romans 14:19), or exhorting/encouraging (Titus 1:9) are appropriate. Notice, however, that in all cases, love is the motivation: a desire to do whatever is necessary to help others be pleasing to God—whether through gentle pleading (Galatians 6:1) or through “tough love” (Hebrews 12:5-11; Titus 1:13). Further, boldness is certainly encouraged for evangelists (Acts 4:29), but it is to be tempered with humility (2 Timothy 2:25), prudence (Proverbs 22:3), and being slow to speak (James 1:19), as Peter learned the hard way on more than one occasion.⁹ Knowing the best response for each situation would require more wisdom than any single human could have, which is why humbly gaining knowledge through experience (Proverbs 16:31), study (Proverbs 10:14), and counsel (Proverbs 11:14) is emphasized in Scripture.

Preparation for the day of persecution and challenges to your beliefs is also emphasized in Scripture. Peter reminds us to “always be ready to give a defense” (1 Peter 3:15), since there will be a day when a person will ask us why we have hope in God, if we are living as we should before them. So we should strive to “be ready, in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2) to use whatever tactic might be appropriate in various situations—whether it be merely convincing them of the truth, or rebuking, or exhorting another Christian. Such readiness takes diligence—incessant study and preparation (2 Timothy 2:15; Acts 17:11).

That said, Who better to study to learn how to respond to public persecutions and challenges than the Chief Apologist, Himself—Jesus Christ? After all, it is He Whom the Christian must emulate. Reading through the gospel accounts, watching how Jesus chose to respond to His critics, is a fascinating practice. Jesus was never looking for a fight, but was always prepared to contend for the Faith and defend Himself when necessary, and chose to do so many times throughout His ministry. Typically, He did so seemingly dispassionately—using pure logic and reason.¹⁰ The word used to describe Him in 2 Corinthians 10:1 is “meek”—the word often used to describe, not a wild bull in a China shop, but a trained war horse: strength and fearlessness that is bridled or under control. Jesus recognized that He had ultimately nothing to lose by teaching the truth and, therefore, did not get “riled” up and respond defensively to skeptics and antagonists. That is not to say, however, that He never showed passion when the circumstance called for it; but He was always controlled in His responses, being fearless of the possible consequences. Oh that we all could emulate our Lord in this regard.

At times, we at Apologetics Press have been criticized for not responding to every comment on our Facebook page or choosing not to debate every person who wishes to engage us in a public debate (which apparently some do not realize happens often and would require several more full-time representatives than we have on staff). Of particular interest to those of us that study apologetics is the observation that, though Christ was always ready for a debate, He also knew when not to do so—whether because the timing was not right for a response, a response would be pointless (e.g., Matthew 21:27), or a response would even be detrimental to His ultimate cause. Just because a person challenged Him did not mean that He felt He needed to respond. Since the human inclination is to respond to every person, lest we be perceived as not having an answer and, hence, “losing the debate,” Jesus’ wisdom is awe-inspiring. In Matthew 7:6, while preaching the greatest sermon the world has ever heard, Jesus warned His audience that some people do not care about the truth and are like “swine”—unworthy of the valuable information we might wish to impart. If we choose to proceed and reason with the “pigs,” they are likely not only to stamp on the valuable jewels we have given them, but they will likely stampede us as well. In Proverbs 26:4, Solomon admonished the wise, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.” The principle is clear: if the person or people to whom we are talking are not genuinely interested in the truth, to spend time trying to convince them of the truth would be wasteful and potentially even dangerous or counterproductive.

In Matthew 10, Jesus again warned His apostles that there will be those who “will not receive you nor hear your words” (vs. 14). In such cases, they were not to continue pressing the issue, but rather, “shake off the dust from your feet” and move on—a practice which Paul and Barnabas implemented in their evangelistic journeys as well (Acts 13:51). With that principle in mind, it is noteworthy to see Jesus’ implementation of that principle in His own life. At times, He chose to respond to challenges, depending on the audience, but at other times, He chose not to do so, in spite of how He might be perceived. For instance, when challenged by the chief priests and elders in the Temple to announce who gave Him authority to teach, after posing a question of His own, Jesus chose simply not to respond to their question (Matthew 21:23-27).

Surely the most notable example of Jesus practicing what He preached about remaining silent at times was what was prophesied about Him in Isaiah 53:7 regarding His crucifixion: “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” All four gospel records highlight Jesus’ refusal to respond to various attackers in the illegal trials leading up to His crucifixion.¹¹ Again, His willingness to remain silent when most would respond defensively was a manifestation of such superhuman self-control that Pilate “marveled greatly” (Matthew 27:14).

The principle is clear: there are times when not responding to attacks is the best course of action. We would do well to gain the wisdom necessary to recognize those moments. We pray that God will grant to all Christians in the perilous times in which we live the wisdom to know when to fight and when to remain silent, as well as the boldness to fight when the time calls for it.

Endnotes

¹ In 2 Timothy 2:24 the text says that “a servant of the Lord must not quarrel,” which commentators clarify as meaning not “striving contentiously” [Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary (2012), WORDsearch Corp, Electronic Database.]. The ESV, therefore, translates the word “quarrel” as “quarrelsome” (i.e., looking for a fight). One can “contend” without being “contentious.”

² James 2:8; 1 John 3:13-18; 4:7; John 13:34-35; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; 16:14; Colossians 3:14.

³ Matthew 22:36-40; Galatians 5:14; Romans 13:9-10.

⁴ Galatians 5:23; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10; John 3:16; John 15:13; Matthew 5:43-48; cf. Endnotes 2 and 3.

⁵ Matthew 7:12; 16:24; Philippians 1:15-17; 2:3-8; 1 Corinthians 10:24; 2 Corinthians 5:15.

⁶ Hebrews 12:6; Titus 1:13; Proverbs 15:10; 20:30; 27:5; Hosea 6:5. Consider Jesus’ behavior in John 2—overturning tables and making a whip of cords to drive the moneychangers and animals from the Temple. Consider also that sometimes loving a child involves physically striking him (Proverbs 13:24). Note that the term translated “gentle” in 2 Timothy 2:24 (apiov) means to be “kind toward someone”—a significant distinction in this case [William Arndt, F.W. Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker (1979), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), second edition revised, p. 348]. The ESV, NIV, RSV, and NASB renderings capture this meaning. One can be kind to someone and simultaneously not necessarily be gentle, as the above passages indicate.

⁷ 2 Thessalonians 3:6,14; Titus 3:10; Romans 16:17; 1 Timothy 5:20.

⁸ John 7:24; 2 Corinthians 5:10.

⁹ John 13:5-9; Matthew 16:22-23; 17:1-5.

¹⁰ Dave Miller (2011), “Jesus Used Logic,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11& article=3755; Dave Miller (2011), “Is Christianity Logical? [Part I],” Reason & Revelation, 31[6]:50-59, http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx? category=12&article=3869; Dave Miller (2011), “Jesus Was Logical,” Apologetics Press, https://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=10&article=653&topic=71; Dave Miller (2011), “Jesus Was Rational,” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=10&article=1245&topic=71.

¹¹ E.g., Matthew 26:62-63; 27:13-14; Mark 14:60-61; 15:4-5; Luke 23:9; John 19:9.

The post “Jesus Gave Him No Answer” appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[NOTE: The following assessment by A.P. board member Frank Chesser is excerpted from his upcoming commentary on Ezekiel.]

Ezekiel 16 is a treasure house of nuggets of truth that Americans need to heed, ten of which will be addressed in this article. First, only divine revelation can enable a man to “know” his sin (vs. 2). Only by knowing God can a man know his sin. The Bible commences with God: “In the beginning God” (Genesis 1:1). It ends with God: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen” (Revelation 22:21). In between these bookends of divine truth is a library of sixty-six books that paint portraits of the nature of God, from whom all spiritual truths flow. Three words sum up the book of Isaiah and the whole of God’s revelation to man: “Behold your God” (Isaiah 40:9). When Isaiah beheld God in all of His glory, majesty and holiness, he saw the scope of his sin as never before (Isaiah 6:1-5).

Adam and Eve lost sight of the God they both saw and knew and plunged themselves and the world into darkness. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). The power of fleshly lust blinded the spiritual eyes of the righteous descendants of Seth to the beauty of God’s holiness as they gazed with delight upon the carnal daughters of Cain’s descendants and “they took them wives of all which they chose” (Genesis 6:2), acts of sin that produced a world of people void of a single righteous thought and opened the door to the global Flood. The first generation from Egypt never saw the God that Isaiah saw, and their lives testified to their spiritual sightlessness. God informed Samuel that from Egypt onward “they have forsaken me, and served other gods” (1 Samuel 8:8). They wanted a God of power that could liberate them from Egypt but not a God of holiness, justice, and wrath Whose very nature demanded, “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16), and condemned and punished sin.

The idols that Israel brought out of Egypt were added to and multiplied, and they plagued the nation for most of its national life. Solomon allowed his love for God to be supplanted by his love for “many strange women” (1 Kings 11:1), and “his wives turned away his heart after other gods” (1 Kings 11:4). The northern kingdom inaugurated its national existence with roots in idolatry as Jeroboam “made two calves of gold, and said unto them, ‘It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt’” (1 Kings 12:28). Israel became so enamored with lifeless pieces of wood and stone that God said, “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone” (Hosea 4:17), because His mercy upon them was gone (Hosea 1:6), He was no longer their God (Hosea 1:9), and He would “cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel” (Hosea 1:4). Except for a minute remnant, they lived their national life sightless of the God that Isaiah saw. They were powerless to know their sin because they rejected God’s revelation of Himself through the material Universe, the law, the prophets, and confirming miracles. God destroyed them in Assyrian captivity (2 Kings 17:21-23).

Under Rehoboam’s rule, the nation of Judah initiated their national life with idolatry as they “built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill, and under every green tree” (1 Kings 14:23). With a few exceptions, they followed king after king who led them in idol worship and all of its confederate sins. God told Isaiah that except for a “very small remnant” (Isaiah 1:9), Judah would never be able to see their sin because they refused to see Him (Isaiah 6:5-12). This very chapter is permeated with God’s condemnation of Judah’s idols and their affiliated sins. Ezekiel’s audience in Babylon was led by leaders with “idols in their heart” (14:3), who could not see and know their sin because they could not see the “glory of the Lord” that Ezekiel saw (1:28).

Second, covetousness is idolatry. Paul affirmed this truth in Colossians 3:5. Verse 3 of Ezekiel 16 illustrates it. Why does God point to Canaan as the place of Israel’s national birth? Not because they were actually born there, but because Israel coveted the gods of Canaan and the sins of the flesh that idol worship allowed. This covetous spirit inhered in Israel’s request for a king so they could “be like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:20). God said, “they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). This rebellious spirt was not something new in the hearts of Israel. It was Samuel’s appointment of his wicked sons as judges that opened the door for Israel to request a more formal system of government that would remove every vestige of their national distinctiveness and allow them total kinship with the heathen nations of the world.

Israel had already been living like pagans for over three centuries. When Joshua and those who served him died, “there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord” (Judges 2:10). They did not know the Lord because they did not want to know the Lord. They were like the people of Judah, “for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me saith the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:3). Israel lived among the heathens in Canaan, intermarried with them, and adopted their gods as their own (Judges 3:5-7). They coveted the heathenish lifestyle that idolatry licensed. They loved their idols because they loved the “pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25) that they vouchsafed to them. They “ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way” and “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 2:19; 21:25).

Covetousness lusts, longs, yearns, and desires. It is selfishness in its purest form. It is determined to have its way regardless of the consequences. Eve desired self-rule to the ruin of her life in Eden (Genesis 3:5-6). The cities of the plain lusted for sexual sin to their utter destruction (Genesis 19). Achan “coveted” gold, silver, and a garment to the subversion of himself and his family (Joshua 7:21). David yearned for his neighbor’s wife to the detriment of his spiritual life, family, and stature in Israel and the world (2 Samuel 11-12). Amnon longed for his brother’s wife and paid for his covetousness with his life (2 Samuel 13). Solomon coveted “strange women” and strange gods (1 Kings 11:1,4-8), to his personal ruin and the ruin of Israel. A thief (John 12:6) and a traitor (John 18:2) were the products of Judas’ covetous spirit.  Herod’s desire for personal acclaim led to his death on a bed of agony (Acts 12:21-23). Demas yearned for worldly pleasure (2 Timothy 4:10), Diotrephes for preeminence (3 John 9), and Israel for the gods of Canaan to the spiritual devastation of each.

Third, Israel misread God’s love, grace, and goodness. The nation is depicted as a new born infant, discarded and left to die, floundering in the blood of its birth, and void of human pity (16:4-5). God washed, cleaned, clothed, fed, loved, protected, preserved, and blessed Israel to her national maturity. Israel viewed God’s work as merit because they were fleshly descendants of Abraham and special in their own eyes. God denied repetitively their right to specialty and feelings of superiority to all other nations, but they refused to believe it. God affirmed that His spiritual blessings through Abraham embraced “all families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3), but Israel could see only themselves as recipients of God’s love and goodness. Three times in three verses (Deuteronomy 9:4-6), God asserted that they did not deserve the land of Canaan, and then reminded them that from Egypt to that moment, “ye have been rebellious against the Lord” (Deuteronomy 9:7). But nothing that God said or did in acts of judgment upon them could shake their feelings of national peerlessness.

It was God’s intention to reach Calvary with the seed of woman and Abraham (Genesis 3:15; 12:3). This was a work of pure love, grace, and goodness, and national Israel fought God every step of the way. They loathed the law of God and loved their idols. They thought they could sin with impunity (Jeremiah 7:8-10). The Old Testament closes with Israel’s corrupt priests’ horrendous accusation of God’s delighting in evildoers, robbing God of tithes and offerings, and affirming the vanity of serving God (Malachi 1-3). The New Testament opens with John the Baptist in spiritual combat with Pharisees and Sadducees yet clinging to Abraham as their spiritual savior (Matthew 3:7-9). Having pointed to the truth that makes man free, Jesus encountered this Jewish proclivity as some answered, “We be Abraham’s seed and were never in bondage to any man” (John 8:33). It took miraculous intervention (Acts 10) to convince Peter that what God said in Genesis 12:3, what Jesus said in John 3:16, and what Peter said in Acts 2:39 was the truth.  Prior to embracing Christ and the Gospel, Paul considered his Jewishness as “gain” (Philippians 3:7). To this present hour, the love, grace, and goodness of God is sifted in the sieve of human reasoning.

Fourth, misplaced trust leads to spiritual ruin. “But you trusted in your own beauty, played the harlot” (vs. 15). Improper entities of trust assume many and diverse forms and all lead to spiritual decay. Moses warned Israel about displacing God with fortified walls as objects of their trust (Deuteronomy 28:32). Israel trusted in oppression and perverseness (Isaiah 30:12), military aid from Egypt (Isaiah 31:1), idols (Isaiah 42:17), wickedness (Isaiah 47:10), vanity (Isaiah 59:4), lying words (Jeremiah 7:8), the temple (Jeremiah 7:14), and in their own ways and mighty men (Hosea 10:13). God placed a curse upon “the man that trusted in man” (Jeremiah 17:5) and likened him to a shrub in the desert barely cleaving to life and without hope for betterment (Jeremiah 17:6). Paul warned about trusting in “uncertain riches” (1 Timothy 6:17).

Biblical faith involves trust and obedience. The Word of God is the basis of faith (Romans 10:17), and the faith that saves is the faith that obeys God. Jesus described faith as a work (John 6:28-29), and Paul spoke of the “work of faith” (1 Thessalonians 1:3) and the “obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26), because faith is active in its submission to the will of God. James said, “I will show thee my faith by my works” (James 2:18). The object of faith’s trust is God, not the works of righteousness that faith produces. The Pharisee was rejected because he trusted in himself and his own works instead of God (Luke 18:9-14). Misplaced trust negates Biblical faith.

Fifth, Israel abused blessings on loan from God (vss. 16-21). They honored their idols with gifts from God. They made, adorned, and paid homage to the works of their own hands with material endowments from God. Having abandoned all natural affection, they descended into the depths of human depravity by offering their children as sacrifices to their idols. God said these children were “born unto me” (vs. 20), and they have “slain my children” (vs. 21).

Israel was a steward of the blessings of God and so are all men. Stewardship does not imply ownership. A steward does not own anything. “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out” (1 Timothy 6:7). God allows man an accommodative usage of “my money, house, land, cars,” but these and all material things are gifts and blessings from God and on loan from God. God is the “possessor of heaven and earth” (Genesis 14:19); everything “under the whole heaven” (Job 41:11) belongs to Him; “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1), and all the silver and gold on Earth belongs to God (Haggai 2:8).

David pointed to the material riches that he and Israel had donated for the construction of the temple and asserted, “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee” (1 Chronicles 29:14). Joseph was the steward over Potiphar’s house and “all that he had he put into his hand” (Genesis 39:4), but not one thing belonged to Joseph. Even a man’s children belong to God. “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Psalm 127:3). Israel misused blessings and gifts on loan from God and so has the preponderance of humanity from time’s beginning.

Sixth, idolatry and sexual sin are twin sins. Illicit sexual conduct inheres in Ezekiel’s “eminent place” (vss. 24,31,39), his phrase “opened their feet to everyone that passed by” (vs. 25), and the “great of flesh” (vs. 26) comment that describes the fleshly lewd nature of Egyptian idolatry borrowed and made common in Israel’s own idolatrous practices. This chapter pulsates with sexual connotations. Physical whoredom follows spiritual whoredom like the night follows the day. Physical adultery is spiritual adultery’s shadow. It is idolatry’s cardinal sin. Balaam knew that idolatry and fornication were comrade sins and would bring divine judgment upon Israel that his initial efforts failed to achieve (Revelation 2:14; Numbers 25:1-9). If sexual lust in thought and act was idolatry’s only fruit, the worship of idols would yet have been as common in Israel as the rising of the Sun.

Seventh, memory failures beget ingratitude that often ends in spiritual death. The spirit of thanksgiving is as rare as was the good man in Israel (Micah 7:2). In an unsurpassed catalog of massive evils, ingratitude was at the top of the list (Romans 1:21). When a man refuses or neglects to reflect daily on the innumerable wonders of God’s love, grace, and goodness, he is paving the road to his own spiritual deterioration. Twice, Ezekiel points to Israel’s failure to remember the blessings of God in her national youth as one of the foundational reasons for her idolatry and companioned sins (vss. 22 and 43). Joseph languished two additional years in prison because the chief butler of Pharaoh did not “remember Joseph, but forgot him” (Genesis 40:23).

One negative report from ten spies drained Israel’s memory of God’s mighty miracles in Egypt onward and left them weeping all night in ingratitude and unbelief (Numbers 14:1-3). “Remember” was one of the key words that Moses used in his final sermon to the second generation from Egypt in the book of Deuteronomy. When David saw Bathsheba bathing, if he had supplanted inquiring about her (2 Samuel 11:3) with reflection and gratitude for God’s love and goodness, he would never have consummated his act of adultery. Remembering and thanking God continually for the blessings of 1 Kings 10 would have saved Solomon from the evils and consequences of 1 Kings 11. In conjunction with his wife, Jehoiada saved, protected, preserved, and aided Joash in becoming king and ruling over Judah until he died. At Jehoiada’s death, Joash forsook God, embraced idolatry, rejected the preaching and warnings of the prophets, and had Jehoiada’s son, Zechariah, stoned to death for rebuking him. Inspiration’s report of this tragedy reads, “Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done, but slew his son” (2 Chronicles 24:23-25). Memory failures and ingratitude accompany every continuous sin and sin of rebellion.

Eighth, the desires of the flesh are insatiable (vss. 28-34). Israel pursued political alliances with the heathen nations and claimed their gods as their own. Pagan nations were jealous and protective of their own gods, but Israel’s love affair with idols was indiscriminate. Multiplying gods meant multiplying opportunities for the flesh. When Syria was defeated by Israel, instead of forsaking their gods, the Syrians chose a different location for their conflict, declaring, “Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they” (1 Kings 20:23). Conversely, when Assyria’s military proved superior to Israel’s, Ahaz said, “Because the gods of the king of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them that they may help me.  But they were the ruin of him and of all Israel” (2 Chronicles 28:23).

When a man’s life is void of God, it is void of reason. There is nothing rational about the flesh. It feels, but does not think. Severed from God, law, and restraints, it choses sin’s pleasures with reckless abandon. Noah’s contemporaries were dominated by the “flesh” (Genesis 6:3) and pursued its ravenous passions until their minds were empty of a single righteous thought. A lifetime of fleshly lust cannot quench the fires of its interest. It does not pause to consider its ways. It is ever open to new ways of expression. It is oblivious to shame. Were the prophets, priests, and wise men of Judah “ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush” (Jeremiah 8:12). The flesh does not need the darkness to conceal its baseness. It considers it a “pleasure to riot in the daytime” (2 Peter 2:13). It possesses “eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin” (2 Peter 2:14). Israel loved their gods of wood and stone because they allowed the flesh the freedom to pursue its uninhibited desired ends.

Ninth, greater responsibility is attached to superior spiritual advantages that demand a more severe judgment for sin (vss. 44-51). Jesus utilized this principle when He depicted the day of judgment as rendering a more intense degree of punishment for certain Galilean cities “wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not” (Matthew 11:20) as compared with the pagan cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom that did not enjoy such opportunities. Spiritual advantages abounded to the Jewish nation. Paul affirmed that Israel’s possession of the law of God was their chief advantage (Romans 3:1-2). Moses asserted that God’s statutes and judgments were so noteworthy that even the pagan nations would declare, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” (Deuteronomy 4:6) because of their possession of the righteous laws of God. Due to their unique spiritual advantages, Israel’s sin was highhanded rebellion against God.

In depicting His judgment through Babylon, God said, “Behold I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle” (2 Kings 21:12), and in describing God’s judgment on Jerusalem by the Roman army, Jesus said, “For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). The severity of their judgment would match the severity of their sin.

Tenth, following the darkness of the night is the comfort and solace of the day’s light (vss. 53-63). The deep darkness of sin needs the bright light of redemption. The world of Genesis 1-2 was a world of continuous light. The physical night was bathed in the light of perfection and innocence. Even the darkness of the night carried the brilliance of the day’s light in its bosom. The day closed in consummate physical and spiritual serenity and the night welcomed its return in an unaltered state. Genesis 3:6 ruined everything. The Sun was shrouded in sackcloth. Nature wept, and its tears displaced the dew of the Earth.  In fig leaves, shame, and dread, Adam and Eve hid among the trees of Eden.

From the grave of despair, arose the resplendent light of redemption. The seed of woman (Genesis 3:15), of Abraham (Genesis 12:3), of Isaac (Genesis 26:4), and of Jacob (Genesis 28:14), was deposited in a small righteous remnant of Israel and Judah, secured in David (Acts 2:30), and assigned to Mary, “of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Matthew 1:16), who paid the penalty for the catastrophe of Genesis 3:6 and every subsequent sin until time’s end, and became the “author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Hebrews 5:9).

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What is unique about America is the fact that it was borne amid an almost unanimous desire to possess the favor of the God of the Bible in the establishment of the Republic. The Founders repeatedly expressed their concern that Christianity (what they repeatedly styled “true religion”) be maintained among the citizenry in order to retain divine assistance (Miller, 2010). This basic orientation was sustained as a national attitude for over 150 years. After World War II, sinister efforts were well underway to strip God and Christianity from civil, judicial, and educational institutions (Miller, 2008).

Unlike Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and polytheistic, pagan countries—which do not claim to be “Christian”—America has been recognized the world over as a “Christian nation.” We have been blessed accordingly—beyond all other nations in human history. America’s origins so positioned her among the nations of the Earth that, in effect, many would see God’s reputation as “on the line.” Do we think He would allow America to jettison Christian values, flaunt moral degradation, and defiantly boast to the world that America is “tolerant” of perversion and immorality—without calling her to account before the world? As prominent Founder George Mason, often called “The Father of the Bill of Rights,” stated at the Constitutional Convention: “As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities” (as quoted in Madison, 1840, 3:1391, emp. added; of course, God’s timetable varies from human expectation, so any future retribution is unpredictable as to timing).

The Founders understood this principle emphatically. Take, for example, prominent Founding Father John Witherspoon. Serving as President of Princeton from 1768 to 1776, Witherspoon served on both the Provincial Congress of New Jersey as well as the Continental Congress (1776-1782) where he signed the Declaration of Independence. After the Revolutionary War, he was a member of the New Jersey State Assembly as well as a member of the State ratification convention for the federal Constitution. In a treatise titled The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men, written the same year the Founders declared their independence, this quintessential Founder insightfully observed:

It is the prerogative of God to do what he will with his own; but he often displays his justice itself, by throwing into the furnace those, who, though they may not be visibly worse than others, may yet have more to answer for, as having been favoured with more distinguished privileges, both civil and sacred (1776, emp. added).

America has been blessed with so many more privileges and blessings than other nations. But our moral decline seems to be proportional to those blessings. America has a lot to answer for. It’s only a question of time—unless a massive, nationwide, spiritual awakening is forthcoming. That is precisely what America most desperately needs—not a stronger economy, not more handouts, and not more concern for the environment. She needs to repent and fall before the God of Heaven and beg His forgiveness.

Now do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the LORD; and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever, and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you (2 Chronicles 30:8).

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him (Psalm 2:12).

But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth will tremble, and the nations will not be able to endure His indignation (Jeremiah 10:10).

REFERENCES

Madison, James (1840), The Papers of James Madison, ed. Henry Gilpin (Washington, DC: Langtree & O’Sullivan).

Miller, Dave (2008), The Silencing of God: The Dismantling of America’s Christian Heritage (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Miller, Dave (2010), Christ and the Continental Congress (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Witherspoon, John (1776), The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men (Philadelphia, PA: Town & Country), http://goo.gl/nLihJK.

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Isn’t America’s wealth an indication that the nation is pleasing to God?

A:

There’s no question that America’s unprecedented affluence and technological superiority have been the direct result of God showering the country with His blessings for over 200 years (Psalm 33:12). However, we must not think even for a moment that He will continue His favor indefinitely if we, as a nation, veer from the principles of Christian morality on which the Republic was founded. One cannot assume that since national existence remains intact and the bulk of the populace continues to enjoy lavish physical comforts that God is pleased or that He has no intention of “pulling the plug.” Indeed, tragically, America would seem to have entered the same phase of national status which God warned would one day characterize Israel of old if they jettisoned God’s commands and decrees from their lives.

Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you (Deuteronomy 28:47-48, emp. added).

If there was ever an accurate description of America’s condition, it would be that we enjoy “the abundance of everything.” Yet great spiritual poverty has spread like a scourge across the land. The abundance that Americans wallow in everyday should propel them to live godly lives before the great Governor of the Universe. Sadly, however, much of the population is rushing headlong down the precipice of moral depravity, wanton luxury, hedonism, and irreligion. We should fully expect the same outcome (2 Kings 17 and 25). Even as God expressed through the prophet Zechariah:

Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.” But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear…refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent…. Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts…. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate (7:8-14, emp. added).

America has most certainly been “the pleasant land.” But she can be made desolate—if God wills.

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[EDITOR’S NOTE: We receive many questions at A.P. from inquirers all over the world. We are devoting this issue of R&R to a few of these questions that we think may be of interest to a wider audience.]

Q:

“I agree that the historical proof is there that Christianity was the religion of the vast majority of the Founders and Americans ever since. But in the last half-century, America has changed drastically with the influx of many other worldviews and religious sentiments, and we seem to be doing just fine. So why would you say Christianity is still needed in America?”

A:

For the same reason it was needed at the beginning: it is the only way to sustain the kind of Republic we enjoy. The practice of Christian principles by the majority of the citizens is not necessary in a dictatorship, monarchy, communist or socialist state, atheistic country, Islamic country, etc. In all such ideological settings, the government is coercive and regulates everybody and everything. But to have the kind of freedom we have enjoyed in this country, where everyone is free to pursue moral happiness and exercise freedom of choice with regard to profession, travel, etc., the people must embrace Christian morality. The less of Christianity in the hearts and behavior of the population, the more need for government regulation. The more the people are self-controlled by Christian principles, the fewer laws are needed. Consider these quotes by Founders who articulated this principle plainly:

Patrick Henry:

I am not so much alarmed as at the apprehension of [France] destroying the great pillars of all government and of social life; I mean virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed (as quoted in Henry, 1891, 2:591-592, emp. added).

James McHenry (signer of the Constitution andSecretary of War):

The Holy Scriptures…can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness. In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses (as quoted in Steiner, 1921, p. 14, emp. added).

John Adams (signer of Declaration of Independence, Vice-President under George Washington, and second President of the United States):

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other (1854, 9:229).

Statesmen my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand…. The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies (1976-2000, emp. added).

Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration of Independence):

I have been alternately called an aristocrat and a democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe all power…will always fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him (as quoted in Ramsay, 1813, p. 103).

John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence):

It is the prerogative of God to do what he will with his own; but he often displays his justice itself, by throwing into the furnace those, who, though they may not be visibly worse than others, may yet have more to answer for, as having been favoured with more distinguished privileges, both civil and sacred…. Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners makes a people ripe for destruction…. [W]hen the manners of a nation are pure, when true religion and internal principles maintain their vigour, the attempts of the most powerful enemies to oppress them are commonly baffled and disappointed…. [H]e is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion [Christianity—James 1:27], and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind (1777, pp. 16,33, emp. added).

Noah Webster (Father of American Scholarship and Education):

[T]hose who destroy the influence and authority of the Christian religion, sap the foundations of public order, of liberty, and of republican government (1832, pp. 310-311).

Jedidiah Morse (Father of American Geography):

To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism. All efforts to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness. Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them (1799, p. 11, emp. added).

Elias Boudinot (President of the Continental Congress):

[O]ur country should be preserved from the dreadful evil of becoming enemies to the religion of the Gospel, which I have no doubt, but would be introductive of the dissolution of government and the bonds of civil society (1801, p. xxii, emp. added).

George Washington (Father of our Country, first President of the United States):

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? (1796, pp. 22-23, emp. added).

Washington also said only God can protect our nation:

I am sure there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that Agency which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them (1792, “Letter to…”).

Observe that these Founders (and many more—see Miller, 2009) insisted that Christianity is necessary to provide the people with proper moral behavior so that the Republic they established might be perpetuated. No other religion—Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or even Atheism—can provide the proper moral framework necessary to perpetuate the civil institutions and way of life created by the Founders and Framers.

The Bible teaches the same thing:

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when a wicked man rules, the people groan. The king establishes the land by justice, but he who receives bribes overthrows it (Proverbs 29:2-4). No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy (Psalm 33:16-18).

Further, consider this: If there is a God, and if He is the God of the Bible, and if His Word is expressed in the Bible alone, then according to that Word, (1) He is active in the affairs of nations (Daniel 4:17); (2) He blesses those who look to Him (Psalm 33:12); and (3) He will abandon and even punish the nation that spurns His will and chooses to live sinfully—which is precisely the direction our nation/citizens are swiftly headed. Hence, we should well expect national calamity to come in some form (economic collapse, infiltration by enemies, increase in diseases, natural calamity, etc. [Deuteronomy 28:15ff., et al.]).

To repeat: Systematically banning Christianity from our schools, our government, and the public square will have two results: (1) a massive increase in immorality, crime, and social anarchy, and (2) God’s disfavor and wrath will eventually be unleashed against the nation.

REFERENCES

Adams, John (1854), The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, ed. Charles Adams (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company).

Adams, John (1976-2000), Letters of delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, ed. Paul Smith (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress), Volume 4, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(dg004210)).

Boudinot, Elias (1801), The Age of Revelation (Philadelphia, PA: Asbury Dickins), http://www.google.com/books?id=XpcPAAAAIAAJ.

Henry, William (1891), Patrick Henry; Life, Correspondence and Speeches (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons), http://www.archive.org/details/pathenrylife01henrrich. See also George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 4. General Correspondence. 1697-1799, Image 1071, “Patrick Henry to Archibald Blair,” January 8, 1799, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mgw4&fileName=gwpage113.db&recNum=1070.

Miller, Dave (2009), Christ & the Continental Congress (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Morse, Jedidiah (1799), A Sermon, Exhibiting the Present Dangers and Consequent Duties of the Citizens of the United States of America (Charlestown, MS: Samuel Etheridge), http://www.archive.org/details/sermonexhibiting00morsrich.

Ramsay, David (1813), An Eulogium Upon Benjamin Rush, M.D. (Philadelphia, PA: Bradford & Inskeep).

Steiner, Bernard (1921), One Hundred and Ten Years of Bible Society Work in Maryland, 1810-1920 (Baltimore, MD: The Maryland Bible Society).

Washington, George (1792), “Letter to John Armstrong, March 11, 1792,” Letterbook 18
Image 110 of 359, George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 2 Letterbooks, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mgw2&fileName=gwpage018.db&recNum=109.

Washington, George (1796), Address of George Washington, President of the United States…Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore, MD: George & Henry Keating).

Webster, Noah (1832), History of the United States (New Haven, CT: Durrie & Peck).

Witherspoon, John (1777), The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men (Philadelphia, PA: Town & Country), http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Dominion_of_Providence_Over_the_Pass.html?id=HpRIAAAAYAAJ.

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Can God do everything?

A:

Both Christians and atheists generally have assumed that if the God depicted in the Bible exists, He can do anything—since He is represented as being all-powerful. However, this assumption is incorrect. The Bible does not claim that the omnipotence of God implies that He can do anything and everything. In reality, “omnipotence” by definition does not, and cannot, apply to that which does not lend itself to power. Skeptics and atheists have posed queries that they feel nullify the notion of omnipotence, thereby demonstrating the nonexistence of God. For example, “Can God create a boulder so large that He, Himself, cannot lift it?”

Separate and apart from the fact that God is not, Himself, physical, and that He created the entire physical Universe, though He is metaphysical and transcendent of the Universe, the question is a conceptual absurdity. It’s like asking, “Can God create a round square or a four-sided triangle?” No, He cannot—but not for the reasons implied by the atheist: that He does not exist or that He is not omnipotent. Rather, it is because the question is, itself, self-contradictory and incoherent. It is nonsensical terminology. Rather than saying God cannot do such things, it would be more in harmony with reality to say that such things simply cannot be done at all. God is infinite in power, but power meaningfully relates only to what can be done, to what is possible of accomplishment—not to what is impossible! It is absurd to speak of any power (even infinite power) being able to do what simply cannot be done. Logical absurdities do not lend themselves to being accomplished, and so, are not subject to power, not even to infinite power (see Warren, 1972, pp. 27ff.).

Further, to suggest that God is deficient or limited in power if He cannot create a rock so large that He cannot lift, is to imply that He could do so if He simply had more power. But this is false. Creating a rock that He, Himself, cannot lift, or creating a four-sided triangle, or making a ball that is at the same time both white all over and black all over, or creating a 90-year-old teenager, or making a car that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside—to propose such things is to affirm logical contradictions and absurdities. Such propositions do not really say anything at all. Though one can imagine logical absurdities that cannot be accomplished, they do not constitute a telling blow against the view that God is infinite in power.

So, no, the concept of “omnipotence” does not mean that there are no limits to what an omnipotent being can do. While God can do whatever is possible to be done, in reality, He will do only what is in harmony with His nature. In fact, the Bible pinpoints specific things that God cannot do. For example, the Bible states unequivocally that God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; 2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2). He is a Being whose very essence entails truthfulness. Falsehood is completely out of harmony with His divine nature.

Another impossibility pertaining to God’s power is the fact that He shows no partiality or favoritism (Deuteronomy 10:17; Romans 2:11; Colossians 3:25; 1 Peter 1:17). He is “open and above board”—evenhanded—with all His creatures. He can be counted on to interact with human beings as He said He would. His treatment of us centers on our own self-chosen behavior—not on our ethnicity or skin color (Acts 10:34-35; 1 Samuel 16:7).

A third instance that qualifies the meaning of “omnipotent” is seen in God’s inability to forgive the individual who will not repent and forsake sin (Joshua 24:19; Proverbs 28:13; Matthew 6:15; 18:35; Luke 13:3,5). As great and as magnificent as the mercy and forgiveness of God are, it is impossible for Him to bestow forgiveness upon the person who does not seek that forgiveness by meeting the pre-conditions of remission. God is literally powerless to bestow forgiveness through any other avenue than the blood of Jesus and obedience to the Gospel of Christ (Romans 1:16; 2:8; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17; John 3:5).

The more one studies the Bible, examining the attributes and characteristics of the God depicted there, the more one is struck with (1) the inspiration of the Bible—since its skillful handling of such matters places it beyond the charge of successful contradiction, and (2) awe at the infinitude of God. Not one of the factors discussed in this article reflects adversely upon the reality of God’s omnipotence. But it is abundantly clear that a person may so live as to render the God of heaven incapable of coming to that person’s aid. It is imperative that every human being recognizes the need to understand His will and to conform one’s behavior to that will. It is imperative that every individual avoid placing self in the precarious position of being in need of that which God cannot do.

REFERENCE

Warren, Thomas B. (1972), Have Atheists Proved There Is No God (Jonesboro, AR: National Christian Press).

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Some 3,400 years before the Holocaust, the God of the Bible commanded the Israelites to “destroy all the inhabitants of the land” of Canaan (Joshua 9:24). They were to conquer, kill, and cast out the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites (Exodus 23:23; Deuteronomy 7:1-2; Joshua 3:10). After crossing the Jordan River, we learn in the book of Joshua that the Israelites “utterly destroyed all that was in the city [of Jericho], both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword…. [T]hey burned the city and all that was in it with fire” (Joshua 6:21,24). They also “utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai” (Joshua 8:26), killing 12,000 men and women, and hanging their king (8:25,29). In Makkedah and Libnah, the Israelites “let none remain” (Joshua 10:28,30). They struck Lachish “and all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword” (10:32). The Israelites then conquered Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, and Hazor (10:33-39; 11:1-1). “So all the cities of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua took and struck with the edge of the sword. He utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded” (Joshua 11:12).

God had the Israelites kill countless thousands, perhaps millions, of people throughout the land of Canaan. It was genocide in the sense that it was a planned, systematic, limited extermination of a number of nation states from a relatively small area in the Middle East (cf. “Genocide,” 2000; cf. also “Genocide,” 2012). But, it was not a war against a particular race (from the Greek genos) or ethnic group. Nor were the Israelites commanded to pursue and kill the Canaanite nations if they fled from Israel’s Promised Land. The Israelites were to drive out and dispossess the nations of their land (killing all who resisted the dispossession), but they were not instructed to annihilate a particular race or ethnic group from the face of the Earth.

Still, many find God’s commands to conquer and destroy the Canaanite nation states problematic. How could a loving God instruct one group of people to kill and conquer another group? America’s most well-known critic of Christianity in the late 1700s and early 1800s, Thomas Paine (one of only a handful of America’s Founding Fathers who did not claim to be a Christian), called the God of the Old Testament “the Mars of the Jews, the fighting God of Israel,” Who was “boisterous, contemptible, and vulgar” (Paine, 1807). Two centuries later, Richard Dawkins (arguably the most famous atheist in the world today), published his book The God Delusion, which soon became a New York Times bestseller. One of the most oft-quoted phrases from this work comes from page 31, where Dawkins called God, a “racist, infanticidal, genocidal…capriciously malevolent bully” (2006). According to one search engine, this quote (in part or in whole) is found on-line approximately one million times. The fact is, critics of the God of the Bible are fond of repeating the allegation that, because of His instruction to the Israelites to kill millions of people in their conquest of Canaan, the God of the Bible has (allegedly) shown Himself to be an unruly, shameful, offensive, genocidal, “evil monster” (Dawkins, p. 248; cf. Hitchens, 2007, p. 107).

Was God’s Campaign Against Canaan Immoral?

How could a supremely good (Mark 10:18), all-loving (1 John 4:8), perfectly holy God (Leviticus 11:44-45) order the Israelites to slay with swords myriads of human beings, letting “none remain” in Canaan? Is not such a planned, systematic extermination of nations equivalent to the murderous actions of the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s, as atheists and other critics of Christianity would have us believe? In truth, God’s actions in Israel’s conquest of Canaan were in perfect harmony with His supremely loving, merciful, righteous, just, and holy nature.

Punishing Evildoers is Not Unloving

Similar to how merciful parents, principals, policemen, and judges can justly administer punishment to rule-breakers and evildoers, so, too, can the all-knowing, all-loving Creator of the Universe. Loving parents and principals have administered corporal punishment appropriately to children for years (cf. Proverbs 13:24). Merciful policemen, who are constantly saving the lives of the innocent, have the authority (both from God and the government—Romans 13:1-4) to kill a wicked person who is murdering others. Just judges have the authority to sentence a depraved child rapist to death. Loving-kindness and corporal or capital punishment are not antithetical. Prior to conquering Canaan, God commanded the Israelites, saying,

You shall not hate your brother in your heart…. You shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself…. And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself (Leviticus 19:17-18,33-34; cf. Romans 13:9).

The faithful Jew was expected, as are Christians, to “not resist an evil person” (Matthew 5:39) but rather “go the extra mile” (Matthew 5:41) and “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39). “Love,” after all, “is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10; cf. Matthew 22:36-40). Interestingly, however, the Israelite was commanded to punish (even kill) lawbreakers. Just five chapters after commanding the individual Israelite to “not take vengeance,” but “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), God twice said that murderers would receive the death penalty (Leviticus 24:21,17).

The Wickedness of the Inhabitants of Canaan

The Canaanite nations were punished because of their extreme wickedness. God did not cast out the Canaanites for being a particular race or ethnic group. God did not send the Israelites into the land of Canaan to destroy a number of righteous nations. On the contrary, the Canaanite nations were horribly depraved. They practiced “abominable customs” (Leviticus 18:30) and did “detestable things” (Deuteronomy 18:9, NASB). They practiced idolatry, witchcraft, soothsaying, and sorcery. They attempted to cast spells upon people and call up the dead (Deuteronomy 18:10-11).

Their “cultic practice was barbarous and thoroughly licentious” (Unger, 1954, p. 175). Their “deities…had no moral character whatever,” which “must have brought out the worst traits in their devotees and entailed many of the most demoralizing practices of the time,” including sensuous nudity, orgiastic nature-worship, snake worship, and even child sacrifice (Unger, 1954, p. 175; cf. Albright, 1940, p. 214). As Moses wrote, the inhabitants of Canaan would “burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:30). The Canaanite nations were anything but “innocent.” In truth, “[t]hese Canaanite cults were utterly immoral, decadent, and corrupt, dangerously contaminating and thoroughly justifying the divine command to destroy their devotees” (Unger, 1988). They were so nefarious that God said they defiled the land and the land could stomach them no longer—“the land vomited out its inhabitants” (Leviticus 18:25). [NOTE: Israel was an imperfect nation (as all nations are), but God still used them to punish the Canaanites. God warned Israel before ever entering Canaan, however, that if they forsook His law, they, too, would be severely punished (Deuteronomy 28:15ff). In fact, similar to how God used the Israelites to bring judgment upon the inhabitants of Canaan in the time of Joshua, He used the pagan nations of Babylon and Assyria to judge and conquer Israel hundreds of years later.]

The Longsuffering of God

Unlike the foolish, impulsive, quick-tempered reactions of many men (Proverbs 14:29), the Lord is “slow to anger and great in mercy” (Psalm 145:8). He is “longsuffering…, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Immediately following a reminder to the Christians in Rome that the Old Testament was “written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope,” the apostle Paul referred to God as “the God of patience” (Romans 15:4-5). Throughout the Old Testament, the Bible writers portrayed God as longsuffering.

Though in Noah’s day, “the wickedness of man was great in the earth” and “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5), “the Divine longsuffering waited” (1 Peter 3:20). (It seems as though God delayed flooding the Earth for 120 years as His Spirit’s message of righteousness was preached to a wicked world—Genesis 6:3; 2 Peter 2:5.) In the days of Abraham, God ultimately decided to spare the iniquitous city of Sodom, not if 50 righteous people were found living therein, but only 10 righteous individuals.

And what about prior to God’s destruction of the Canaanite nations? Did God quickly decide to cast them out of the land? Did He respond to the peoples’ wickedness like an impulsive, reckless mad-man? Or was He, as the Bible repeatedly states and exemplifies, longsuffering? Indeed, God waited. He waited more than four centuries to bring judgment upon the inhabitants of Canaan. Although the Amorites were already a sinful people in Abraham’s day, God delayed in giving the descendants of the patriarch the Promised Land. He would wait until the Israelites had been in Egypt for hundreds of years, because at the time that God spoke with Abraham “the iniquity of the Amorites” was “not yet complete” (Genesis 15:16). [NOTE: “The Amorites were so numerous and powerful a tribe in Canaan that they are sometimes named for the whole of the ancient inhabitants, as they are here” (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, 1997).] In Abraham’s day, the inhabitants of Canaan were not so degenerate that God would bring judgment upon them. However, by the time of Joshua (more than 400 years later), the Canaanites’ iniquity was full, and God used the army of Israel to destroy them.

Yes, God is longsuffering, but His longsuffering is not an “eternal” suffering. His patience with impenitent sinners eventually ends. It ended for a wicked world in the days of Noah. It ended for Sodom and Gomorrah in the days of Abraham. And it eventually ended for the inhabitants of Canaan, whom God justly destroyed.

What About the Innocent Children?

The children of Canaan were not guilty of their parents’ sins (cf. Ezekiel 18:20); they were sinless, innocent, precious human beings (cf. Matthew 18:3-5; see Butt, 2003). So how could God justly take the lives of children, any children, “who have no knowledge of good and evil” (Deuteronomy 1:39)? The fact is, as Dave Miller properly noted, “Including the children in the destruction of such populations actually spared them from a worse condition—that of being reared to be as wicked as their parents and thus face eternal punishment. All persons who die in childhood, according to the Bible, are ushered to Paradise and will ultimately reside in Heaven. Children who have parents who are evil must naturally suffer innocently while on Earth (e.g., Numbers 14:33)” (Miller, 2009). God, the Giver of life (Acts 17:25; Ecclesiastes 12:7), and only God has the right to take the life of His creation whenever He chooses (for the righteous purposes that He has). At times in history, God took the life of men out of righteous judgment. At other times (as in the case of children), it was taken for merciful reasons. [NOTE: For a superb, extensive discussion on the relationship between (1) the goodness of God, (2) the contradictory, hideousness of atheism, and (3) God bringing about the death of various infants throughout history, see Kyle Butt’s article “Is God Immoral for Killing Innocent Children?” (2009).]

CONCLUSION

Though the enemies of the God of the Bible are frequently heard criticizing Israel’s conquest of Canaan, the fact is, such a conquest was in complete harmony with God’s perfectly loving, holy, and righteous nature. After patiently waiting for hundreds of years, God eventually used the Israelites to bring judgment upon myriads of wicked Canaanites. Simultaneously, He spared their children a fate much worse than physical death—the horror of growing up in a reprehensible culture and becoming like their hedonistic parents—and immediately ushered them into a pain-free, marvelous place called Paradise (Luke 16:19-31; 23:43).

REFERENCES

Albright, William F. (1940), From the Stone Age to Christianity (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins).

Butt, Kyle (2003), “Do Babies Go to Hell When They Die?” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=1201.

Butt, Kyle (2009), “Is God Immoral for Killing Innocent Children?” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/article/260.

Dawkins, Richard (2006), The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin).

“Genocide” (2000), The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin), fourth edition.

“Genocide” (2012), Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide.

Hitchens, Christopher (2007), God is Not Great (New York: Twelve).

“Holocaust” (2011), Encyclopedia.com, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Holocaust.aspx#1.

Jamieson, Robert, et al. (1997), Jamieson, Fausset, Brown Bible Commentary (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).

Miller, Dave (2009), “Did God Order the Killing of Babies?” Apologetics Press, http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=2810.

Paine, Thomas (1807), “Essay on Dream,” http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/paine/dream.htm.

Unger, Merrill F. (1954), Archaeology and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Unger, Merrill F. (1988), “Canaan,” The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).

The post God’s Just Destruction of the Canaanites appeared first on Apologetics Press.

Oftentimes, however, passages of Scripture are cited by Bible critics as “proof” of the Book’s errancy and of the contradictory portrait that the inspired writers allegedly painted of God. In his 2009 debate with Kyle Butt on the existence of God, atheist Dan Barker spent nearly two-thirds of his opening 15-minute speech listing 14 alleged “inconsistencies” among Bible verses that allude to various characteristics and actions of God. Four of those 14 “contradictions” were from the book of Genesis (Butt and Barker, 2009). Dennis McKinsey, in his book titled Biblical Errancy, spent 44 pages listing numerous charges against God and the Bible’s statements about Him. Sixteen of those 44 pages referred a total of 37 times to alleged problematic passages in the book of Genesis (McKinsey, 2000, pp. 133-177). On his Web site attempting to expose the Bible and the God of the Bible as frauds, R. Paul Buchman listed 83 “contradictions” involving “God’s Nature” and 142 about “God’s Laws” (2011). Fifty-one times he referred to Genesis.

Legion are those who claim that the Bible paints an inexplicable, paradoxical portrait of God. When the Scriptures are honestly and carefully examined, however, all such criticisms of the Creator and His Word are shown to be either mere misunderstandings or artificially contrived contradictions. Consider some of the most frequently cited allegations against Jehovah in Genesis.

DOES JEHOVAH REALLY KNOW EVERYTHING?

Numerous passages of Scripture clearly teach that God is omniscient. The Bible declares that the Lord “knows the secrets of the heart” (Psalm 44:21), that His eyes “are in every place” (Proverbs 15:3), and that “His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:5). Of Jehovah, the psalmist also wrote:

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether…. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there (139:1-4,6-8).

The New Testament reemphasizes this truth, saying, “God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (1 John 3:20, emp. added). “[T]here is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). Not only does He know the past and the present, but the future as well (Acts 15:18; cf. Isaiah 46:10). There is nothing outside of the awareness of God.

If God knows (and sees) everything, some have questioned why certain statements exist in Scripture that seem to indicate otherwise. Why was it that God questioned Cain regarding the whereabouts of his brother Abel if He already knew where he was (Genesis 4:6)? Why did the Lord and two of His angels ask Abraham about the location of his wife if He is omniscient (Genesis 18:9)? And, if God knows all and sees all, why did He say to Abraham concerning Sodom and Gomorrah: “I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know” (Genesis 18:21, emp. added; cf. Genesis 22:12)? If God is omniscient, why would He need to “go” somewhere to “see whether” people were wicked or not? Does God really know everything?

First, when critics claim that the questions God asked Cain or Sarah (or Satan—cf. Job 1:7; 2:2) suggest that God’s knowledge is limited, they are assuming that all questions are asked solely for the purpose of obtaining information. Common sense should tell us, however, that questions often are asked for other reasons. Are we to assume that God was ignorant of Adam’s whereabouts when He asked him, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). At the beginning of God’s first speech to Job, God asked the patriarch, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?” (38:4). Are we to believe that God did not know where Job was when He created the world? Certainly not! What father, having seen his son dent a car door, has not asked him, “Who did that?” Obviously, the father did not ask the question to obtain information, but rather to see if the son would admit to something the father knew all along. When a dog owner, who comes home from work and sees the arm of his couch chewed to pieces, points to the couch and asks his puppy, “Did you do that?” are we to think that the owner really is asking the question for his own benefit?

On occasion, Jesus used questions for the same purpose. When He questioned the Pharisees’ disciples and the Herodians regarding whose inscription was on a particular coin, it clearly was not because He did not know (Matthew 22:15-22). Likewise, when Jesus asked the multitude that thronged Him, “Who touched Me?” (Luke 8:45), it was not because the woman who touched Him was hidden from Him (Luke 8:47). Jesus knew the woman was made well by touching His garment before she ever confessed to touching Him (Mark 5:32). Thus, His question was intended to bring attention to her great faith and His great power (Mark 5:34). Truly, in no way are the questions God asks mankind an indication of His being less than divine.

What about Jehovah’s statement to Abraham recorded in Genesis 18:21? Did He not know the state of Sodom and Gomorrah prior to His messengers’ visit (Genesis 18:22; 19:1-29)? Did He have to “learn” whether the inhabitants of these two cities were as evil as some had said? Certainly not. Moses and the other Bible writer’s usage of phrases such as “I will know” (Genesis 18:21) or “now I know” (Genesis 22:12) in reference to God, actually are for the benefit of man. Throughout the Bible, human actions (such as learning) frequently are attributed to God for the purpose of helping finite beings better understand Him. This kind of accommodative language is called anthropomorphic (meaning “man form”). When Jehovah “came down to see the city and the tower” built at Babel (Genesis 11:5), it was not for the purpose of gaining knowledge. Anthropomorphic expressions such as these are not meant to suggest that God is not fully aware of everything. Rather, as in the case of Babel, such wording was used to show that He was “officially and judicially taking the situation under direct observation and consideration, it having become so flagrant that there was danger (as in the days of Noah) that the truth of God’s revelation might be completely obliterated if it were allowed to continue” (Morris, 1976, p. 272). Almighty God visited Sodom and Gomorrah likely “for appearance’ sake, that men might know directly that God had actually seen the full situation before He acted in judgment” (Morris, p. 342). As Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown noted in their commentary on Genesis: “These cities were to be made ensamples to all future ages of God’s severity, and therefore ample proof given that the judgment was neither rash nor excessive (Ezek 18:23; Jer 18:7)” (1997).

Similar to how God instructs man to pray and make “known” to Him our petitions for our benefit (Philippians 4:6), even though He actually already knows our prayers and needs before they are voiced (Matthew 6:8), for our profit the all-knowing God sometimes is spoken of in accommodative language as acquiring knowledge.

WAS GOD’S NAME “JEHOVAH” MADE KNOWN TO THE PATRIARCHS?

Skeptics not only criticize the Bible’s teaching about God’s knowledge; they are also critical of what Scripture says man has known (via revelation from God) in the past. You would find it odd if someone you had known very well for years said, “you did not know him.” You might think this friend had become a liar or a lunatic if he indicated that you were not aware of his name, even though you had known his first and last name for many years. Skeptics claim we should be equally bothered by what the Bible says, because it indicates that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not know God by His name, Jehovah, even though the book of Genesis indicates that they did.

After Moses first visited Pharaoh regarding the release of the Israelites from bondage, God assured Moses that the Israelites would be liberated. He then added: “I am Jehovah: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them” (Exodus 6:2-3, emp. added; NOTE: All Scripture citations in this section are taken from the American Standard Version). The difficulty that Bible students have with this statement is that the name “Jehovah” (Hebrew Yahweh; translated LORD in most modern versions) appears approximately 160 times in the book of Genesis. Furthermore, “Jehovah” is used between Genesis chapters 12-50 (which deal mainly with the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) more than 100 times.

After God provided a ram for Abraham to sacrifice (instead of his son, Isaac) on Mount Moriah, Genesis 22:14 says, “Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh. As it is said to this day, in the mount of Jehovah it shall be provided” (emp. added). Years later, Isaac asked his son Jacob (who was deceiving his father in hopes of receiving a blessing), “How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said, because Jehovah thy God sent me good speed” (Genesis 27:20, emp. added). How could God tell Moses that “by my name Jehovah I was not known to them” (Exodus 6:3), if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were well aware of the name Jehovah, and even used it in their conversations? Is God a liar? Does the Bible contradict itself on this point? What reasonable answer can be given?

There is no denying the fact that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were aware of God’s name, Jehovah (Yahweh) [cf. Genesis 15:7; 22:14,24-35,40,42,48,56; 24:50,51; 26:22; 27:20; 49:18; etc.]. As John J. Davis wrote: “[I]n the book of Genesis…the name of Yahweh is introduced in a way which utterly precludes the supposition that it is used proleptically, or that it is anything but a correct account of the incident and the actual term employed” (Davis, 1963, 4[1]:34). Based upon the number of times the word (Yahweh) appears in Genesis, and the various ways in which it was used, including being a part of compound names that have specific meanings (e.g., Jehovah-jireh, meaning “Jehovah will provide”), it is unwise to argue that the patriarchs in Genesis were unaware of the name Jehovah. So what is the answer to this alleged problem?

Although Bible critics and unbelievers may scoff at any attempt to explain Moses’ statement, which they believe is irresolvable, the fact is, a logical explanation exists. The expressions “to know the name of Jehovah” or simply “to know Jehovah” frequently mean more than a mere awareness of His name and existence. Rather, “to know” (from the Hebrew word yada) often means to learn by experience. When Samuel was a boy, the Bible reveals that he “ministered before/unto Jehovah” (1 Samuel 2:18; 3:1), and “increased in favor both with Jehovah, and also with men” (2:26). Later, however, we learn that “Samuel did not yet know Jehovah, neither was the word of Jehovah yet revealed unto him” (1 Samuel 3:7, emp. added). In one sense, Samuel “knew” Jehovah early on, but beginning in 1 Samuel 3:7 his relationship with God changed. From this point forward he began receiving direct revelations from God (cf. 1 Samuel 3:11-14; 8:7-10,22; 9:15-17; 16:1-3; etc.). Comparing this new relationship with God to his previous relationship and knowledge of Him, the author of 1 Samuel could reasonably say that beforehand “Samuel did not yet know Jehovah” (3:7).

According to Gleason Archer, the phrase “to know that I am Jehovah” (or “to know the name of Jehovah”) appears in the Old Testament at least 26 times, and “in every instance it signifies to learn by actual experience that God is Yahweh” (1982, pp. 66-67). In the book of Exodus alone, the expression “to know” (yada) appears five times in relation to Jehovah, and “[i]n every case it suggests an experiential knowledge of both the person and power of Yahweh. In every case the knowledge of Yahweh is connected with some deed or act of Yahweh which in some way reveals both His person and power” (Davis, 4[1]:39). For example, in one of the passages that has drawn so much criticism, God stated: “I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God, who bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Exodus 6:7, emp. added). Later, after God already had sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians (Exodus 7:14-12:30), parted the Red Sea (Exodus 14), and miraculously made bitter water sweet (Exodus 15:22-25), He said to Moses, “I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread: and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God”(Exodus 16:11-12, emp. added). After several more weeks, God said to Moses on Mount Sinai: “And they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them: I am Jehovah their God” (Exodus 29:46, emp. added). Did the Israelites not know Who Jehovah was by this time? Without question, they did. “They had already learned of Him as deliverer; now they would know Him as their provider” (Davis, 4[1]:39).

Notice also what Isaiah prophesied centuries after the time of Moses.

Now therefore, what do I here, saith Jehovah, seeing that my people is taken away for nought? They that rule over them do howl, saith Jehovah, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed. Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore (they shall know) in that day that I am he that doth speak; behold, it is I (Isaiah 52:5-6, emp. added).

More than 100 years later, following Judah’s entrance into Babylonian captivity, God foretold of their return to Judea and spoke to them through the prophet Jeremiah. He said: “Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know my hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is Jehovah” (Jeremiah 16:21, emp. added). Are we to gather from these statements that Israel and Judah were not aware of God’s name (Jehovah) before this time in their history? Certainly not. Obviously, something else is meant by the expression “to know (or not know) the name of Jehovah.” In truth, it is a Hebrew idiom that “generally signifies knowledge of some particular act or attribute of Yahweh as it is revealed in His dealing with men” (Davis, 4[1]:40; see also Bullinger, 1898, p. 554).

Even in modern times it is possible for someone to know a person’s name or office without really “knowing” the person (or understanding his/her office). Imagine a group of foreigners who had never heard of Michael “Air” Jordan before meeting him at a particular convention a few years after his retirement from the NBA. They might come to know his name in one sense, but it could also be said that by his name “Air Jordan” they really did not know him. Only after going to a gym and watching him dunk a basketball by jumping (or “flying” in the air) from the free throw line, and seeing him in his original “Air Jordan” shoes, would the group begin to understand the name “Air Jordan.”

Admittedly, at first glance, the many references to “Jehovah” in the book of Genesis may seem to contradict Exodus 6:3. However, when one realizes that the Hebrew idiom “to know” (and specifically “to know” a name) frequently means more than a mere awareness of a person, then the difficulty disappears. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew God as Creator and sovereign Ruler of the Universe. But it would not be until centuries later, when God fulfilled the promises made to these patriarchs by delivering the nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage, that the full import of the name Jehovah would become known.

DID GOD TEMPT ABRAHAM?

One of the most criticized passages throughout the centuries in the book of Genesis has been chapter 22. In recent years, relentless Bible critic Dan Barker has alleged that he “knows” the God of the Bible cannot exist because “there are mutually incompatible properties/characteristics of the God that’s in this book [the Bible—EL] that rule out the possibility of His existence.” One of the scriptures that Barker frequently cites as proof of the Bible’s alleged inconsistent portrait of God is verse one of Genesis 22 (Barker, 1992, p. 169; Barker, 2008, p. 230; Butt and Barker, 2009). According to the King James translation of this passage, Genesis 22:1 affirms that “God did tempt Abraham” (KJV) to sacrifice his son Isaac. However, since James 1:13 says: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (KJV, emp. added), Barker has insisted that God is like a married bachelor or a square circle—He cannot logically exist, if He both tempts and does not tempt.

If Genesis 22:1 actually taught that God really tempted Abraham to commit evil and sin, then the God of the Bible might be a “square circle,” i.e., a logical contradiction. But, the fact of the matter is, God did not tempt Abraham to commit evil. Barker and others have formulated this argument based upon the King James Version and only one meaning of the Hebrew word (nissâ) that is used in Genesis 22:1. Although the word can mean “to tempt,” the first two meanings that Brown, Driver, and Briggs give for nissâ in their Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament is “to test, to try” (1993). Likewise, the Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (1997) defines the word simply “to test” (Jenni and Westermann, 1997, 2:741-742). The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament agrees that nissâ is best translated, whether in secular or theological contexts, as “testing” (Botterweck, et al., 1998, 9:443-455). For this reason, virtually all major translations in recent times, including the NKJV, NASB, ESV, NIV, and RSV, translate Genesis 22:1 using the term “tested,” not tempted.

When David put on the armor of King Saul prior to battling Goliath, the shepherd realized: “I cannot walk with these, for I have not tested (nissâ) them” (1 Samuel 17:39, emp. added). Obviously, this testing had nothing to do with David “tempting” his armor; he simply had not tested or tried on Saul’s armor previously. God led Israel during 40 years of desert wanderings “to humble…and test” them (Deuteronomy 8:2, emp. added), not to tempt them to sin. Notice also the contrast in Exodus 20:20 between (1) God testing man and (2) trying to cause man to sin. After giving Israel the Ten Commandments, Moses said: “Do not fear; for God has come to test (nissâ) you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin” (Exodus 20:20, emp. added). If one were to use Barker’s reasoning that nissâ must mean “to tempt,” regardless of the context, then he would have to interpret Exodus 20:20 to mean that God tempted Israel to sin, so that they would not sin—which would be an absurd interpretation.

When a person interprets the Bible, or any other book, without recognizing that words have a variety of meanings and can be used in various senses, a rational interpretation is impossible. Many alleged Bible contradictions are easily explained simply by acknowledging that words are used in a variety of ways (as they are today). Is a word to be taken literally or figuratively? Must the term in one place mean the exact same thing when in another context, or may it have different meanings? If English-speaking Americans can intelligibly converse about running to the store in the 21^st century by driving a car, or if we can easily communicate about parking on driveways, and driving on parkways, why do some people have such a difficult time understanding the various ways in which words were used in Bible times? Could it be that some Bible critics like Barker are simply predisposed to interpret Scripture unfairly? The evidence reveals that is exactly what is happening.

Rather then contradicting James 1:13, Genesis 22:1 actually corresponds perfectly with what James wrote near the beginning of his epistle: “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (1:2-4, emp. added). By instructing Abraham to sacrifice his promised son (cf. Hebrews 11:17), God gave Abraham another opportunity to prove his loyalty to Him, while Abraham simultaneously used this trial to continue developing a more complete, mature faith.

SEEING JEHOVAH “FACE TO FACE”

Another attack that skeptics have leveled against God, Genesis, and the inspired writers, involves the theophanies of God. Throughout the book of Genesis, Moses recorded where Jehovah “appeared” to man several times. He appeared to Abraham at about the age of 75 (12:7). He appeared to him again about a quarter of a century later (17:1). Prior to His destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God appeared to Abraham in Mamre (18:1). The Lord also appeared to Isaac and Jacob (26:2; 26:24; 35:9). In Genesis 32:30, after wrestling with God, Jacob even exclaimed, “I have seen God face to face” (emp. added). Such appearances of Jehovah in Genesis have caused some to question the reliability of the Bible, and in particular the book of Genesis (Wells, 2012). How could God have appeared to man, and spoken to him “face to face,” when other biblical passages clearly teach that God’s face cannot be seen (Exodus 33:20-23; John 1:18; 1 John 4:12)?

Although in modern times words are regularly used in many different senses (e.g., hot and cold, good and bad), Bible critics have dismissed the possibility that the terms in the aforementioned passages were used in various ways. Throughout Scripture, however, words are often used in different ways. In James 2:5, the term “poor” refers to material wealth, whereas the term “rich” has to do with a person’s spiritual well-being (cf. Lyons, 2006). In Philippians 3:12,15, Paul used the term “perfect” (NASB) in different senses. Although Paul had attained spiritual maturity (“perfection”) in Christ (vs. 15), he had not yet attained the perfect “final thing, the victor’s prize of the heavenly calling in Christ Jesus” (Schippers, 1971, 2:62; cf. Philippians 3:9-11). Similarly, in one sense, man has seen God, but in another sense he has not.

Consider the first chapter of John where we learn that in the beginning Jesus was with God and “was God” (1:1; cf. 14,17). Though John wrote that Jesus “became flesh and dwelt among us” (1:14), he indicated only four sentences later that “no one has seen God at any time” (1:18; 1 John 4:12). Was Jesus God? Yes. Did man see Jesus? Yes. So in what sense has man not seen God? No human has ever seen Jesus in His true image (i.e., as a spirit Being [John 4:24] in all of His fullness, glory, and splendor). When God, the Word, appeared on Earth 2,000 years ago, He came in a veiled form. In his letter to the church at Philippi, the apostle Paul mentioned that Christ—Who had existed in heaven “in the form of God”—“made Himself of no reputation,” and took on the “likeness of men” (2:6-7). Mankind saw an embodiment of deity as Jesus dwelt on Earth in the form of a man. Men saw “the Word” that “became flesh.” Likewise, when Jacob “struggled with God” (Genesis 32:28), He saw only a form of God, not the spiritual, invisible, omnipresent God Who fills heaven and Earth (Jeremiah 23:23-24).

But what about those statements which indicate that man saw or spoke to God “face to face”? Jacob said, “I have seen God face to face” (Genesis 32:30). Gideon proclaimed: “I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face” (Judges 6:22). Exodus 33:11 affirms that “the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” First, although these men witnessed great and awesome things, they still only saw manifestations of God and a part of His glory (cf. Exodus 33:18-23). Second, the words “face” and “face to face” are used in different senses in Scripture. Though Exodus 33:11 reveals that God spoke to Moses “face to face,” only nine verses later God told Moses, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live” (33:20). Are we to believe that the author of Exodus was so misguided and careless that he wrote contradictory statements within only nine verses of each other? Surely not. What then does the Bible mean when it says that God “knew” (Deuteronomy 34:10), “spoke to” (Exodus 33:11), and “saw” man “face to face” (Genesis 32:30)?

A logical answer can be found in Numbers 12. Aaron and Miriam had spoken against Moses and arrogantly asked: “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” (Numbers 12:2). God then appeared to Aaron and Miriam, saying: “If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the Lord” (Numbers 12:6-8, emp. added). Notice the contrast: God spoke to the prophets of Israel through visions and dreams, but to Moses He spoke, “not in dark sayings,” but “plainly.” In other words, God, Who never showed His face to Moses (Deuteronomy 33:20), nevertheless allowed Moses to see “some unmistakable evidence of His glorious presence” (Jamieson, et al., 1997), and spoke to him “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (33:11), i.e., He spoke to Moses plainly and directly.

CONCLUSION

Neither the book of Genesis nor the Bible as a whole reveals “mutually incompatible characteristics of God” as modern-day skeptics have alleged. In actuality, many comments by the enemies of God reveal their devious, dishonest handling of Truth (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:2; 2 Timothy 2:15). Think about it: If skeptics can work “side by side” with a colleague without literally working inches from him (Barker, 2008, p. 335), or if he can see “eye to eye” with a fellow atheist without ever literally looking into the atheist’s eyes, then can they not understand that, for example, God could speak “face to face” with the patriarchs and prophets of old without literally revealing to them His full, glorious “face”? Indeed, it is the inconsistent allegations of the critic that should be under scrutiny. He readily accepts the understandable, non-discrepant differences in many modern-day writings, yet loudly protests against similar logical, explainable differences in Scripture.

Skeptics’ assertions in no way prove that the God of the Bible does not exist or that the Bible is unreliable. In fact, the opposite is true. The more that skeptics test the Scriptures, trying to find flaws of all kinds, the more evidence comes to light that it is actually of Divine origin (see Butt, 2007).

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

REFERENCES

Archer, Gleason L. (1982), An Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Barker, Dan (1992), Losing Faith in Faith (Madison, WI: Freedom From Religion Foundation).

Barker, Dan (2008), godless (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press).

Botterweck, G. Johannes, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry (1998), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Brown, Francis, S.R. Driver, and Charles B. Briggs (1993), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).

Buchman, R. Paul (2011), “1001 Contradictions and Discrepancies in the Christian Bibles,” http://www.1001biblecontradic-tions.com/index.html.

Bullinger, E.W. (1898), Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1968 reprint).

Butt, Kyle (2007), Behold! The Word of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Butt, Kyle and Dan Barker (2009), The Butt/Barker Debate: Does the God of the Bible Exist? (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Davis, John J. (1963), “The Patriarchs’ Knowledge of Jehovah: A Critical Monograph on Exodus 6:3,” Grace Theological Journal, 4[1]:29-43, Winter.

Jamieson, Robert, et al. (1997), Jamieson, Fausset, Brown Bible Commentary (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).

Jenni, Ernst and Claus Westerman (1997), Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson).

Lyons, Eric (2006), “Answering the Allegations,” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=539.

McKinsey, C. Dennis (2000), Biblical Errancy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books).

Morris, Henry M. (1976), The Genesis Record (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).

Schippers, R. (1971), Telos, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Wells, Steve (2012), Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/seen.html.

The post Clearing-Up “Contradictions” about Jehovah in Genesis appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[Author’s Note: The latter half of this question, which concerns hell, is a sentiment that is often used by skeptics to cast doubt on the veracity of the Bible and the God depicted in its pages. We will deal with this question in two distinct sections. First, we will see what the Bible has to say about why God created humans in general. Then we will proceed to show that the concept of hell, and God’s foreknowledge about who will choose to go there, does not rationally or morally militate against the God of the Bible.]

If there is an all-knowing, all-powerful God (and there is, see Existence of God), then we would expect His motivations for action to be, in many cases, unknown to us. Since there would be so many things that He would know and we would not, it would be virtually impossible for us to understand His reasons for certain actions unless He condescended to explain them. As Isaiah the prophet wrote: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9). In one sense we could liken God’s relationship to humans to the knowledge that a five-year-old child would have of some of the actions of her parents. Suppose a child sees a parent pull out a small, rectangular checkbook, write something on a check, pull the check out and put it in an envelope, place a stamp on it, and put it in the mail. The child might ask, “Mommy, why did you do that?” The mother might respond, “So that we can keep driving our car without the bank taking it from us.” How could the child possibly connect a piece of paper to driving a car? Without knowing the details of how a check represents money, how the car was purchased from a dealership, how the bank loaned the parents money, etc., then the child could not grasp the significance of the check.

In a similar way, there are things that God has done that we humans can never fully understand for the simple reason that God has not told us why He has done them. Or, perhaps He has told us, but His answer does not give all the details that our human curiosity might wish. Moses well understood this idea when he wrote: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which have been revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Some things God tells us; some things He does not.

When we approach the question of why God created humans, we find ourselves dealing with a question for which God has not provided an extensive answer. The simple answer given in the Bible is that God created humans, as well as the rest of creation, by His will and for His glory.

BY HIS WILL

Revelation 4:11 declares: “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created” (emp. added). The “take home” message from this verse is that God freely chose to create and was not constrained by any outside force or by a need to fill any type of deficiency. Psalm 115:3 says: “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases.” The simple, but none too informative, answer to our question is that God wanted to create humans, so He did.

We must stress, at this point, that His desire to create humans was not because He needed them for some reason. There have been those, especially in ancient religions, who have suggested that God was lonely or in some way deficient and needed humans as companions or helpers. This suggestion has no merit. In Acts 17:24-25, the apostle Paul plainly declared: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things” (emp. added).

The fact that God does not need humans to “help” Him is also reflected in Psalm 50:10-12, a statement that quotes God’s own words: “For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine and all its fullness.” This passage is certainly not suggesting that God would actually get hungry. On the contrary, it is implying that God would never need anything from His Creation.

Neither was God “forced” to create humans because He was lonely. Being the all-sufficient Being, there is nothing in God that needs more of anything. God’s eternal communion with Himself (in the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) has always provided all the fellowship God needs to be complete. We can clearly see this communion of the three persons of the Godhead in Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.’” Jesus echoed this sentiment of God’s eternal communion when He prayed to the Father: “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5, emp. added). God’s free will act of creating humans had nothing to do with a need to assuage any loneliness. As Stanley Grenz correctly concluded: “Thus, God’s creation of the universe is a free act, a non-necessary act. God is not driven to create, not forced by some sense of compulsion to bring the universe into existence” (1994, p. 99).

Just because God did not (and does not) need humanity for anything, does not imply that humans are unimportant to God. Once He freely chose to create humans, He endowed them with importance by forming them in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27). As theologian Wayne Grudem rightly commented:

Someone might wonder, if God does not need us for anything, then are we important at all? Is there any significance to our existence or to the existence of the rest of creation? In response it must be said that we are in fact very meaningful because God has created us and determined that we would be meaningful to him. That is the final definition of genuine significance (Grudem, 1994, p. 162, italics in original).

God chose to create us by His free will. When He did, He endowed us with meaning and importance by creating us in His image.

FOR HIS GLORY

The Bible also says that God created humans “for His glory.” The God of the Bible declared: “Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory, I have formed him, yes, I have made him” (Isaiah 43:7, emp. added). It is at this point that we must confess that the phrase “for His glory” opens the door to a great deal of speculation. What does the Bible mean when it says that humans (and all creation) were brought into existence for God’s glory? Does it mean that His creation will praise Him and give Him glory? Does it mean the mere fact that human existence brings glory to God as a manifestation of His power and ingenuity? Does it mean that our continued worship of God, in spite of the existence of suffering and hardship in this world, vindicates God and glorifies Him in contradiction to Satan’s expectations, as illustrated in the book of Job? Everything that is involved in this idea will never be truly understood by humans. We can only say that humans are here “for His glory.”

Some have suggested that if the God of the Bible made humans simply “for His glory,” then this would imply that God is an egotistical dictator Who simply wanted more “subjects” to grovel at His feet and tell Him how great He is. This suggestion fails to comprehend important aspects of the phrase “for His glory.” Not only are humans designed to bring glory to God, but they are also designed to enjoy God’s glory and find their own completeness in it. As Jack Cottrell stated: “Herein lies the purpose of human existence, i.e., to receive God’s goodness and to give him glory” (2002, p. 109). God created humans to live a blissfully happy life receiving His glory and responding in turn to the gift of His glory. It is a perfect feedback loop of humans receiving God’s glory, responding with obedience and praise, and being complete and fulfilled by their reception of God’s glory as well as by their proper response to it. We can say, then, that God created humans to live blissfully perfect lives receiving and reciprocating His glory. Understanding the situation in this light brings to the surface the folly of accusing God of selfish egotism.

KNOWING MOST PEOPLE WILL GO TO HELL

Once we establish the fact that God created humans by His will, to live completely happy lives as they receive and respond to His glory, the skeptic is quick to seize upon the fact that many people are not blissfully happy. In fact, a large number of people are unhappy. Not only that, demands the skeptic, but most people, according to the Bible, are destined to be punished eternally in hell. How is it, the skeptic queries, that a loving God could create humans, knowing that most of them would go to hell? Atheist author David Mills demanded:

If we conclude, then, that God would create Hell to deter human behavior which He disliked—knowing beforehand that the majority of humanity would, as a result, suffer eternal torture—then we would be forced to label this god as evil and sadistic also, because He likewise would have inhumanely tortured individuals in order to accomplish His goals (Mills, 2006, p. 180).

Skeptic Vistonas Wu posted similar thoughts on the Web in an article titled “Debunking the Arguments of Christian Fundamentalists and Evangelists”: “If you were God, and you were omnipotent and could see throughout all time, would you create a world where you knew beforehand that the majority of people would end up in an eternal hell?” (2009). The answer implied by the skeptic is, “No.” But the problem with his reasoning is that humans are not all-knowing and that is why humans are not in such a position. In fact, in light of humanity’s limited knowledge, it easily could be the case that the information we do not have at the present is the very information that would lead an all-knowing Being to create the world as it is. The simple sounding question, “If you were God…,” can never be asked in any legitimate sense, and certainly cannot be used as “evidence” to impugn the character of God. If a person really could be God, then his thought process would be so different from what it is now, there is no way he could say what he would or would not do. It needs to be noted in this context that God has created humans in His image, endowing them with the ability to distinguish truth from error, and those ideas that are rational from those that are not. We are not contending that God’s choice to create people is irrational to humans, but rational to God. We are simply saying that God’s omniscience puts Him in a position to know all the details that would be needed to make a perfectly rational decision.

DISSECTING THE SKEPTIC’S ACCUSATION

The skeptic’s accusation that God is evil because He created humans, even though He knew that most would go to hell, crumbles under closer scrutiny. First, the skeptic is quick to include the idea that “most” people are going to hell. This word “most” must be included in the accusation, because if more people go to heaven than go to hell, one could easily argue (using the skeptics’ own humanistic morality) that the present world is arranged for the benefit of the majority. Since humanistic morality claims an action is moral as long as it brings about the most good for the majority of people (Butt, 2010, pp. 33-36), then skeptics cannot, according to their own standard, criticize a God that saves “most” people in heaven and allows a minority of them to choose hell.

So, can we be sure that “most” people are going to hell? No, and here is why. Numerous verses can be cited that seem to indicate that a majority of people choose hell. The most common passage is Matthew 7:13-14, which states: “Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” According to this passage, many choose the path to destruction, and only few choose the path to life. What is implied in these verses, however, is the idea that those under discussion have the ability and capacity to choose. Those who are not in view in this or other such passages are those who have not yet reached an age or mental capacity to choose—unborn babies, infants, and children. If we can show that children go to heaven (and we can, see Butt, 2003), and we can show that there is at least a possibility that more children have died in a saved condition than adults who have died lost, then we can do away with the idea that “most” people are going to hell. When we consider that worldwide, there are an estimated 42 million abortions each year (Johnston, 2010), and when we understand that children often are the first to die in periods of famine and disease, we are forced to conclude that it is at least possible, and most likely probable, that more humans have died in a saved state than those who will be eternally lost. [NOTE: At this point in the discussion, the skeptic will often change the subject and demand that God cannot be loving and allow all those children to die. This accusation is false and has been definitively refuted, see Butt, 2009]. The skeptic, then, cannot know if “most” people are going to hell, and thus, according to humanistic morality based on the majority, cannot accuse God of evil. In truth, however, the concept of “most” people has very little to do with justifying God’s actions. God’s morality can still be justified even if most people are lost and only a few saved.

GOD WANTS ALL PEOPLE TO CHOOSE TO BE SAVED

The Bible is clear that God allows all accountable  humans to choose their own final destination. Throughout the Scriptures, we see God placing before humans the ability to determine their own destiny. Moses wrote: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Jesus’ statement in Matthew 7:13-14 about the narrow and wide paths included the idea that His listeners had the ability “to enter” whichever path they chose. Joshua underscored this idea of choice when he declared to the Israelites, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). The skeptical community likes to parade before the masses a picture of a tyrant God Who arbitrarily casts people to eternal destruction based on nothing more than whim and caprice. That is not true. Any person who goes to hell will have consciously made the decision to be there. As atheist Dan Barker so clearly stated: “Speaking for myself, if the biblical heaven and hell exist, I would choose hell” (2008, p. 170). C.S. Lewis insightfully noted: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it” (1946, p. 72, ital. in orig.). Timothy Keller added: “All God does in the end with people is give them what they most want, including freedom from himself. What could be more fair than that?” (2008, p. 79).

God allows people to choose their final destiny, and He wants all men to choose to be saved. First Timothy 2:4 says that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Second Peter 3:9 says that the Lord is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Not only does He not want people to choose hell, He sent His Son as a sacrifice for sin to dissuade people from choosing hell and to persuade them to choose heaven. In fact, the book of Hebrews explains that those who choose the path to destruction will trample the Son of God under their feet on their way (Hebrews 10:29). The concept of hell does not militate against God’s love or justice (Butt, 2010, pp. 17-24). [NOTE: I understand that the skeptic does not accept these verses as inspired and does not accept the story of Jesus’ sacrificial atonement. If the skeptic accuses the Bible of portraying God as immoral, however, he must allow the Bible to answer for itself. I am simply saying the Bible presents a cogent, logical argument that shows the skeptics’ accusation of God as being immoral to be wrong. If God really allows people to choose, and if He sent His Son to demonstrate His love and persuade people to choose right, then He cannot be accused of immorality.]

GOD SHOWS NO PARTIALITY

Another key concept to understandingGod’s dealings with humanity is His lack of partiality. The apostle Peter correctly stated: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him” (Acts 10:34-35). This verse testifies to the fact that the Bible presents God as a perfectly impartial, fair Being Who gives every person an equal opportunity to respond to the truth. We must understand, however, that we are not saying that all people have the exact same number of opportunities to hear the Gospel, or are born into identical socio-economic situations, etc. What we are saying is that God fairly judges each person based on the opportunities he or she has been given. As Jesus said: “For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more” (Luke 12:48).  In all the examples in the Bible in which people responded properly to the truth, God provided those people with enough information to be saved (cf. Acts 8:26-38; Acts 10). God, therefore, takes into account every aspect of a person’s inherent make-up and external environment and impartially judges that person’s behavior based on what he or she should do given all the circumstances.

YES, BUT GOD KNEW SOME WOULD CHOOSE HELL…

Once the skeptic realizes that he cannot rationally conclude that God is unfair for allowing all people to choose their own destiny, he must insist that the mere fact God knew some people would choose hell should have kept God from creating those people. An adequate response to such a statement is simply, “Who says?” Is there anything about the skeptic’s charge that shows some type of inherent moral rightness? There is nothing. And while, “Who says?” is an adequate response, it is not the only one at the disposal of the biblical theist. While it is true that God could have only created those humans that He knew would choose heaven, would the skeptic call that “fair”? Would it be fair for God not to create a person, and thereby deprive that person of the same opportunities and chances as other people, simply because God knew that person would choose hell? Such a course of action would actually be truly “unfair” and would land God in the real moral dilemma of showing partiality. On the contrary, the only way for God to be truly fair to all His human creatures would be to allow each of them the same opportunity to choose their own final destination.

The skeptic might then contend that it would have been better for God not to have created humans at all. But the answer to such a statement once again is, “Who says?” Who is the skeptic to say that a world with no humans is one that is better than a world in which humans are all given an equal chance to respond to God’s love, with many millions actually responding obediently and receiving eternal life? On what grounds does the skeptic demand that his perceived world is better than the one that we have? He can appeal to no greater authority than his own personal opinion. In essence, the skeptic is saying nothing more than, “I think it would have been better if humans were not created if some would choose hell.” The response to such an opinion is simply that God, Who knows everything and is completely impartial and perfectly moral and loving, understands at least one thing about the Universe that the skeptic does not know (or refuses to acknowledge) that calls for the situation to be as it is.

CONCLUSION

There is no possible way for our finite human minds to understand all the reasons behind why God created humans. There is enough information about God and humans for us to reason properly that God is not immoral for having created humans. We can know that humans were created by an act of God’s free will to receive and respond to His glory. The skeptic’s vacuous charge that God is immoral for creating humans, knowing that many would choose hell, cannot be sustained. God has given every responsible person an equal opportunity to choose heaven. There is no ground upon which the skeptic can maintain that a world without humans would be a better world than one in which some humans choose eternal life and others choose eternal destruction. In fact, God’s attributes of omniscience, impartiality, and love provide the basis to conclude that only He would be in a position to determine which world would be the very best. When understood properly, the Bible presents a completely consistent picture of God’s moral perfection in regard to His choice to create humans.

REFERENCES

Barker, Dan (2008), godless (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press).

Butt, Kyle (2003), “Do Babies Go to Hell When They Die?” http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=1201.

Butt, Kyle (2009), “Is God Immoral for Killing Babies?” http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=260.

Butt, Kyle (2010), A Christian’s Guide to Refuting Modern Atheism (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Cottrell, Jack (2002), The Faith Once for All (Joplin, MO: College Press).

Grenz, Stanley (1994), Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Grudem, Wayne (1994), Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Johnston, W. Robert (2010), “Summary of Registered Abortions Worldwide, Through April 10, 2010,” http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/wrjp3310.html.

Keller, Timothy (2008), The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton).

Lewis, C.S. (1946), The Great Divorce (New York: Touchstone).

Mills, David (2006), Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press).

Wu, Vistonas (2009), “Debunking the Arguments of Christian Fundamentalists and Evangelists,” http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/Debunking_Christians/Contents.htm.

The post Why Did God Create People—Knowing That Many Would Go to Hell? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

What do atheists mean when they speak of the “Euthyphro Dilemma” as a means to discredit theism?

A:

The so-called Euthyphro Dilemma has its genesis in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro in which Socrates and Euthyphro discuss the nature of piety: “Is the pious  loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” (2008). Over time, philosophers have sharpened the salient point of the dilemma by presenting it in a modified form. The world-renowned late atheist philosopher Antony G.N. Flew worded the argument this way: “Are the things which are good good because God approves of those things, or is it the case that God approves of those things which are good because they are good?” (Warren and Flew, 1977, p. 26). By this thorny contention, the atheist hopes to dismiss the notion of God by placing the theist in an untenable dilemma.

On the one hand, if an action is right simply because God approves it, then morality would be the product of the arbitrary will of God, which He could just as easily alter. Instead of saying that lying and murder are wrong, He could just as well have said they are right—and that divine intention would make them so. On the other hand, if God approves of an action because it is inherently good, then an objective standard exists outside of God that He merely acknowledges. Such a law would therefore be above and higher than God. By the Euthyphro Dilemma, atheists think they have demonstrated that good is either above or beneath God and thereby proof that God is not God (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Euthyphro Dilemma	Figure 2: Reality

But this dilemma is impotent in that it fails to take into account the nature, being, and character of the perfect God of the Bible who is eternal and infinite in all of His attributes. Goodness, like all God’s other attributes, flows from His very being as the Ultimate Good (see Figure 2). Good is neither above nor below God (cf. Mark 10:18; 1 John 4:8; Psalm 33:5). God’s attributes and God’s will are inseparable. The alternatives posed by the atheist do not pose a proper dilemma.

REFERENCES

Plato (2008), Euthyphro, trans. Benjamin Jowett, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1642/1642-h/1642-h.htm.

Warren, Thomas and Antony G.N. Flew (1977), The Warren-Flew Debate on the Existence of God (Ramer, TN: National Christian Press), info@nationalchristianpress.net.

The post The Euthyphro Dilemma appeared first on Apologetics Press.

The Founders of the American Republic most certainly shared this greater concern (Miller, 2009). They repeatedly expressed their conviction that the successful establishment of the nation was dependent on the approval of God. They insisted that it was imperative that Americans not be guilty of offending Him or earning His displeasure, lest their entire national enterprise fail. For example, four months before officially declaring independence from Great Britain, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation to the entire country:

In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered…, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and happy colonies, with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publickly [sic] to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God; to confess and deplore our offences against him; and to supplicate his interposition for averting the threatened danger…. Desirous, at the same time, to have people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a solemn sense of God’s superintending providence, and of their duty, devoutly to rely, in all their lawful enterprises [sic], on his aid and direction, Do earnestly recommend, that Friday, the Seventeenth day of May next, be observed by the said colonies as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that we may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and, by a sincere repentance and amendment of life,appease his righteous displeasure, and, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness; humbly imploring his assistance…. (Journals of…, 4:208-209, emp. added).

Subsequent proclamations contained similar sentiments regarding the wrath of God, including such phrases as: “to acknowledge GOD in all his Ways, and more especially to humble themselves before him when evident tokens of his Displeasure are manifested” (Journals of…, 10:229-230, emp. added); “that so he might turn from his Wrath” (Journals of…, 13:343-344, emp. added); “humbling ourselves before him, and turning from every evil Way to avert his Anger and obtain his Favour” (Journals of…, 16:252-253, emp. added; cf. 19:284-286).

Who, today, believes the perpetuation of a blessed America depends on appeasing God’s righteous displeasure over the sins of Americans? How many Americans are actually and vitally concerned about offending God? Perhaps a key indicator was the number one concern of the vast majority of Americans during the last presidential election—the economy, not morality (“Economy Top Issue…,” 2010)! Since the Bible is proven to be the only book on the planet that conveys the will of God (Butt, 2007), what does it say about offending God? How are Americans offending God today, and consequently endangering the existence of the Republic? The Bible delineates a number of such offenses that merit divine displeasure, but please consider three.

When Harry Reid invited a Hindu priest to open a session of the U.S. Senate with a Hindu prayer, neither he nor a host of others apparently gave the slightest thought to whether such an action was an offense to the God of the Universe. After all, political correctness demands that all religions and ideologies be celebrated and treated as equally authentic. To fail to do so would be “intolerant” and “judgmental”—the only ultimate evil in the minds of many. But to give credence or credibility to pantheistic religion (“God” inside the Earth, sky, etc.; see Miller, 2007b) that advocates belief in thousands of “gods” and that cow-killing is a sin, while rejecting the one true God of the Bible, would be unthinkable in America in 1776. It was equally unthinkable for most Americans until the last 40-50 years. The politically correct climate now enshrouding America literally is suffocating the moral and religious sensibilities of society. The nod to Hinduism follows closely on the heels of the election of a Muslim to the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as the first atheist in Congress (see Miller, 2006; Miller, 2007a).

But wait! The fact is that the God of the Bible exists, He is the only one that exists, and both atheism and polytheism are an affront to His righteous character (cf. Warren and Flew, 1976; Butt and Barker, 2009). Consequently, human behavior that violates His will displeases Him. Rather than being overly concerned with whether our Christian beliefs offend our misguided fellow human beings, we would do well to show greater concern for whether our behavior offends God.

Second, whereas at one time in American culture, the average citizen understood the concept that using God’s name in vain was taboo, now it is common place. Both adults and children regularly use God’s name in a flippant, thoughtless, frivolous way (“Oh, my God!”). Yet, God informed the Israelites that such disrespectful misuse of His name would bring His displeasure: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (Deuteronomy 5:11, emp. added). God holds guilty those who misuse His high and holy name.

Third, the gross and flagrant immorality that has blanketed American civilization, becoming commonplace and comfortable to the population, is an offense to the God of Heaven. The very actions that most Americans disdained for most of American history are now widespread, rampant, and defiantly defended or downplayed: stealing, lying, murder, covetousness, adultery, homosexuality, pre-marital and extra-marital sex, rape, gambling, intoxication, the killing of the unborn, and the list goes on and on. The Great Governor of the Universe is offended by such conduct, and historically, He will allow it to progress only so long and so far (e.g., Genesis 6:5-7; 19:24-25; 15:16; Deuteronomy 7:1-4). Legion are the nations that were destroyed for their wickedness, now lying in rubble, ruins, and the dust of antiquity (see Miller, 2005).

Writing from Mount Vernon on June 29, 1788, the Father of our country, George Washington, wrote a letter to Major General Benjamin Lincoln. In that letter, remarks were made to which every American today ought to pay earnest heed:

No one can rejoice more than I do at every step the people of this great Country take to preserve the Union, establish good order and government, and to render the Nation happy at home and respectable abroad. No Country upon Earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means, and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to, so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass. The great Governor of the Universe has led us too long and too far on the road to happiness and glory, to forsake us in the midst of it. By folly and improper conduct, proceeding from a variety of causes, we may now and then get bewildered; but I hope and trust that there is good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path before we shall be entirely lost (1788, emp. added).

The only remedy and the only hope for America to perpetuate its national existence is to swallow the antidote prescribed by God Himself:

Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God… But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me (Deuteronomy 28:1-2,15,20, emp. added).

REFERENCES

Butt, Kyle (2007), Behold! The Word of God (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Butt, Kyle and Dan Barker (2009), Butt/Barker Debate: Does the God of the Bible Exist? (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

“Economy Top Issue for Voters; Size of Gov’t. May Be More Pivotal” (2010), Gallup, October 26, http://www.gallup.com/poll/144029/Economy-Top-Issue-Voters-Size-Gov-May-Pivotal.aspx.

Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 (1904-1937), ed. Worthington C. Ford, et al. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwjc.html.

Miller, Dave (2005), “Is America’s Iniquity Full?” http://apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=7&article=1528.

Miller, Dave (2006), “A Muslim Now in Congress?” http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=1999.

Miller, Dave (2007a), “First Atheist in Congress,” Reason & Revelation, 6[5]:17,20-R, May, http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=7&article=2140.

Miller, Dave (2007b), “Hindu Prayer in Congress,” Reason & Revelation, 27[8]:57-63, August, http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=592.

Miller, Dave (2009), Christ & the Continental Congress (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

Warren, Thomas B. and Antony Flew (1976), The Warren-Flew Debate (Jonesboro, AR: National Christian Press).

Washington, George (1788), “George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, June 29, 1788,” George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 2 Letterbooks, Letterbook 15, Image 172 of 341, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mgw2&fileName=gwpage015.db&recNum=171.

The post How To Offend God appeared first on Apologetics Press.

[Editor’s Note: The following article was written by A.P. auxiliary staff writer, Kevin Cain, who holds degrees from Freed-Hardeman University (B.S., M.Min.) and the Doctor of Jurisprudence from South Texas College of Law. A former Briefing Attorney of The First Court of Appeals, his current practice focuses on litigation at the trial and appellate levels in both State and Federal Courts.]

I am an attorney. I make a living studying the law, applying the law, and helping my clients navigate the murky waters of the legal profession. Over the years practicing as an attorney, I have come across cases, legal maxims, rules of law, statutes, and experiences that remind me of subtle lessons that God has long ago passed on to us through His holy Word. It simply reminds me of the great wisdom and superiority of God and His ways. One of these lessons was impressed upon me at a recent hearing.

I do not practice criminal law, but many trial courts have a combined civil and criminal docket—meaning they try both civil and criminal cases. Therefore, when I show up at the courthouse for a hearing on a civil case, I often sit and listen to people in orange jumpsuits plead guilty and beg for the judge’s mercy while I wait for my hearing to be called. Usually the assistant district attorney (ADA) and the defense attorney have reached a deal before the defendant pleads guilty. However, this agreement merely results in a recommendation from the ADA to the judge for purposes of sentencing the defendant. The judge may or may not accept this recommendation. The judge may give the defendant deferred adjudication or probation, or he may sentence the defendant to jail time. Rarely does the judge pass a sentence that is harsher than the sentence recommended by the ADA—rare, but not impossible.

I recently sat in a courthouse and listened to an attorney and the defendant’s mother plead for leniency and mercy on behalf of the defendant, who had just plead guilty to arson. The defense attorney begged for probation, while the ADA recommended 10 years in prison. The judge sentenced the 22-year-old man, with his one year-old daughter in the court room, to 15 years in prison. The defendant wept silently, and his mother wept bitterly as her son was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs to begin his 15 years in prison. I do not envy the judges who have to make life-changing decisions like this.

In this lifetime, on this side of eternity, we will never know perfect judgment, where justice and mercy are perfectly blended together resulting in judgment that is perfectly fair. Judges are faced with pleas for mercy, tears of sympathy, and cries for justice. What is a judge to do? Each judge must ask, “Is this defendant truly sorry and changed, or is he simply regretting that he got caught and sorry he is facing judgment?” While we often hear of judges who appear to have exercised poor judgment in their sentencing, and presume that we could do better, this is not a job I want day in and day out. As a judge stares down his gavel at a defendant pleading for his life, how is a judge to know if that person is truly sorry, sincere, or is simply putting on a show?

The true God we read of in the Bible is a perfect judge. He knows the hearts and minds of men. Our God searches the hearts of men—that is, he knows our every thought (Romans 8:27).  God tries our hearts and our minds (Psalm 7:9). “The Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought” (1 Chronicles 28:9). God can look past the external distractions that so often mislead, and He looks directly into our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7). Because of God’s ability to know our thoughts, our motives, and the intents of our hearts, He is a perfect judge who will exact perfect judgment. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). “And He shall judge the world in righteousness, He shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness” (Psalm 9:8). Our God will judge us all with precision, bringing together mercy and wrath perfectly. “But with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and He shall smite the earth: with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4). In other words when God judges this world, separating the saved from the lost, we will still be able to say, “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:37). When we pray for forgiveness, only God knows if we are truly sincere, sorry, and changed. God is a perfect judge.

A person can stand before a judge and fool him into leniency based on a purely external show of feigned sorrow. Another person may incur the judge’s wrath even though he is truly heart-broken and penitent. Nevertheless, our God looks beyond the external tears, confessions, pleas, and apologies; and He knows those who truly have torn hearts and those who merely demonstrate an external, superficial show of sorrow (Joel 2:13). “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7). God is a perfect judge.

Our biases and inconsistencies on this subject are obvious and apparent. When we hear of some person (whom we have never met) who has committed some atrocious crime, we immediately think, “I hope he is punished to the fullest extent of the law, and even beyond that if possible.” However, when it is me or someone I personally know who is facing criminal prosecution, we immediately pray and beg for mercy and understanding from the judge, because we truly are sorry. So, where is the balance, and what is the answer?

In the United States, we have a legal system that is literally second to none. Many people risk their lives every day around this world defending this nation and our liberties and rights. Among those rights, according to the U.S. Constitution, is the right to a trial by jury. People are dying every day in an effort to enter this country of ours to have access to our legal system that is driven and founded on concepts of liberty, justice, and equity. We have a judicial system where disagreements are settled in a civil manner in the court house, not in the streets at the hands of an angry mob. However, our legal system is far from perfect and has more problems and flaws than most attorneys, judges, and jurists would care to admit. We will never know perfect judgment in this lifetime. And thankfully, I am not called to judge every person to determine where they will spend eternity, much less attempt to exact some form of temporary justice for every wrong that is committed today. Rather, God wants me to present every person with God’s Word (Matthew 28:19-20)—the very text, law, and code that will be the guide by which everyone will someday be judged (Revelation 20:12). God wants me to stand in the gap and warn the world of the righteous judgment to come (Ezekiel 3:17-19; 22:30). God will take care of the judging. My role is not to ensure perfect judgment in my time, but to prepare for perfect judgment in God’s time.  God is a perfect judge.

The post Lessons Learned in the Practice of Law: God is a Perfect Judge appeared first on Apologetics Press.

If the soul of man is immortal, however, some wonder how Paul could truthfully write to Timothy that God “alone has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16, emp. added)? If God alone has immortality, then how can man also be immortal?

Indeed, both God and man are immortal. God, by His very nature, is eternal (Psalm 90:2), and thus He is not subject to death (Greek thanatos). Only when God, the Word, put on flesh and physically inhabited His natural world did He willingly subject Himself to death (John 1:1-5,14; 19:30; Philippians 2:5-8). Yet, even then, death had no power over Him (Acts 2:22-36; 1 Corinthians 15:21). He defeated thanatos; He is athanatos (immortal). He not only physically rose from the dead, but His Spirit never ceased to exist.

Still, how can God “alone” have immortality (Greek athanasia; 1 Timothy 6:16), if the soul of man is also immortal (1 Corinthians 15:53-54; cf. Matthew 25:46)? The answer is really quite simple: The only reason man is immortal is because God gives man immortality. God created man differently than plants and animals; He chose to make man “in His own image” (Genesis 1:27). Among other things, one of the great blessings of being an image-bearer of God is that humans have an immortal soul (see Lyons and Thompson, 2002). However, in the sense that God’s everlasting nature is immortal, God alone possesses immortality.

Consider a parallel. According to Scripture, both God and His faithful children are pure and holy (1 John 3:3; Matthew 5:8; 1 Peter 1:16). They are pure and holy, however, on different levels. Whereas God is innately perfect (Isaiah 6:3; James 1:13), man can only become pure and holy through the grace of God and the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:22; Ephesians 1:3-14). God is holy; man becomes holy. Likewise, God “alone [inherently] has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16), but He has given it to man.

REFERENCES

Lyons, Eric and Bert Thompson (2002), “In the ‘Image and Likeness of God’: Parts 1 & 2,” Reason & Revelation, 22:17-32, March and April.

Lyons, Eric and Kyle Butt (2005), “The Eternality of Hell: Parts 1 & 2,” Reason & Revelation, 25:1-15, January and February.

The post Does God Alone Possess Immortality? appeared first on Apologetics Press.

As shocking and heart-rending as this event may seem, many other natural disasters have occurred in human history that compare with the Haiti earthquake in its devastation. In America alone, several earthquakes have exceeded the magnitude of the Haiti earthquake. On December 16, 1811, two earthquakes with approximate magnitudes of 8.0 struck southeast Missouri, followed by two additional earthquakes in the same area over the next two months, measuring 7.8 and 7.4 respectively. New Madrid, Missouri was destroyed, and the course of the Mississippi River was permanently changed, with land on one side of the river shifting to the opposite side of the riverbed (Fleury, 2008a). On April 18, 1906 an earthquake, with a magnitude estimated between 7.7 to 8.3 on the Richter scale, struck San Francisco, killing some 3,000 people and leaving another 250,000 homeless (Fleury, 2007b). On March 27, 1964, Alaska was struck by an earthquake measuring 9.2—the third largest recorded in the world—devastating Anchorage (Fleury, 2007a). On October 17, 1989 an earthquake with a surface magnitude of 7.1 struck 10 miles northeast of Santa Cruz, California, some 60 miles southeast of San Francisco and Oakland. Sixty-seven died, with 3,757 more injured and 12,000 made homeless (Fleury, 2008b).

Throughout China’s history, extensive flooding has occurred countless times as a result of the mighty 3,000-mile-long Hwang Ho River. Several of the most terrible floods, with their ensuing famines, have been responsible for the deaths of more than a million people at a time. The southern levee of the river failed in Hunan Province in 1887, affecting a 50,000 square mile area (“Hwang Ho,” 2004). More than 2 million people died from drowning, starvation, or the epidemics that followed (“Huang He…,” 2004). In contrast, though considered the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, the death toll for hurricane Katrina in 2005 was about 1,600, with 1.7 million people displaced across the country (Janega, 2009; “Hurricanes,” n.d.). According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake that created the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 is estimated to have released the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs, resulting in more than 150,000 people dead or missing, and millions more homeless in 11 countries (“The Deadliest…?” 2005; “Earthquake and Tsunami…,” 2008).

In reality, such events have occurred repetitiously throughout the history of the world, and continue to do so—constantly: hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes, tornados, floods, tsunamis, droughts, and volcano eruptions. In fact, natural disasters kill one million people around the world each decade, and leave millions more homeless, according to the United Nation’s International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (“Disasters…,” 1997).

This circumstance inevitably elicits the pressing question: “WHY?” “Why would God allow such loss of life, inflicted on countless numbers of seemingly innocent people?” The number one argument marshaled by atheists to advocate their disbelief in God is the presence of widespread, seemingly purposeless suffering. They insist that if an infinite Being existed, He would exercise His perfect compassion and His omnipotence to prevent human suffering (e.g., Lowder, 2004; cf. Jackson, 2001). Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins sarcastically declares:

We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, unpremeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery. The religious mind, however, hubristically appropriates the blind happenings of physics for petty moralistic purposes (2010).

For rabid atheistic evolutionists like Dawkins, to suggest that God uses natural phenomena for earthly purposes is hypocritical, “evil nonsense.” To them, the material realm has no ultimate purpose or meaning—other than what humans subjectively assign to it. Even for many people who do not embrace formal atheism, the fact that God apparently seems willing to allow misery and suffering to run rampant in the world, elicits a gamut of reactions—from perplexity and puzzlement to anger and resentment.

If the Bible is the inspired Word of God (and it is—see Butt, 2007), then it is the only document on the planet that was superintended by God when it was produced. The Bible, therefore, is the only reliable guide for ascertaining the meaning of life and human existence. Only the Bible can make sense of the circumstances that attend life on Earth. And, indeed, it provides the perfect explanations for the occurrence of earthquakes and other natural phenomena. Its handling of the subject is logical, sufficient, and definitive.

“Vale of Soul-Making”

In order to make sense of various aspects of the created order, like earthquakes, one must ask the logically prior question: What is the purpose of the created order? If the atheists and evolutionists are correct, the physical realm, with its human inhabitants, has no purpose, but rather, is a monumental “cosmic accident” (Gould, 1989, p. 44). As Cornell University professor and atheist, Dr. Will Provine, maintained:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear—and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either (Provine and Johnson, 1994, 16[1], emp. added).

If, on the other hand, the God of the Bible exists, He is the Creator responsible for the material Universe. Why did He create the Universe, specifically the Earth, and then create humans to inhabit the Earth?

The Bible teaches that God created the world to be the most suitable environment in which humans are enabled to make their own decisions concerning their ultimate destiny (Genesis 1:27; Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). We humans have been provided with the ideal environment in which we may freely accept or reject God’s will for our lives—what Keats called, “The vale of Soul-making” (1899, p. 369). More specifically, the one essential purpose which God had for creating the world was

the creation of a being (who would have descendents like himself) who would be capable of entering into fellowship with him, who would be capable of becoming a son of God, who (thus) would have to be capable of deciding freely to believe him, to love him with all of his heart, to submit to him in obedience, and whom God could love and eventually glorify (Warren, 1972, p. 44).

Such an environment would necessarily have to possess certain characteristics conducive to the accomplishment of this central purpose. Those characteristics would include an environment that would supply man’s basic physical needs (since humans have physical bodies), allow him to be a free moral agent, to be challenged, and to learn the things he most needs to learn (Warren, p. 47). But why would God allow human beings to be subjected to unpleasant, tragic events—like earthquakes, floods, tornados, and hurricanes? A prominent biblical answer to that question is: natural disasters and nature’s destructive forces are the result of specific conditions that are necessary to God’s providing humanity with this ideal environment.

God is not blameworthy for having created such a world, since He had a morally justifiable reason for having done so. Human existence on Earth was not intended to be permanent. Rather, the Creator intended life on Earth to serve as a temporary interval of time for the development of one’s spirit. Life on Earth is a probationary period in which people are given the opportunity to attend to their spiritual condition as it relates to God’s will for living. Natural disasters provide people with conclusive evidence that life on Earth is brief and uncertain (see Warren, 1972; Thompson, 1997). In the face of physical calamities, we humans would do well to contemplate our own fragility and finitude, and be driven to look beyond ourselves to a higher Power Who can inform us as to our raison d’etre—our reason for existing.

Punishment for Sin

But does God ever harness natural phenomena—the forces of nature—as tools of chastisement to punish people for their sins? The Bible answers strongly in the affirmative (see Miller, 2005). Indeed, God did so many times in Bible history. He scourged Egypt with plagues of frogs, lice, flies, animal disease, boils, hail, and locusts (Exodus 8-10). He used seismic activity against Korah and his followers (Numbers 16:31-33; cf. Psalm 106:17). He punished the grumbling Israelites with venomous snakes (Numbers 21:6). He punished Ahab and idolatrous Israel with drought for three and a half years (1 Kings 17:1; Luke 4:25; James 5:17). He sent a hurricane-like wind upon the sea, causing Jonah and his shipmates to fear the destruction of the ship (Jonah 1:4ff.). Nahum announced God’s fury against the Assyrian Empire with the words: “The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, and the earth heaves at His presence, yes, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him” (1:5-6). Job acknowledged: “He removes the mountains, and they do not know when He overturns them in His anger; He shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble” (9:5-6; cf. Isaiah 2:19-21). The psalmist invites: “Come, behold the works of the LORD, Who has made desolations in the earth” (46:8). On the occasion of the giving of the Decalogue, “[t]he earth shook…. Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel” (Psalm 68:8; cf. Exodus 19:18). Indeed, “[i]n His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land” (Psalm 95:4-5).

The prophet Joel interpreted a devastating locust plague as indicative of divine disfavor, punishment for sin, and motivation to repent: “It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.” (1:15). He repeatedly referred to the “day of the LORD” (1:15; 2:1,11,31; 3:14) as a point in time when God intervenes in the affairs of men in human history, harnessing the forces of nature, or even foreign armies, to take vengeance on those who need chastisement to bring them to their spiritual senses. In the context of Joel, the nation deserved the “day of the LORD” because of the rampant immorality and wickedness. The natural disaster she suffered was designed to elicit repentance, alter her behavior, and redirect her to spiritual reality.

The great prophet Amos also described the “day of the LORD” (5:18,20) in terms of physical catastrophe, including famine, drought, blight, and locusts (4:6-11; cf. 7:1). He added this chilling warning: “Prepare to meet your God!” (4:12). He declared that the God that formed and controls the constellations in the Universe, and can bring flood upon the land is the same God that “rains ruin upon the strong, so that fury comes upon the fortress”(5:9): “The LORD is His name” (vs. 8). The book of Revelation uses figurative, apocalyptic language to allude to this same feature of God’s activity in history—the use of natural phenomena as tools of chastisement (6:5-17; 8:7-12; cf. Summers, 1951, pp. 143-145,155ff.).

A word of caution: The Bible does not claim to provide humans with complete explanations regarding the forces operating within the physical Universe. But it does offer some clarification regarding natural calamities, shedding light on some of the reasons for phenomena like famines, earthquakes, and floods. It does not claim to offer every reason, and it certainly does not claim to explain every occurrence of a natural calamity. While one occurrence may be the direct result of God’s punitive punishment on people due to their wickedness, another such catastrophe may have no such specific intention. Rather, it could be the result of the entrance of sin into the world, or it may simply be the result of the coincidental, God-ordained physical forces necessary to the operation of the Universe (e.g., Matthew 6:45).

In any case, we are speaking specifically about natural phenomena—features of the created order that operate according to set laws throughout history. Such phenomena are to be distinguished from supernatural occurrences where God has stepped in and suspended the laws of nature that He, Himself, set into motion (e.g., Genesis 19:24; Exodus 7:20; Leviticus 10:2; 1 Kings 18:38). The only way to know when a natural disaster is due specifically to divine retribution is if an inspired prophet sent by God so interprets the event. No such prophets exist today (Miller, 2003a; Miller, 2003b). Nevertheless, we cannot assume that since the age of miracles has passed that God no longer intervenes in history via natural occurrences. God still rules in the kingdoms of men (Daniel 4:17), and it is still true that “[t]he effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16; cf. 1 Kings 18:41-45; McGarvey 1894, pp. 320 ff.). He still controls the forces of nature, “for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Indeed, even now, it is Jesus Who is “upholding all things by the word of His power,” and “in Him all things consist” (Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17). “[E]ven the winds and the sea obey Him” (Matthew 8:27). “O LORD God of hosts, Who is mighty like You, O LORD?…. You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, You still them” (Psalm 89:8-9). God declared to Isaiah: “Indeed with My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness; their fish stink because there is no water, and die of thirst” (Isaiah 50:2). God articulated through Jeremiah that a nation’s iniquities cause it to forfeit the benevolent aspects of the natural order (5:22-25).

There is every reason to believe that God still uses natural calamities as formative influences in the world. While punishment is certainly a proper purpose to such discipline, the fact is that God simply wants defiant people to repent. He gets a nation’s attention by such means to cause the people to reflect upon their life and behavior. He benevolently subjects them to hardship and calamity in this life to prepare them for the life to come. The physical suffering that anyone endures in this life is not worthy to be compared with the eternal punishment awaiting those who leave this life in a state of rebellion against God (cf. Romans 8:18).

Sadly, few throughout history get the message. Most are like those to whom God sent His Old Testament prophets. When the prophet Hosea announced the judgments of God against the people as divine chastisement, he regretfully had to report: “But they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek Him for all this” (Hosea 7:10). When God sent enemies against Israel, Isaiah bemoaned: “For the people do not turn to Him who strikes them, nor do they seek the LORD of hosts” (9:13). Ezekiel described his contemporaries as “a rebellious nation…. For they are impudent and stubborn children” (2:3-4). Jeremiah said, “They are all stubborn rebels, walking as slanderers. They are bronze and iron; they are all corrupters” (6:28)—which brings us to America’s own spiritual condition. If America continues down its present pathway of immorality and defiant rejection of biblical principles, can America expect to suffer increasing instances of natural calamities?

The Founders of the American Republic agreed with the Bible on this point. They believed that while personal sin is addressed by God in eternity at the Judgment, national sins are punished in time, in the course of history. The “Father of our country,” George Washington, articulated this principle in his first inaugural address on Thursday, April 30, 1789:

[T]here is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained (emp. added).

Washington believed that God’s treatment of America depended on America’s recognition of His moral and spiritual principles in her political activities. Disregarding Christian principles automatically means that a nation will forfeit the physical blessings available through God’s providential dealings.

Considered “The Father of the American Revolution,” Samuel Adams wrote a letter from Philadelphia to a friend, two months before the Declaration of Independence, on April 30, 1776, stating: “Revelation assures us that ‘Righteousness exalteth a Nation’—Communities are dealt with in this World by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe. He rewards or punishes them according to their general Character” (2006, p. 212, emp. added). After a passionate admonition to his fellow delegates at the Constitutional Convention to seek the favor and guidance of God in their deliberations, recognizing His providential kindness toward them, Benjamin Franklin insisted:

We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest (see Farrand, 1911, 1:451-452, emp. added).

The “Father of the Bill of Rights,” George Mason, insisted to his fellow constitutional delegates: “Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes & effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities” (see Farrand, 2:370, emp. added). Delegate Luther Martin expressed the same viewpoint:

[I]t ought to be considered that national crimes can only be, and frequently are punished in this world, by national punishments; and that the continuance of the slave-trade, and thus giving it a national sanction and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of Him, who is equally Lord of all, and who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master (see Farrand, 3:211, emp. added).

Also speaking in the context of slavery, Thomas Jefferson warned: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever…. The almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest” (1832, Query 18, pp. 170-171, emp. added).

The Founders went so far as to claim that the Revolutionary War itself was, to some extent, a punishment from God for the sins of the people. For example, on March 7, 1778, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation to the nation in which they alluded to “the evident tokens of his Displeasure” in permitting “the continuation of a cruel and desolating WAR in our land” (Journals of the…, 10:229). Their stated solution was for all Americans “to acknowledge his righteous Government, confess and forsake their evil Ways, and implore his Mercy” (10:229). On March 20, 1779, the Congress issued a similar proclamation, which commenced: “Whereas, in just Punishment of our manifold Transgressions, it hath pleased the Supreme Disposer of all Events to visit these United States with a calamitous War” (Journals of the…, 13:343, emp. added). Again, the solution was for the citizenry to be “sufficiently awakened to a Sense of their Guilt” and “taught to amend their Lives and turn from their Sins, that so he might turn from his Wrath” (13:343). The Congress felt the same way in March of 1780 when they stated to the nation: “It having pleased the righteous Governor of the World, for the punishment of our manifold offences, to permit the sword of war still to harass our country, it becomes us to endeavour, by humbling ourselves before him, and turning from every evil way, to avert his anger and obtain his favour and blessing” (Journals of the…, 16:252-253, emp. added). A year later, the Congress again called upon the nation to “confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and through the merits of our blessed Saviour, obtain pardon and forgiveness” (Journals of the…, 19:285, emp. added).

Both the Bible and the Founders of the American Republic stated unequivocally that God can and will allow natural calamities to be inflicted against peoples who commit iniquity and allow rampant immorality to prevail in society. Is it even remotely possible that Haiti is experiencing this phenomenon?

Make no mistake: “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son” (Amos 7:14), and, as stated earlier, have no inspired link to deity by which to declare that Haiti is being punished for sin. No one should “speak falsely for God” (Job 13:7). Indeed, Pat Robertson misspoke when he boldly declared his assessment of the situation (Condon, 2010). Nevertheless, the evidence demonstrates that the country is particularly plagued by religious and moral factors among its population that are counterproductive to a healthy relationship with the God of the Universe. Haiti is notorious for its widespread practice of the false religion of voodoo (Guynup, 2004). Despite a heavy historical influence of Catholicism by way of the French colonials, “voodoo may be considered the country’s national religion. The majority of Haitians believe in and practice at least some aspects of voodoo” (Haggerty, 1989). What’s more, the country suffers from the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS outside of the African continent (Craythorne, 2006, p. 102). A 1989 Library of Congress study found that “[h]omosexual activity has contributed to the spread of AIDS in Haiti. AIDS transmission was also related to female and male prostitution. At least 50 percent of the female prostitutes in the capital city’s main prostitution center were believed to be infected with HIV” (Haggerty). In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers concluded that the initial introduction of the aids virus into America came via Haiti: “HIV went directly from Africa to Haiti, then spread to the United States and much of the rest of the world beginning around 1969” (Avasthi, 2007; Gilbert, et al., 2007, 104[47]:18566-18570; cf. Owen, 2006). Meanwhile in Haiti, “[t]he average age for young people to begin sexual relations is 12, with many young boys and girls starting to have sex as early as eight years old” (Caistor, 2003).

In an article titled “Haiti’s Avoidable Death Toll,” George Mason University’s Distinguished Professor of Economics, Walter Williams, insists that the high death toll and national inability to address domestic calamity is due to Haiti’s “self-inflicted poverty”—the result of Marxist inspired “restrictions on economic liberty” (2010). Several of these restrictions are rooted in moral and spiritual degradation. Bribery and other forms of corruption are a way of life for Haitians. Indeed, Haiti has a worldwide reputation for corruption. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and territories around the world. This index is a synthesis survey based on 13 different expert and business surveys. Haiti has been listed in the top 10 most corrupt nations for several years, taking the top spot in 2006, the number four spot in 2007 and 2008, and ranking 168 out of 180 in 2009 just behind Iran and eight other Muslim countries (“Corruption Perceptions…,” 2009). Williams observes:

Crime and lawlessness are rampant in Haiti. The U.S. Department of State website, long before the earthquake, warned, “There are no ‘safe’ areas in Haiti…. Kidnapping, death threats, murders, drug-related shootouts, armed robberies, home break-ins and car-jacking are common in Haiti.” The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns its citizens that, “The level of crime in Haiti is very high and the police have little ability to enforce laws. Local authorities often have limited or no capacity to provide assistance, even if you are a victim of a serious crime.” Crime anywhere is a prohibitive tax on economic development and the poorest people are its primary victims (2010; cf. “Protest Demonstration…,” 2005; “Violent Demonstration…,” 2009; “Travel Advice…,” 2010).

While it is tenuous for ignorant, limited man to attempt an overall assessment of a nation’s spiritual condition, sufficient evidence exists to conclude that the moral and religious conditions of Haiti are significantly impaired and contrary to God’s Word. Since, in the words of the Father of our country, “the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on [such] a nation,” what Haiti needs in addition to material aid—and far more desperately—is instruction in the moral and spiritual principles of the New Testament.

Though politically incorrect, it is high time for the peoples of the world, from Muslim nations, Hindu nations, communistic/Marxist/socialist nations, to animistic, superstitious nations like Haiti, who openly acknowledge and envy America’s unprecedented wealth and progress (to the point that many are dying to get here), to likewise understand that America owes her incredible standing solely to the God of the Bible. He has blessed America because her founding principles openly acknowledged the one true God and sought to promote His religion and the moral principles of that religion (Miller, 2008; Miller, 2009). With widespread indications of the decline of Christianity mounting in America, Americans would do well to face reality: the corruption, immorality, and barbaric conditions that characterize many nations of the world will inevitably transform our own society into a nightmarish, immoral, social cesspool.

Do we really think that God will make an exception and exempt America from its own collection of natural calamities? Historical evidence exists to indicate that in 1811-1812, the town of New Madrid, Missouri was notoriously wicked:

Though it was prosperous as a business village and trading post, its inhabitants were noted for their impiety. All the worst elements of a frontier river town were to be found here in this place…. History says but little about the town prior to the earthquake, and that little is not to its credit. It is spoken of as the favorite resort of boatmen, who spent “their Sabbaths in drinking, gambling, and fighting.” Priest and preacher were unheard, or if they were listened to at all, it was with the utmost indifference (Musick, 1897, p. 143, emp. added).

San Francisco at the turn of the century was also widely recognized as a wicked city. The Barbary Coast was rampant with debauchery and every imaginable sexual sin from prostitution to homosexuality (cf. Boyd, 2003; Asbury, 1933). [NOTE: Another striking example is the report of history that at the time Pompey was obliterated by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, its citizens were notorious for their rampant immorality (e.g., Connie Gill, 2005; N.S. Gill, 2005).]

Christians understand that no matter how catastrophic, tragic, or disastrous an event may be in this world, it fits into the overall framework of soul-making—preparation for one’s departure from life into eternity. Likewise, the Christian knows that, although the great pain and suffering caused by natural disasters may be unpleasant, and may test one’s mettle, nevertheless, such suffering is neither dysteleological (purposeless) nor intrinsically evil. Nor is it a reflection on the existence of an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God. The only intrinsic evil is violation of God’s will, i.e., sin (1 John 3:4). What is required of all accountable persons is obedience to God’s revealed Word—even amid pain, suffering, sickness, disease, death, and, yes, earthquakes.

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The Hebrew term herem found, for instance, in Joshua 6:17, refers to the total dedication or giving over of the enemy to God as a sacrifice involving the extermination of the populace. It is alleged that the God of the Bible is as barbaric and cruel as any of the pagan gods. But this assessment is simply not true.

If the critic would take the time to study the Bible and make an honest evaluation of the principles of God’s justice, wrath, and love, he would see the perfect and harmonious interplay between them. God’s vengeance is not like the impulsive, irrational, emotional outbursts of pagan deities or human beings. He is infinite in all His attributes and thus perfect in justice, love, and anger. Just as God’s ultimate and final condemnation of sinners to eternal punishment will be just and appropriate, so the temporal judgment of wicked people in the Old Testament was ethical and fair. We human beings do not have an accurate handle on the gravity of sin and the deplorable nature of evil and wickedness. Human sentimentality is hardly a qualified measuring stick for divine truth and spiritual reality.

How incredibly ironic that the atheist, the agnostic, the skeptic, and the liberal all attempt to stand in judgment upon the ethical behavior of God when, if one embraces their position, there is no such thing as an absolute, objective, authoritative standard by which to pronounce anything right or wrong. As the French existentialist philosopher, Sartre, admitted: “Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist…. Nor…are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behavior” (1961, p. 485). The atheist and agnostic have absolutely no platform on which to stand to make moral or ethical distinctions—except as the result of purely personal taste. The mere fact that they concede the existence of objective evil is an unwitting concession there is a God Who has established an absolute framework of moral judgments.

The facts of the matter are that the Canaanites, whom God’s people were to destroy, were destroyed for their wickedness (Deuteronomy 9:4; 18:9-12; Leviticus 18:24-25,27-28). Canaanite culture and religion in the second millennium B.C. were polluted, corrupt, and perverted. No doubt the people were physically diseased from their illicit behavior. There simply was no viable solution to their condition except destruction. Their moral depravity was “full” (Genesis 15:16). They had slumped to such an immoral, depraved state, with no hope of recovery, that their existence on this Earth had to be terminated—just like in Noah’s day when God waited while Noah preached for years, but was unable to turn the world’s population from its wickedness (Genesis 6:3,5-7; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 3:5-9). Including the children in the destruction of such populations actually spared them from a worse condition—that of being reared to be as wicked as their parents and thus face eternal punishment. All persons who die in childhood, according to the Bible, are ushered to Paradise and will ultimately reside in Heaven. Children who have parents who are evil must naturally suffer innocently while on Earth (e.g., Numbers 14:33).

Those who disagree with God’s annihilation of the wicked in the Old Testament have the same liberal attitude that has come to prevail in America just in the last half century. That attitude has typically opposed capital punishment, as well as the corporal punishment of children. Such people simply cannot see the rightness of evildoers being punished by execution or physical pain. Nevertheless, their view is skewed—and the rest of us are being forced to live with the results of their warped thinking: undisciplined, out-of-control children are wreaking havoc on our society by perpetrating crime to historically, all-time high levels.

Those who reject the ethics of God’s destructive activity in the Old Testament, to be consistent, must reject Jesus and the New Testament. Over and over again, Jesus and the New Testament writers endorsed and defended such activity (e.g., Luke 13:1-9; 12:5; 17:29-32; 10:12; Hebrews 10:26-31). The Bible provides the only logical, sensible, meaningful, consistent explanation regarding the principles of retribution, punishment, and the conditions under which physical life may be extinguished.

Sartre, Jean Paul, (1961), “Existentialism and Humanism,” French Philosophers from Descartes to Sartre, ed. Leonard M. Marsak (New York: Meridian).

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