Thoughts on the deaths of innocents

 

Innocent is a word thrown around in our society that has a very separate meaning than what we find in the Bible. Generally speaking, the Bible teaches that in the grand scheme of things, no one is truly “innocent” as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 8:28). It is quite hard to seriously read and take in the book of Romans without coming away with this perception that the Bible presents: namely, all are evil according to God’s standards.

However there may be a conundrum within this statement when we look at the wider scope of Scripture. For example, when God talks to Jonah when He is sending him to Nineveh to preach repentance, He says (Jonah 4:11):

"Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"

Equally, we see in Deuteronomy (1:39) where God is saying who will and will not enter the promised land:

“'Moreover, your little ones who you said would become a prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it.”

It seems clear to me that God views children (and those unable to fully understand good and evil) as in essence a type of “innocent” being. Personally, I would interpret this as they are not truly innocent as are born in sin, and it is woven into their nature (as all are in Adam), however God’s grace through Jesus’ sacrifice covers them until an age of accountability. David implied this with the death of his son (“I will go to him” after his son had died).

This has great relevance to what is going on in the world today. We see 1000s of people dying in conflicts ironically right where all of this was taking place before. The Israeli conflict with the Palestinians goes back to that verse in Deuteronomy and even in the news at the moment, radical Muslims are slaughtering and scattering out people from Nineveh itself, in an ironic opposite fashion to Jonah’s time.

What saddens people the most in the west are the images of little children injured, and killed from these conflicts. Rightly so when we consider the words of the Bible and also human emotion I believe is designed to have an affinity to compassion towards children as seemingly innocent. Another story in the news recently here in the UK has been an Australian couple who found a surrogate mother in Thailand for them to have a child and upon birth of twins they apparently took the healthy one home and left the Down’s syndrome baby there. There are conflicting reports on this story but the point is more about the reaction – and a right reaction of anger if such an event was true.

The deaths of little innocent children from the conflict of war and human selfishness anger those in the west greatly.

The abandonment of a new-born child with a mental impairment shocks and outrages those in the Western world.

However, I call hypocrisy - staunch, ignorant hypocrisy. Shame on us in the west, for pointing out the chip in others’ eyes and ignoring the Amazonian rain forest in our own. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I agree with the moralistic anger at those events, but let us take a step back and consider some hard and cold facts:

• ~92% of babies diagnosed in utero with Down’s syndrome are aborted in the UK (>90% for EU)
• In 2011, there were 190,000 abortions in the UK (that is 520 babies aborted per day)
• Medical grounds for abortion are often based on unknown outcomes and risks, rather than of danger to the mother
• Abortions can be routinely offered by medical staff for potentially minor medical issues (cleft palate, club foot, etc)

How often do you see social media filled with such statistics? A few hundred people die in a war over a few weeks and it is tragic and horrible to see the images, yet >500 babies per day in the UK are legally terminated and no one bats an eyelid over this act. Science has fed us the lie that an unborn child is not a “real” life. It is just a ball of cells. I think anyone who has seen how complex a 12-week child is on a scan knows that this is not true. That is a human being and it has a right to live where human hands are concerned. To terminate a child because it may be a burden on you is not a choice you should be given to make.

I recognise that there are tragedies that happen. Mothers die in labour, victims of rape fall pregnant, etc. But why do we continually feed ourselves the lie that an abortion is simply a choice and not the taking of an innocent life? Why do we ignore this issue and simply come to accept it in our modern world? Oh the irony – people fight over religion and we have those on social media saying, “Come on, this is 2014 for goodness’ sake – we are sophisticated and beyond this behaviour” whilst all the time gladly accepting you can suck an unborn baby out of the womb and shred it to pieces and claim we are beyond barbaric acts? This is madness and yet it is saddening to think about. Yet to Christians it should be of no surprise to us, as I started this post making the point that man is inherently evil then we should not be surprised to find apparently intelligent and sophisticated people seeing nothing wrong with taking unborn children’s’ lives. Sadly, abortion has become so accepted in our society that it creeps into our thinking even as Christians where we do not engage with the severity of this act.

I will finish with a quote from a great Michael Card classic song – “Spirit of the Age”:

“Now every age has heard it,

That voice that cries from Hell.

‘Sacrifice your children and for you it will be well’

The subtle Serpent’s lying,

His dark and ruthless rage.

Behold it is revealed to be the Spirit of the Age.

Soon all the ones who seemed to die for nothing,

Will stand beside the Ancient of Days.

With joy we’ll see that Infant from a manger,

Come and crush the Spirit of the Age.”

Thoughts on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

The conflict that says so much about the way the world is going than most people realise once again takes headlines in the news. It seems to be quite polarised. If you turn to American media (heavy Jewish influence, very pro-Israel) you get a very one-sided view towards Israel. If you turn to English media like BBC and survey most English people on this you get a very different view and very anti-Israel. Americans would do well to remember that they fund something like $10bn per year to Israel and funded the Iron Dome. England would do well to remember they have major arms deals with many of these countries (including Russia...). People don’t want to know about that though and propaganda is rife (perhaps worse so in the west as it is more subtle).

It seems to me that there are two options presented:

1) Israel is simply defending itself and is justified – civilian deaths are Hamas’ fault

2) Palestinians are prisoners in their own country and oppressed by Israel who do not really want peace and inhumanely attack parts of Gaza known containing children and civilians

However there is never a third option open. I would argue for a third option, and that is BOTH countries (groups) are in the wrong. Both countries should have actions condemned. 

Sure if Israel did not have its Iron Dome it would have 1000s of casualties from all the rockets fired into the country. Sure maybe Hamas fire from areas of civilian population including children. But neither are justified in their actions. I do not think we can say one is worse than the other – both are bad. Both are responsible for the deaths of the innocent (children) and should stop, look into other ways to deal with the situation. Having high risk that attacks will fall on schools, shelters and hospitals is not an acceptable option in war. Declaring peace and the continuing to fire rockets is not an acceptable option in war either. Both countries are at fault and options 1 & 2 are too absolutist.

From a Christian perspective, you see more of a bias perhaps in the US with this conflict. I believe that this is due to the prevalence of pre-millennial dispensationalists For the record, I largely agree with that eschatological view, and in fact would argue that by the mere existence of Israel since 1948 and how they have grown and survived and thrived is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for such an interpretation of Israel still in God’s plan. This is of course, apart from the obvious straight forward reading of Scripture which I would sit very uncomfortable with declaring all of God’s curses to Israel literally came true, but all of the blessings go to the Church. This does not make sense. It is ironic to say as well, that most people who reject Israel as being still in God’s promises are the most reformed, Calvanistic type (ones I might identify much of my theology with). The reason I say it is ironic, as to me such a view should be left to the Armenian Christian. They are the ones that believe you can lose your salvation. Calvanists believe in perseverance of the saints and God’s ability to keep that which Christ has been given, and stay true to these promises. (I also wonder what the point in the book of Hosea and the illustration of Gomer is if Israel are no longer in God's plan).

Anyway, that is a topic I want to talk more on another time, to get my thoughts down on as it fascinates me. The point is though, perhaps dispensational Christians sympathise too much with Israel in that they will seem to always side with them as they are “God’s people” in a certain dispensational sense. This is true – when God removes the Church I believe at the pre-tribulation rapture He then uses that time to deal with Israel, and there will be mass conversion of Israel as a nation to accept Jesus as the Saviour Messiah, however Israel has probably the worst possible record you can have for being “ungodly” in their correct worldview. Therefore this is still the sinful, rebellious and ungodly Israel we are talking about – not all their actions are right. We should support their right to exist as a nation but that does not mean supporting everything they do. Yet so many Christians in America cannot see any fault with what Israel are doing here and that to me is clearly being blinded by incorrectly viewing Israel as not being able to do wrong as they are God’s people and He is working in them.

There is a dangerous parallel that we see in the Church though as well – “great” (read, famous) leaders who are so captivated by their followers that when and where they do wrong, it cannot be seen and people go beyond reasonable measures to stand by them and justify them to the point of covering up their sin. We must remember that all are sinners, especially Israel. They have not yet accepted Christ as their Messiah, they still hold onto the tradition and outward workings that they believe are sufficient for a salvation. They still hold onto the “right of heritage” for their entrance to heaven. They still make very wrong choices and are not acting in God’s desired “will”.

So Hamas is wrong, but so is Israel. We would do well as Christians to not side errantly one way or the other, but pray that man’s violence would end, that God would bring about peace here so that the innocent may have a chance to hear about the good news of the Gospel.

Israel needs peace – if for no other reason than nothing can or will compare to what is going to come their way when the Anti-christ comes and establishes a 7-year peace deal with them. The violence and horror that will ensue will make anything going on in the world now seem like a playground fight. And I believe we are very close to it – all that is going on in the Middle East now is setting the stage for the greatest events the world will see since Christ died on the cross.

Pray for Israel and pray for Gaza. Pray for the Gospel to be made known.

To know the Mind of God

One thing that always puzzles (frustrates) me in the discussions that many atheists (in particular evolutionists) raise in objection to God and/or design is this:

“If God was real / created us, He would not have done it like this.”

This is then almost used as a “scientific” argument (at least in the case of naturalistic evolutionists) for rejection of a Designer or a God.

This however is fallacy – and it certainly is not science. Science is not speculation, it is not human imagination, it is not personal opinion nor is it personal expectations. Science is primarily about reproducing observations in order to test hypotheses. It is ironic that naturalists are often the very first to point out God is not a scientific option as a god cannot be tested or defined by scientific method (hence the materialistic dogma that has been put in place for modern day science for all and any interpretation to adhere to). Yet so many scientists are equally as quick to comment on what a god should or should not be like if one were to exist. 

To “know the Mind of God” I would propose is in fact an oxymoron, at least in our human state. People use the word “God” yet fail to attribute that word to what it conveys. The Judeo-Christian God (YWH, Jehovah, etc) has no true name that man knows, that can be uttered. I believe that this is in fact to display the nature of God – man cannot fully know, understand or grasp. We attribute “God” to Him as this is a description of who He is – not just a name. That is to say, a “god” by definition is a being more powerful, more knowledgeable, more able, and wiser than we. It is a conceptual perspective: that is to say, the Judeo-Christian God is transcendent, beyond comprehension and understanding, without limit, outside the scope and constraints of this universe. Yet humans think that they can say:

“If God exists He must be x, y and z. If He created, it would be a, b and c. As x, y and z are not true, and a, b and c are not observed, God is not real.”

But that is an illogical argument, and certainly not scientific. The only thing that Judeo-Christians can claim about God’s character is that which is revealed in Scripture which we believe to be God’s Word and from God Himself. (As a side-note – if the Bible is not the actual inspired Word of God then the whole thing falls down and truly what can we say about God except speculation?) Therefore, we are not claiming x, y, and z – He is. If YOU were God then YOU might do it differently, but you cannot put yourself in that perspective as a human being, full of error, sin and limited vastly by this great universe, constrained by the forces of that which you do not understand.

If everything in this universe was as we would fully expect and understand given our limited state, if we could fully define the character of God and make full sense of it, would God still be a “god”? I think not. Therein lies the paradox of belief in a God – acceptance that you cannot understand a true God. Fortunately though, God has revealed Himself to us, in as much as we need to understand (at least for salvation and some of His character).

Such arguments may be philosophical arguments against God, however they certainly are not “scientific” arguments for lack of a Designer for example, as they are inherently unscientific arguments. Let me give you an example. Imagine someone like myself, who knows nothing about cars, entering into a car factory. I study the process of manufacturing a car in front of me, maybe I take apart a new model of a car and familiarise myself with the pieces and components. I can work out what some things do more easily than others. After a while of doing this, I declare myself an expert in the creation and design of cars, and conclude that the person who designed this car did not know what they were doing because there is a cable here that I do not understand what its function does. It seems to do one thing but it is longer than it appears to be necessary for that function. Therefore I conclude, this is a poor design and the person who designed it did not know what they were doing, or at least was not a “good” designer.

Would I not be considered mad? I was merely investigating something that was already designed, already there in existence. I did not design it, I did not put it there. I can take it apart and try to work out what bits do. But I do not know the mind of the designer, why they made one thing one way and another different. Perhaps there was purpose that I cannot see. Perhaps there were things like back-up mechanisms that any good engineer would put in, in case of primary failure. To declare the design as flawed would be fallible, given my limited knowledge.

How much more so with incredibly complex systems outside our current scope of our full understanding? Then take into account, the Bible says we live in a broken, fallen world as a result of sin (Genesis 3:16-19). Things were made and they were “very good” however sin of mankind (first in Adam) brought a curse and death not just on humans and spiritual death, but physical death and a curse on nature itself. For example there is good reason to believe that thorns did not exist before the Fall if you hold a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3. Therefore, the world we see now is very different to the intended, first time design. (Another side-note – this is in fact, a great weakness of theistic evolution as it must result in the opposite: i.e. great imperfection slowly making its way towards imperfection).

So use of this argument [To know the mind of God] is down to mere human pride and arrogance. In science, it is not a valid argument against a Designer because it is heavily-laden with personal assumptions (why would a designer do it like this? I wouldn’t...), and it is not testable. Yet it is the essence of many an opposition to design.

Secondly, outside of science and into philosophical arguments, the objection to the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible in “knowing the mind of God” is a rationalisation of the claims about God’s character. For example:

“God is love, yet He sends people to eternal suffering and damnation in Hell. Therefore God is not love. God is not real.”

“God loves mankind yet He allows incredible amounts of suffering, therefore God does not love mankind. God is not real.”

I am not sure in the Bible where it says that understanding God is easy (Job 15:8; Job 21:22; Isaiah 40:13; Jeremiah 23:18; 1 Corinthians 2:11). I am not sure why we expect to fully be able to rationalise every detail in our minds. If we could fully understand and comprehend these issues, we would be like God ourselves. That cannot happen until He makes us like Him as we are full of sin and blemish. The Bible is clear on that (1 John 3:2; 1 Corinthians 13:12). 

And therein lays the issue with these complaints. People cherry-pick from the Bible statements but they take them out of context. What is the context? The whole Bible! That is to say, if you are going to take a statement in the Bible and say “if this is true...” and then extrapolate on it, you HAVE to take the rest of the Bible with it. Therefore, when God says He is love (1 John 4:8) it does not negate His Justice (2 Thessalonians 1:6), or Holiness (1 Samuel 2:2; Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8). We cannot understand those concepts because we are neither Just nor Holy (Romans 3:10). We cannot even comprehend His holiness. Whenever people in Scriptures caught a glimpse of His Holiness what happened to them? Look at the prophets, look at John in Revelation (1:17). John knew Jesus when He was on the earth, veiled in His humanity, His glory covered up. John was closer to holiness arguably than anyone alive today, as an apostle of God. Yet what was his response much like Isaiah (6:5), Ezekiel (1:28), Paul (Acts 9:3-4) and other prophets? He [John] fell on his face like a dead man. He went into a coma-like state of near death upon seeing the Risen Lord Jesus in glorified form. Isaiah proclaimed woe on himself for he is ruined (Isaiah 6:5). Upon facing the most Holy One the only response can be that of ruin, death, separation from God as it shines the light on you and exposes your true unholy state. The uncleanliness of man and the inherent inability of man to coexist in the presence of God in such a state is made fully and abundantly aware. When you take that into consideration it is even more amazing that any human could ever end up in the presence of God, and makes Jesus’ sacrifice even more astonishing especially in relation to God turning His Back on Jesus.

We cannot comprehend nor understand the perfect harmony of judgement, holiness, Hell, forgiveness and God’s love. But when we take the whole Bible, and not isolate characteristics of God and interrogate them with human understanding isolated away from His other attributes, we see a picture that fits and makes sense, in as much as it can to the human mind.

I truly believe that when you delve deep and read in the Bible about Jesus and His life on earth, any questions you have about His Love, His Justice and Hell fade from confusion to acceptance. Why? Quite simply because of the profound nature of Jesus’ life on earth. When you read the Scriptures about Jesus, with the knowledge that He is in fact a sinless, pure man that is yet fully God (Hebrews 2:9-18), you can be nothing short of astounded at His meek, mild, loving, forgiving and humble nature. That is God when He came in human form. He wept at the death of one He would raise to life (Lazarus; John 11:35). He wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), despite the fact it was full of sinners and rejection of Him and salvation. He asked His Father to forgive the people who beat Him (Luke 23:34), who drove nails into His feet and hands, who mocked Him, who taunted Him, who gave Him vinegar to drink. Yet we want to question His love and justice and how they can work out in eternity? If you ever doubt as a Christian how a loving God could do things that are spoken of in the Bible, all you have to do is read about the life of Jesus. Those questions will fade into complete acceptance that whatever happens you can be confident of the most supreme and highest form of justice will occur in the spiritual realm.

Who is there like God? Who can know the mind of the Creator? Who can understand His ways, His thoughts, His wisdom? The wisdom of God is foolishness to men (1 Corinthians 1:18, 25; Ecclesiasties 8:17), and He still makes the wise of the world to be most foolish. We cannot know the mind of God. The Scriptures can give us a glimpse, and one day when those of us saved by His grace will be “made like Him” we will certainly have a better understanding of His mind, but I would argue we will never fully know the mind of God, for that is only possible for God Himself. We will simply come to a better comprehension of God’s mind.

Why it should matter to the Christian

I could write about this subject for hours. The immensity of information contained within the Bible that relies on principles that are in exact opposition to principles of [macro]evolution is overwhelming. The whole premise of our faith is in opposition to evolutionary theory.

But perhaps one area in which I have been reminded is so simple, is in the implications of evolutionary acceptance. I was reading a blog recently by a respected member of the Intelligent Design (ID) community, posting about another complex molecular machine that should pose a serious problem for evolution to explain, but it is merely brushed off (as usual) as “it just happened.” Someone claimed in a comment that there is good evidence of complex systems evolving over the very long periods of time, and someone (who clearly believed in a designer) replied along the lines of “maybe it did evolve over a long period of time but that does not mean that a designer did not guide those changes.”

Let us for a moment forget about all the implications of accepting the evolutionary tale as currently described to us with regards to Biblical revelation and theology. Let us pretend those are not at odds. Let us also pretend that we are to accept science’s version of evolutionary events. What does this tell us about the shoe-horning in of a designer to guide the process? That it is exactly it though, a mere shoe-horning of a greater being who is clearly not that great because nature can do it itself anyway really.

What message does this portray about God? Why is there any acceptance of a God based on this? So God can essentially do what nature can do. What then of an afterlife? What then of those promises that we would take literally? What do we then take to mean when we say that God is all powerful, all knowing, in control of everything?

This is not power, this is not “upholding all things”, this is not a supreme Being beyond the realms and limitations and laws of our universe. This is why theistic evolution, and an appeal to theistic evolution is quite rightly looked down upon by naturalistic evolutionists. True theistic evolution (e.g. the likes of Francis Collins have apparently subscribed to) offers nothing more than naturalistic evolution, except with a god in the background. A god that does not really do much, and certainly not much more than what nature given its course does itself.

(I would go as far as to say, if science proved without a shadow of a doubt that what we see around us could have arisen through naturalistic means without the need for a God, then I would no longer accept the Christian faith. I sincerely believe the evidence dramatically demonstrates that the world around us could not have come to be the way it is through purely materialistic mechanisms, though.)

Why do we try to accommodate and pander to the wisdom of sinful, fallen man? Do we have no belief when the Bible tells us that God has made the wisdom of man foolishness? Where is the wise of the age? Why are we expected as the Church to cater to a mindset that has been around since false religion began? No, nothing is new under the sun (Ecclesiasties 1:9). Evolution is not new, for we are told that they [unbelievers] worshipped the creation and not the Creator (Romans 1:25). They mock saying that all continues to be and carry on since it has from the beginning (2 Peter 3:4 - to me a clear reference to evolutionary thinking). So why does the modern day church feel the need to play along with that way of thinking? Where is the faith that understands the worlds were formed at God’s command (Hebrews 11:3)? Sadly, all I see in the modern church today is great ease in acceptance of what science says on this matter.

This is despite the issue with death, no literal Adam, no “very good” creation (Genesis 1:31), no living on the Earth by pre-Flood humans for up to 969 years (Genesis 5:27), no global Flood (Genesis 6-9), no creation in God’s image (Genesis 1-2), no death entering the world through the sin of one man (Genesis 1-2; Romans 5:12)...I could go on. 

It is no longer in my mind a question of “well God could have done it that way if He wanted” but quite simply, God did it as He said it. He spoke and it came to be. This does not negate evidence, this does not make the faith “blind” – it just means acceptance of God at what His Word says, and that His Word always trumps man’s words. There is more than ample evidence for a Creator God, for the inerrancy of His Word therefore where non-believers would tell us something does not “fit” with the God of the Bible, why should this concern us anymore? 

This is foolishness to those who do not believe (but they cannot understand as they have not received the gift of God enabling them to understand; they are blind). Why trust a religious “book” over modern science? When you also consider that modern science is based on an a priori assumption that any interpretation of evidence, any model or theory, has to arise from and be rooted in naturalistic/materialistic means and mechanisms, you soon see how it is fallacy to accept such a system as being noble and true.

Science will tell you there is no Hell, there is no Heaven, there is no afterlife – this is all we get. Yet people in the Church want to accept science on the origins (which they cannot observe, have not observed, cannot test and can only speculate) but not the endings? Perhaps the fallacy is in the human logic – the thought is that if I make Christianity more in tune with science and relevant, that more people will accept it and come to Christ and as such, people cater to such scientific theories. The fallacy though is that this is in direct contradiction to how salvation is described in Scripture. The only thing that has the power to save is a work from God, not our persuasive words. God’s Word is far more powerful than anything we could conjure up. Those who love their sin and love darkness would not even accept the Light if the dead rose up from the grave and preached it to them. If I had 100 words to say to an unbeliever to try and convince them to come to Christ it would be more powerful to read the first 100 words of the Bible to them than give them a summation of all that is wrong with evolution. Why? Because that would be reading to them God’s actual Word.

That is what should matter to the Christian – God’s Word.