Category: Fundamentals of the Faith

A Piece of Work: Understanding the Human Condition

~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

Usually, when someone calls you “a real piece of work,” it’s not a compliment. We say such things about those we think are odd or whose behavior is hard to understand. But in a famous soliloquy, Shakespeare’s Hamlet declares: “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!” Yet Hamlet’s opinion of humanity is mixed. He calls human beings “the beauty of the world” and “the paragon of animals.” But he also asks, “what is this quintessence of dust?”

These days it is common to treat human beings as if they were only high functioning animals. Humans are indeed creatures but the Bible teaches that we are much more. According to Genesis 1, human beings were the pinnacle of God’s creative work. Not only were they the last creatures made, but they were created in God’s image. Genesis 1:27 says, “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Made in God’s Image

Humans were not the only sentient beings God created. He also created the angels who dwell with Him in heaven. Likewise, the book of Genesis says that animals and humans have “the breath of life” in them and that this life comes from God (Gen. 1:30; 6:17; 7:17). According to the Psalmist, God made humans “a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5). Yet of all God’s creatures, it is only human beings that Scripture says are made in God’s image.

What is this image? Not everyone has the same understanding of what this phrase means. Many early Christian theologians understood the divine image to be the power to reason. Others linked the idea of the divine image with various human faculties like spirituality or immortality. In the Genesis account, humanity’s creation in God’s image sets the stage for the divine mandate to increase in number, fill and subdue the earth, and to rule over the other creatures God has made “(Gen. 1:28). However we understand God’s image, it at least means that God made us in His likeness to represent His interests in the world. To do this, He created humanity to be male and female. Each complements the other as they share the same divine calling. Both reflect the divine image equally. The task of dominion is granted to both alike but the domain in which they exercise that dominion belongs to God

The Bible’s account of human origins takes a sharp turn in the third chapter of Genesis, which describes the fall of humanity into sin through disobedience. The primary agent in this tragic turn of events was Satan, a rebellious angel who took the form of a serpent and tempted Adam and Eve to eat from the forbidden tree (Gen. 3:1–6; cf. 2:15–17). The entrance of sin fundamentally changed humanity’s relation to God and to each other. The word the Bible uses to describe its primary consequence is death (Gen. 2:17). We think of death as the cessation of physical life. It is this, but it is also, first and foremost, a state of alienation from God. Those who are dead in sin are God’s enemies.

The Nature of Sin

Just as we tend to be limited in our thinking about death, we are also narrow in our view of sin. The popular measure used to determine what constitutes sin is movable. This incomplete view reduces many of the things we used to call sins to matters of bad taste or cultural insensitivity. Contemporary culture has removed many of the thoughts and practices that we used to call sins from the category of sin altogether. They are called “choices,” “alternative lifestyles,” or simply “mistakes.” The fatal flaw in these views is their exclusion of God. Where there is no God, there is no sin. That same flaw has corrupted our notion of virtue. Where there is no God, there can be no virtue or goodness, either. There are only privately or commonly held standards.

What renders an action a sin is that it is ultimately committed against God. David understood this. In Psalm 51:4, he declared, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.” This is an astonishing statement, given the events that prompted it. David committed adultery with Bathsheba. He arranged the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, after he learned that she had become pregnant. Theologian Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. explains, “All sin has first and finally a Godward force.”

What, then, are we to do about the human problem of sin? Some people treat sin the same way they do high cholesterol. They know that if they ignore it, things will go badly. But they hope that if they take certain basic measures, it can be kept under control. Others think the solution is a matter of discipline. Those who treat sin as if it were a disease think it can be cured through treatment. Those who see sin as a lack of discipline believe it can be eliminated with education and training. But the Bible views sin differently. Sin is more than a disease or a failure of discipline. It is a condition of guilt and a deeply ingrained moral bent.

Sin is more than a disease or a failure of discipline.

Ever since Adam, human beings have been wired for sin. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, the apostle Paul explains that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). God’s reason for binding the rest of humanity to Adam’s one act of disobedience was to open the door of forgiveness through the one man Jesus Christ. “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man,” the apostle goes on to observe, “how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!” (Rom. 5:17).

Just as our union with Adam in his sin had a profound effect on the human condition, union with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection also affects us. Adam introduced the dynamic of sin into human nature with its guilt and alienation. Jesus replaces this guilt with His own righteousness and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, enables those who are His to act out that righteousness in their daily lives. The word the Bible uses to describe this new relationship is justified. Romans 5:1–2 explains, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”

Just as If

Some have tried to explain justification by saying that it makes us “just as if we had never sinned.” Although this is a good start, it does not go far enough. Christ’s death on the cross does indeed take away our sin, rendering us guiltless in the eyes of God. But the work of Christ does more than restore us to the state Adam was in before he sinned. Because Jesus obeyed God perfectly as our substitute, His righteousness is also credited to us. It is not only “just as if I had never sinned,” but also “just as if I had perfectly obeyed.

How should we think about the human condition? The Bible tells us who and what we are. Humans are more than complex animals. They are creatures made in God’s image with a physical and spiritual nature and were created to act as His representatives in the world. Humans are also deeply flawed by what the Bible calls sin. This is both a condition of guilt and a natural inclination that alienates us from God and one another. All the ills we see in the world today can ultimately be traced to the problem of sin.

The hope of the Christian where sin is concerned is Jesus Christ. He is God’s answer for sin. Christ’s death paid the price for all our sin. Christ’s obedience earned our righteousness. His resurrection has made us  “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). All those who are in Jesus Christ exchange death for life. It is only because Christ has given us new life that we can live a new life.

What is God Like?

~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

The Bible teaches that God has revealed Himself to us through creation and by His word. But what does that revelation tell us about the nature of God? Theologians have traditionally divided God’s attributes into two main categories. Some are attributes that have no analogy in human experience. These attributes, often called God’s incommunicable attributes, display the uniqueness of the divine nature. Others, called communicable attributes, are characteristics that have some analogy in human experience. God’s incommunicable attributes show how the divine nature is unlike our own. They display God’s transcendence and reveal the great gulf that exists between the Creator and His creatures. God’s communicable attributes remind us that we have been created in the image of God and, in some small measure, were designed to be like Him.

When Jesus spoke of God to the woman of Samaria, He emphasized two fundamental characteristics of God. According to Jesus, God is both a Spirit and a personal being who seeks those who worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). The title Jesus uses to describe this being is Father. This label implies that God is both intimately involved with His creation while being distinct from it. Creation depends on God for its origin and continued existence, but God is not dependent on anyone or anything (Acts 17:24-25). This independence is reflected in four attributes that flow from it and reflect God’s power: Infinity, Omnipresence, Eternity, and Immutability.

God Has No Bounds

When we say that God is infinite, we are not really talking about size or distance but the fulness of His perfection. God possesses all His attributes without measure or limitation. All that God is, He is to an infinite degree. This infinite God is omnipresent. He is always present everywhere. The Psalmist acknowledged this when he wrote, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Ps. 139:7–8). There is no place or situation in which we will find ourselves that God is not already present. We cannot hide from God or escape His presence.

Where time is concerned, God is eternal. He does not experience the limitations of time the way we do. As Psalm 90:2 observes, He exists as God “from everlasting to everlasting.” God’s eternal nature has implications for God’s interaction with creation. The eternal God can act within time as we know it, but He is not bound by time. Because God exists apart from time, the Bible uses our experience as a point of reference when talking about His eternal nature. 2 Peter 3:8 urges us to remember that “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” What seems to us like a delay is not a delay to God. Our physical life has a beginning and an end. God has neither. Because we are time-bound creatures, we can only experience time as a succession of events. Unlike us, God is not subject to time or to cause and effect.

This means that God’s infinite nature is also immutable. God can’t be more or less than He already is. James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” God’s character and nature do not change. Nor does He mature, grow, or evolve. His plans and purposes are fixed (Ps. 33:11; 102:27). At the same time, there are passages in Scripture that seem to attribute change to God. For example, Genesis 6:6 says that God “regretted that he had made human beings on the earth.” Jonah 3:10 tells how, after the people of Nineveh repented, God relented from the destruction He had threatened to bring upon them. As with time, the Bible speaks of these instances using human experience as their primary reference point. In these instances, it is not God who changes but humanity’s relation to God.

Omniscient, Good, Holy, & Omnipotent

The other category of God’s attributes is called communicable because they have some analogy in human experience. They describe God in terms with which we are familiar. They speak of His knowledge, righteousness, and mercy. At the same time, these attributes reinforce the Bible’s message that we are not God, even though we have been created in His image.

God’s communicable attributes include omniscience. God knows things, and so do we. But God knows everything to an infinite degree. He knows all things comprehensively. He knows all that has happened, and all that will happen. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me,” the Psalmist declares. “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar” (Psalm 139:1–2). God knows all that we think before we think it and what we will say before we say it. He knows our secret thoughts, even those we have hidden from ourselves (Ps. 139:4, 24). By comparison, our knowledge is as infinitesimal as God’s is infinite.

Another communicable attribute is God’s goodness. This goodness is expressed first in God’s holiness and righteousness. God is Himself the ultimate standard of all that can be deemed good. For this reason, Jesus declared, “No one is good–except God alone” (Mark 10:18). Because God is perfectly holy, His moral standard is one that demands perfect holiness. He upholds this standard by acting justly and holding all those who fall short of it accountable. God has a moral nature and created us to be moral beings. But our nature is imperfect and is flawed by the presence of sin. Our unrighteousness separates us from God and makes us liable to His judgment. This problem of sin calls forth the other dimension of God’s goodness, the love that He has shown by offering us grace and mercy through Jesus Christ.

Of all God’s attributes, perhaps the most familiar is His omnipotence. God is all-powerful. This characteristic is expressed in Job 23:13, which says that God “does whatever he pleases.” Omnipotence does not mean that God can do anything. There are some things that Scripture says God cannot do. God cannot lie. He cannot sin. God cannot deny Himself. But God can do all that He purposes to do, and all that God purposes to do is consistent with His nature. Our God is mighty to save (Isa. 63:1; Zeph. 3:17).

Unity in Trinity

Although we tend to separate God’s attributes when we analyze them, they are not separate in God’s being. God is not divided, nor is He in conflict with Himself. God’s holiness does not battle with His grace and mercy. One of the dangers of focusing on the divine attributes is that it tends to reduce God to a list of philosophical abstractions so that we lose His personal nature. The Scriptures reveal that God is a personal being and that He exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Both the Old and New Testaments agree in their assertion that “God is one” (Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:32; Gal. 3:20; James 2:19). This means that there is only one God. There are not many gods. But it also means that God is one by nature. The three Persons in the Trinity are distinct from one another as persons but not in essence. Scripture does not portray God as a single divine person who manifests Himself in three different modes, nor does it speak of the Godhead as three separate divine beings. The triune nature of God has no analogy in human experience. All attempts to explain it by comparison with nature or philosophy are bound to fail. We can affirm this truth by faith, but we cannot fully comprehend it.

“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves,” the Reformation pastor and theologian John Calvin observed. He goes on to note that one leads to the other. When we look at ourselves, our thoughts turn to the God who made us and sustains us. When we contemplate God, we can’t help being aware of the ruin that sin has brought about in our lives. “To this extent we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God,” Calvin explains, “and we cannot seriously aspire to Him before we become displeased with ourselves.”

The Bible shows us what God is like so that we will see ourselves as we truly are. The main lesson of the attributes is twofold. First, God’s attributes show us that although we have been created in the divine image, we are not God. Second, they remind us that we need God’s mercy and grace shown to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ before that image can be fully restored in us. This is the hope of the Christian. It is the hope that “when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

The Recent History of God

~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

Where does one begin when speaking of God? A biography usually starts at the beginning with its subject’s birth and ancestry. But the God of Scripture, unlike the gods of myth, is uncreated and eternal. He has no beginning or point of origin. He has no ancestors. For this reason, God’s account of Himself in Scripture begins not with His creation but with ours. If the Bible is the history of God, it is only a record of recent history.

Why this had to be the case should be obvious. God’s existence in what we call the past is infinite. It is not possible to grasp, let alone record. God’s eternal nature is also unlimited in its power and scope. He is not bound by time or space. He is not dependent on anyone or anything but sustains everything that exists (Acts 17:25; Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17). The full scope of all that God is and has done is beyond our view. There is too much to know and too much to write. Even if it could be written, it is doubtful that we would be able to comprehend it.

The Bible only records what we might call God’s recent history because it begins with our history. It is a mistake to think of the Bible as the autobiography of God. It is just the opposite. The Bible is God’s biography of us. From the Bible we know something about what God is like. God has shown us this through what He has said and done in our world. The Bible also tells us about ourselves. In many respects, the Bible tells humanity’s story as much as it does God’s.

The theologians have a word for this. They call it revelation. Divine self-revelation is where all knowledge of God begins. We only know about God because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. Moreover, what we know about God is dependent upon what God has chosen to reveal. We cannot put God on a slab to dissect Him to expose all His parts. We cannot watch Him through a microscope or find Him in the world’s most powerful telescope. If we are to know what God is like, He must show us Himself.

God has done this in two primary ways. God has revealed Himself by actions and in words. The Bible also shows that God has done this in two different modes. One is broad. The other is narrow. There are some things that God has revealed to everyone. They are plain for all who are willing to see. These truths are expressed in the universal language of creation. This is what the Psalmist means when He says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). The Psalmist goes on to describe creation as a kind of non-verbal communication that “goes out into all the earth” (v. 2).

This general revelation of God is also communicated to us internally. Because this internal message operates on the level of conscience, its function is primarily negative. The primary purpose of internal general revelation is to show us that we are not like God. The apostle Paul explains its negative function when he says: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. (Rom. 1:18–19).

Another important feature of this general revelation is its limited scope. Neither the external general revelation of creation nor the internal revelation of conscience can tell us everything that can be known about God. They do not even tell us the most important things that we should know about Him. This mode of revelation covers only a few basics. In a way, general revelation is God’s kindergarten, limiting its message to God’s eternal power and His divine nature. General revelation tells us that God exists, that He is the creator, and that we are not Him.

Fortunately, God has also chosen to reveal Himself on another band. This is a mode that the theologians call “special” revelation. Special revelation is more narrow than general revelation. While general revelation is available to everyone, special revelation was experienced by only a few. God revealed Himself to a few chosen messengers who passed what they had heard from God down to others. Special revelation is also narrow in its focus. The message of special revelation primarily has to do with God’s plan to redeem humanity from sin. Special revelation was personal and ultimately verbal. The things God said and did were written down and collected in the Scriptures. They describe His saving acts and interpret those actions for us. They tell us what God expects of us and give us a glimpse of what God will do in the future.

Divine self-revelation is where all knowledge of God begins.

When you read the Bible, you quickly discover that God did not make Himself known all at once. Instead, He revealed Himself in stages. This progressive revelation of God reaches its peak in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews observeed, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe” (Heb. 1:1–2).

God, who dwells outside of history, entered history to make Himself known once and for all in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Not only does Jesus reveal God to us in human terms, but He also shows us what God had in mind when He created the world. If the Bible is a history of the human race described from God’s perspective, Jesus Christ is the key that unlocks that history for us. Jesus is the bridge that connects God’s story with human history. Jesus is the end toward which all God’s words and works in the world tend. Jesus is the sum of all that God has to say about Himself.

Revelation shows us what we can know about God. But the fact that God has shown us Himself in this way reveals something about us as well. It proves that there is something that stands in the way of our understanding God. The word the Bible uses for this is sin. Not surprisingly, this is where the Bible’s history of God begins. Not just with creation but with humanity’s departure from God through disobedience.

Therefore, if we want to describe God’s history with humanity in simple terms, we could probably articulate it in three sentences. God made us. We rejected Him. So God took on human nature and came to redeem us in person. The Bible’s revelation of God is not a collection of vague philosophies or abstract facts. Everything that revelation has to say about God has redemption at its center. Everything that can be said about divine revelation, the discipline that we call theology, can pretty much be divided into five categories: the nature of God, the nature of humanity, the person and work of Jesus Christ, the nature of redemption, and God’s plan for bringing this stage of His history to a close.

Where does one begin when speaking about God? We begin with God. The only way to begin with God is to begin with what God has said. Everything that we can say about God depends upon what God has said Himself. Scripture tells us that God has shown Himself both by word and action. But between these two, it is Scripture that must have the primary place. Scripture both describes and interprets God’s words and actions for us.

But why would God reveal Himself to us in the first place? It is not so that we would accumulate facts about Him. The goal of revelation is faith. We study Scripture so that we might know about God, and by knowing, that we might come to believe. For, as the writer of the book of Hebrews observed, “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).