I had an interesting experience when I read the chapter in God Is the Gospel that opened with the idea that “Good news is for proclaiming–for heralding the way an old-fashioned town crier would do.” This was followed by a word picture intended to portray the proclamation of said good news:
Hear ye! Hear ye! All rebels, insurgents, dissidents, and protesters against the King! Hear the royal decree! A Great day of reckoning is coming, a day of justice and vengeance. But now hear this, all inhabitants of the King’s realm! Amnesty is herewith published by the mercy of your Sovereign. A price has been paid. All debts may be forgiven. All rebellion absolved. All dishonor pardoned. None is excluded from this offer. Lay down the weapons of rebellion, kneel in submission, receive the royal amnesty as a gift of imperial love, swear fealty to your sovereign, and rise a free and happy subject of your king.
I have to admit, when I pictured this scene in terms of a medieval, earthly monarch, I immediately imagined myself in a classic movie scenario, hearing the words of an oppressive king who is trying to tempt the members of the heroic rebellion to surrender. I immediately felt, welling up in me, a passion to rally my fellow righteous dissidents and insurgents (in hiding from the nasty king and his condescending “mercy”) to try to fight against him with even more vigor. Who does he think he is? We won’t serve him! A pox on his unjust vengeance! Never give up, never surrender! Freedom! (Etc.)
I can be a pretty stubborn and individualistic person–even rebellious when pushed too hard. The difference, of course, between this story and the Gospel is the difference between the suspicious king and God. Reading the vignette helped me appreciate just how repugnant the Gospel can be to atheists who don’t know God and have no inclination to trust His character or motives. And my initial reaction to this fictional earthly king whom I did not know or trust showed me just where my own instincts lie. With that kind of a nature, how on earth did I ever bend the knee willingly, eagerly, and with great love, to God? It’s truly a miracle, my friends.
[P]redictions [from the Left] of resource depletion leading to disaster have still not come true. The question is, why do they continue to wrongly predict these things? What is behind this mistake? What are they missing?
The gist of my answer (which I owe to Jay Richards and his book, Money, Greed and God):
A materialist sees a human being as a consumer only and so thinks that we must keep population down to match the resources we currently possess. But the fact is that the non-material contributions we humans make to the world end up causing us to produce more than we consume. This is why in a free economy where people are allowed to flourish, the market is able to grow. Production and resources increase because we, as human beings, are more than the sum of our materials.
Read the rest of the explanation here. (And please note that I do not think every person on the Left, particularly if a Christian, would consider himself to be a materialist. However, the ideas of the Left were conceived in and grew out of a materialist worldview. That being the case, the ideas still bear the marks (and problems) of materialism.)
In John Loftus’s book, Why I Became an Atheist, he quotes “exbeliever,” one of his fellow bloggers, who gives the clearest, most accurate illustration I’ve seen to describe the mindset of outspoken atheists toward God and Christianity. I’m going to quote it here because I think this is the most important thing to keep in mind about atheists when discussing God with them, but I do forewarn you that it’s quite disturbing to hear our great God spoken of in this way:
For a long time, I was an ardent admirer of Dr. John Piper. I remember a sermon of Dr. Piper’s in which he described God as a flowing fountain of delight…. But what about those of us who have left the fountain with a horrible taste in our mouths? We came to the fountain and drank as deeply as we could and, for a while, could not get enough of it…. But, then, something happened. The fountain became foul to us…. We opened the Bible and, instead of finding wisdom, we found violence and the justification of immoral acts. We found anti-intellectualism and backward thinking. We found oppression….
We tried to hold on to the fountain, but something had changed. It wasn’t the fountain; it was our taste for it. We realized that the fountain wasn’t a being; it was a religion. It was just dogma. It is like we had been drinking from it with our eyes closed and noses plugged. Somehow, though, we opened our eyes and unplugged our noses and discovered that we had been enjoying filth. The fountain was a fountain of blood and other foul things. We realized that we had spent most of our lives consuming a vile concoction…. We wanted to help [other Christians] open their eyes and see what we saw…. We described the filth to them, but even when they accepted that the fountain contained blood and other “foul” things, they insisted that those things were really “good” [emphasis mine].
I have a very difficult time understanding how someone who has known and interacted with God as a Person could later deny His existence, and I can comprehend even less how anyone could go from loving to hating Him. But that aside, exbeliever has insightfully pinpointed something very important–at the core, the difference between us is a matter of the way God tastes to us, not the intellectual question of His existence. I’ve found this to be the case over and over as I’ve read and listened to the outspoken atheists of our time (Hitchens, Harris, etc.). The conversation turns inevitably and repeatedly to the horrific nature of the Christian God. In debates, intellectual questions about existence consistently take a backseat to this objection, and every aspect of the debate absorbs its flavor.
What does this mean for us as we speak to these atheists? In the end, no person’s taste for God or the Gospel will change unless the Holy Spirit changes his ability to taste. But the Holy Spirit moves people when we explain and glorify the beauty of God and the Gospel, so we need to make a more concerted effort to, first, in the midst of every topic of our apologetics, keep the arguments close to the idea that we’re ultimately conversing about a Person–a real Person whom we love, Who is distinct from us, and Who has a will and purposes; and second, we need to focus on understanding, explaining, and honoring His character and actions. I’ve come to believe that this is where we need to begin, even before arguments for His existence. This is where we need to concentrate our speaking and writing.
Further, within this core issue of God’s character, I believe there is a truth even more deeply central to the divide between Christians and atheists–God’s surpassing holiness. I’m convinced that the atheists’ inability to comprehend God’s holiness is the particular turning point from which they have gone completely wrong. If the Holy Spirit were to reveal a glimpse of the majestic righteousness and holiness of God (and, by comparison, our sinfulness) to these atheists, the answers to 90% of their questions would fall swiftly into place. Since the Holy Spirit often uses our words as the means by which He reveals such things, we need to be prepared to speak on this subject.
To that end, if you haven’t read The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul, I recommend you begin there. Next, you must read the Bible all the way through. Over and over. And over. You must know God from every angle that He has revealed to us, and you need to wrestle with what you find there until the perfect pieces fit together clearly enough for you to help others put their own pieces together. If you don’t feel the goodness and beauty of God in your very bones, now is the time to seek it out.
August 4, 2009 Posted by David NcloseAuthor: David NName: Email: dvnilsen@gmail.com Site:http://reasonfromscripture.blogspot.com About: In 2003 I graduated from high school with no set direction for my life. I spent a year in Iowa before returning to California to attend Junior College. I changed majors 3 times; from Physics to Business to Film (as you can see, no direction). I was a Christian, attending church regularly, but furthering the cause of Christ in this fallen world was not a high priority.
In 2005 I picked up an issue of TableTalk magazine, and I was re-introduced to the work of R. C. Sproul (whom I had read once in high school). Later that year, while taking a biology class with an ardent atheist professor, I picked up a copy of Lee Strobel's "The Case For A Creator." In the Fall of 2006 I came to Biola University and was introduced to the works of J. P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds. My fate was sealed.
Just a few years ago, I was passionless. Now I have two passions: Studying the Word of God and engaging in the task of Apologetics. 1 Peter 3:15 exhorts all Christians to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have. My goal is to be able to give my answer articulately and powerfully, but even more importantly, in love. There are many purposes for apologetics, but by far the most important is the opening of minds and the softening of hearts for the work of the Holy Spirit. If we don't care about and pray for those with whom we engage in apologetics, we fail to fulfill this purpose. As a wise man once said, "Take a stand for the Truth, but do it in love fool!"
Education Info:--Currently: M.A. in Historical Theology student, Westminster Seminary California
--2008: B.A. in Philosophy, Biola University
--2006: A.A. in Liberal Arts, Palomar CollegeSee Authors Posts (75)
If you don’t know already, I love Harry Potter. This wasn’t always true. I hadn’t even heard of the books until the first movie was announced. Embarrassingly, while at my Aunt and Uncle’s house, I picked up Goblet of Fire (the newest book at the time) and, seeing the name “Harry Potter” in large letters across the top I asked, “What else has Harry Potter written?” Then I saw the movie and I was mildly entertained, but it was nothing special. It was no Lord of the Rings. That sentiment held true through movies two, three and four. Then two summers ago I saw Order of the Phoenix in theatres and something was different. This was a more interesting, slightly darker story about an epic struggle between good and evil. After witnessing the finale and the spectacular duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore, I was hooked, and I wanted to know what happened next. I went straight to Borders and bought a little paperback copy of Half-Blood Prince, which I spent the rest of my free time that summer reading. As soon as I was done I HAD to know how the series concluded, so I bought Deathly Hallows and spent every spare moment (when I probably should have been reading for Epistemology!) finishing the book. Now I was obsessed, so when I heard about John Granger, I couldn’t resist.
John Granger (aka the “Hogwarts Professor”) has practically made a career out of writing about Harry Potter. But his books aren’t the usual junk you find littering the shelves, claiming to find hidden Christian messages in the stories, or unlocking all the secrets of the Potter books that Rowling didn’t even know about! Granger is an expert in European literature and the symbolism in it. In 2004, Granger opened up the world of “literary alchemy” and introduced readers to centuries of symbolism in European literature in Looking For God In Harry Potter, now updated and expanded under the title How Harry Cast His Spell. Now Granger has released a brand new book, Harry Potter’s Bookshelf, which takes a closer look at some of the classics of English literature (like Dorothy Sayers’ detective novels, “Gothic Romances” like Jane Eyre and Dracula, and Rowling’s favorite author, Jane Austen) that have inspired many of the themes in the Potter series. Both of these books are utterly fascinating and well worth a read.
It would seem safe, then, to call the Potter books “Christian.” In fact it would be silly to deny the deeply Christian themes of the books. But I came across a very good post by Dr. Clark on the Heidelblog today that reminded me that I, as a Protestant, cannot simply accept the whole history and tradition of European fantasy fiction uncritically. His main point is this:
One of the more important things the Reformation accomplished, which is resented by docents across Europe and Britain as well as by Anglo-Catholics and Romanists everywhere, was the de-sacralization of the world. By “sacralize” I mean to “enchant” the world, to make creation per se more than it is, to make the world sacramental and to endow it with power to communicate divinity to us….The medieval church made the world a magical place by endowing it with power, either by nature or by divine fiat. In short, the medieval church tended to an over-realized eschatology.
The whole notion in classic fantasy literature of speaking incantations that affect a change in the natural world comes not from pagan, but from Christian roots. Of course, they are Medieval roots that the Protestants roundly rejected. The Reformers denied that a priest could, by speaking the correct words, affect a “magical” change in the ordinary substances of bread and wine that would transform them into the body and blood of Christ. And yet this sort of “sacramental” worldview is at the heart of books like Harry Potter. Dr. Clark concludes:
The truth is that what we need is not magic at all. What we need is grace and that grace is not divinity or even a semi-divine substance dispensed by priests. It is divine approval merited for us by our Mediator Jesus and given freely to unworthy and disobedient sinners and found only in Christ. That is true power. What we need is worship governed by God’s Word and not by sentimentality and smoke
Does this mean we dismiss Harry Potter as dangerous or evil (as, ironically, so many in the Catholic community have done)? Not at all. As long as we remember that we cannot actually do “magic” (even in a sacramentalized form), then we are free to appreciate the magical symbolism for the deep Christian themes that it expresses. When I read Dracula and the monster is warded off by crosses and communion wafers, I don’t take the symbolism seriously and rush out to buy icons and relics to protect myself from evil. I see the symbolism for what it should communicate (and, indeed, what even the Eucharistic meal did communicate before it was sacramentalized by the Medievals), namely, that Christ and His sacrifice on the cross has already affected the fallen world and is bringing about the ultimate “magical” change within the hearts of the elect, awaiting the day when that change will be complete throughout all creation at the consummation.
If the physical aspects of this world are all that ever is, was, or will be, beauty is really just an illusion. We have physical responses to certain things (like, say, the Grand Canyon, or “goodness,” or a “purpose” fulfilled well)–responses that were bred into us over time in order to increase our chances of reproducing. We call certain things “beautiful” because of our responses, not because of the things themselves. That is, it’s not as if we’re recognizing something called “beauty” that actually exists out there apart from us.
Because of this, sometimes you will hear much depressing foolishness from a materialist. For example, I know someone who often insists that since we only arbitrarily draw circles around certain sets of atoms and call them humans, or monkeys, or cows, and since we’re just on a continuum of sets of DNA (where we share most of our DNA with other living beings, and we’re on our way to becoming yet a new thing), there’s not really any such thing as a “human,” and there’s no real way to define a “human being” such that we can definitively tell what is and is not a human.
He sometimes proudly pulls out an illustration meant to make his point. The top half is a pretty drawing of a Panda, some trees, and a stream…at least, we see a Panda, some trees, and a stream. We imagine we see such things because we arbitrarily group together atoms and name them things. This is very foolish, so the bottom half of the picture shows us what is really there–a jumbled mass of very similar molecules meaninglessly concentrated here and there into vague groups which blend into each other with no clear boundaries.
The only point that illustration makes to me is that atheism is ugly. Ugly and foolish.
I just came across a passage from C.S. Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Regress in which one of the characters has the same reaction to a similar situation where the beauty of good food is being shown for what it “really is”:
Every day a jailor brought the prisoners their food, and as he laid down the dishes he would say a word to them. If their meal was flesh he would remind them that they were eating corpses, or give them some account of the slaughtering: or, if it was the inwards of some beast, he would read them a lecture in anatomy and show the likeness of the mess to the same parts in themselves…. Or if the meal were eggs he would recall to them that they were eating the menstruum of a verminous fowl…. Then…one day there was nothing but milk for them, and the jailor said as he put down the pipkin:
“Our relations with the cow are not delicate–as you can easily see if you imagine eating any of her other secretions.”
Now John had been in the pit a shorter time than any of the others: and at these words something seemed to snap in his head and he gave a great sigh and suddenly spoke out in a loud, clear voice:
“Thank heaven! Now at last I know that you are talking nonsense.”
“What do you mean?” said the jailor, wheeling round upon him.
“You are trying to pretend that unlike things are like. You are trying to make us think that milk is the same sort of thing as sweat or dung.”
“And pray, what difference is there except by custom?”
“Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference between that which Nature casts out as refuse and that which she stores up as food?”
“So Nature is a person, then, with purposes and consciousness,” said the jailor with a sneer. “…No doubt it comforts you to imagine you can believe that sort of thing”; and he turned to leave the prison with his nose in the air.
“I know nothing about that,” shouted John after him. “I am talking of what happens. Milk does feed calves and dung does not.”
I’ve watched the man with the panda picture tie Christians into knots, trying to get them to prove they can tell a human being from a non-human being. At some point, it’s time to ask, “Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference?”
Orthodoxy and orthopraxy – right doctrine and right practice – tend to live on the opposite ends of the pendulum swing in the historic life of the church. A reaction against imbalances and failures in one usually leads to an overreaction and over-commitment to the other.
This has often been the case with orthodoxy. The term “dead orthodoxy” has been used to describe when a church or group has become so enamoured with doctrinal precision that it makes this its ultimate goal, with no living faith to animate it – as Francis Shaeffer put it, a “dull, dusty, introverted orthodoxy given only to pounding out the well-known clichés.” It is “dead” because it lacks the vitality of a faith to live out its right teaching. Granted, the term has become a bit of a catch phrase and can often be used as a straw man to bash the established doctrinal tradition, but it is a valid warning nonetheless to those of us who strive for such doctrinal precision and fidelity.
Of course, the usual reaction to a “dead orthodoxy” misses the real need – doctrine is not the problem, but rather a lack of true understanding (epignosis, as Paul would say) of the doctrine that brings it into practice in the life of the believer and the church. Orthopraxy is not less important than orthodoxy, but it is downstream of it. In other words, right practice – doing what is right – flows from right doctrine, and not the other way around. But if someone feels that their church is obsessed with sound doctrine, yet they don’t feel loved, they seem most likely to de-emphasize or flat out dump the doctrine and focus on the experiential.
This is the pendulum swing I mentioned earlier, and it is wrong. The liberals did it a century ago, the Jesus movement did as well to some extent in the 60s and 70s, and the emerging church is doing it today. Church history is littered with examples of this phenomenon, and in all cases, regardless of how well intentioned, the tendency to over-react and swing too far away from orthodoxy, rather that just swing towards orthopraxy, is too great for us to ever really avoid the problem.
This point has been noted by others, and written about at length. However, there is another facet of the tension that I’d like to bring out. It’s not often that I coin a term, but I think I’m doing so now:
Dead orthopraxy.
What I mean by that is this: just as orthodoxy is dead without the necessary wholehearted fleshing-out in the lives of the believers, so orthopraxy is dead without a grounding in orthodoxy. Just as it is a living faith that animates sound doctrine, so it is sound doctrine that gives true life to right living. An orthopraxy without true doctrine at its core is dead – dead to God, without spiritual life, the works of a people in rebellion that amount to filthy rags.
Once you have left behind orthodoxy in your pursuit of “living in the way of Jesus,” my friends in the “emergent conversation,” you have embraced a dead orthopraxy. Such a praxis can be just as brittle and lifeless, in its own way, as a dead orthodoxy. The way to escape “cold doctrine” is to rediscover just how white-hot orthodoxy is.
July 27, 2009 Posted by Roger OvertoncloseAuthor: Roger OvertonName: Roger Overton Email: rogeroverton@hotmail.com Site:http://ateamblog.com About: Roger Overton is currently pursuing a Masters degree at Talbot School of Theology. He has addressed various churches, schools and youth camps throughout the United States. Roger was co-editor of The New Media Frontier (Crossway, 2008) and God and Governing (Wipf & Stock, 2009).
Roger can be emailed at rogeroverton@hotmail.com.See Authors Posts (570)
A few weeks ago I posted on a philosophical case for objective beauty. I promised to return to the subject and address what the Bible says about beauty. The Bible never defines beauty, but the writers generally use it as an aesthetic or artistic description that evokes pleasure in the beholder. Beauty is used to describe a variety of things including God, nature, people and actions. The vast majority of biblical references see beauty as positive and valuable. The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery offers an extensive list of these references.
Perhaps the most obvious references to beauty that come to mind are the romantic visions of it found in Song of Solomon. Additionally, a number of women are called beautiful, one being when Abraham referred to his wife as “a beautiful woman” (Gen 12:11), as well as men (1 Sam 25:3; 2 Sam 14:25; Is 44:13) and children (Acts 7:20). Proverbs 20:29 tells us that “the glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair” (RSV).
Various objects are called beautiful including houses (Is 5:9), crowns (Is 28:5), garments (Josh 7:21) and flocks (Jer 13:20). More important was the beauty of the temple and the tabernacle. We are told that God’s “strength and beauty are in his sanctuary” (Ps 96:6). It was a place where the people could behold aspects of God’s beauty and they called each other to “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (1 Chron 16:29, RSV). The many materials, designs and objects that were part of the sanctuaries were likely used, in part, to help worshipers experience aesthetic beauty.
Above all else is the beauty of God. David said it is the one thing he will seek after (Ps 27:4). Expressions of beauty in relation to God cannot easily be distinguished from His majesty, glory and sovereignty, as in Ps 96:6 and Is 28:5. Two of my favorite passages convey God’s beauty, though the word is never used: Is 6:1-4 and Rev 4:1-6. Even the description of Jesus in Rev 1:13-18 expresses beauty.
As I stated at the beginning, most references see beauty as a good thing. But the Bible puts beauty in perspective in a number of ways. For one, it points out that earthly beauty fades and can be destroyed (Is 28:1, 64:11). Beauty can also be dangerous, since it can deceive and seduce (Prov 6:25) and we are warned that outer beauty does not necessarily entail inner beauty (Prov 31:30). The danger is in trusting in beauty, either in the beauty of others or in the beauty of oneself. Ezekiel 16 describes judgment against Jerusalem and explains that “you trusted in your beauty” (v15) and “made your beauty an abomination” (v25) by whoring it around. In chapter 28 we are told that Satan was perfect in beauty prior to his fall.
The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery‘s entry on beauty concludes offering this thought: “We can infer from the biblical images of beauty that the longing for beauty, along with an ability to recognize and experience it, exists in every human being. Although the Bible does not state it explicitly, it is a fair inference that experiences of earthly beauty awaken a longing for a beauty that is more permanent and transcendent than anything this life can give- a longing for the beauty of God.”
This notion of longing is a central component of C.S. Lewis’s writings. I could not help but include his thoughts on beauty from his sermon “The Weight of Glory”:
“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it… For if we take Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.
July 26, 2009 Posted by David NcloseAuthor: David NName: Email: dvnilsen@gmail.com Site:http://reasonfromscripture.blogspot.com About: In 2003 I graduated from high school with no set direction for my life. I spent a year in Iowa before returning to California to attend Junior College. I changed majors 3 times; from Physics to Business to Film (as you can see, no direction). I was a Christian, attending church regularly, but furthering the cause of Christ in this fallen world was not a high priority.
In 2005 I picked up an issue of TableTalk magazine, and I was re-introduced to the work of R. C. Sproul (whom I had read once in high school). Later that year, while taking a biology class with an ardent atheist professor, I picked up a copy of Lee Strobel's "The Case For A Creator." In the Fall of 2006 I came to Biola University and was introduced to the works of J. P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds. My fate was sealed.
Just a few years ago, I was passionless. Now I have two passions: Studying the Word of God and engaging in the task of Apologetics. 1 Peter 3:15 exhorts all Christians to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have. My goal is to be able to give my answer articulately and powerfully, but even more importantly, in love. There are many purposes for apologetics, but by far the most important is the opening of minds and the softening of hearts for the work of the Holy Spirit. If we don't care about and pray for those with whom we engage in apologetics, we fail to fulfill this purpose. As a wise man once said, "Take a stand for the Truth, but do it in love fool!"
Education Info:--Currently: M.A. in Historical Theology student, Westminster Seminary California
--2008: B.A. in Philosophy, Biola University
--2006: A.A. in Liberal Arts, Palomar CollegeSee Authors Posts (75)
This morning, I was lounging around with the wife and kids (after having just eaten some of my wife’s oh-so-delicious peanut butter pancakes) when I answered a knock on the door and found myself in a conversation with two ladies from the Watchtower Society. Now, I don’t know why exactly Jehovah’s Witnesses pick Saturday morning (when I’m still groggy, in my PJs and feeling rather unprepared to welcome company into my home) to do their door-to-door thing, though it probably has something to do with work schedules. I’d rather think it was that than some sort of tactic to catch people flatfooted.
In any event, the elder of the two ladies started with their usual hook (“We live in troubled times, and we need peace in our lives,” etc.), read Philippians 4:6-7 out of her New World Translation, and handed me their Watchtower literature. She talked a bit about Jesus’ purpose in coming to earth to bring in the Kingdom of God (the Father, Jehovah) and to rule over it. I listened carefully and attentively, and mentioned at that point that it seemed to me that the Bible teaches that Jesus is Jehovah. This elicited a response about Jesus praying to the Father, and an assumption that I got this from John 1:1. I told them that I would love to discuss this with them, and asked if they could come back at a later time. They said it was really nice to talk to someone who was interested in “discussing Bible” – that most of the time they got doors quickly closed in their faces – and they took my name, address and phone number, promising to have “one of the brothers” come and visit me. I thanked them for stopping by and, shaking hands, we said goodbye.
So in the very near future, I expect to have a conversation with one of the elders of my local Kingdom Hall. In retrospect, I probably should have asked those ladies in, in spite of the mess my kids had made that morning, as it will be probably more difficult to get an elder to seriously consider any criticism of the Watchtower position. However, both the door-to-door ministers and the elders will be equipped with the standard Watchtower answers to all of the common points and scriptural passages orthodox Christians usually use in these conversations (such as John 1:1), which is why I’m not planning on going there. They have very nearly been programmed on those responses, and it won’t engage them in actual thought. Instead, I plan to go to some texts that haven’t been changed in their “translation” and argue for Jesus as Jehovah from their own Bibles.
The first is in Hebrews 1:10-11, which reads: “YOU, LORD, IN THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; THEY WILL PERISH, BUT YOU REMAIN; AND THEY ALL WILL BECOME OLD LIKE A GARMENT”. Verse 8 tells us that the writer sees this statement as being about the Son, but it is a quote from Psalm 102:26. In the Psalm, the person being praised as Creator is Yahweh; ergo, Jesus is Yahweh.
The second is in John 12:39-41, which reads: “For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, ‘HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.’ These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.” It is clear from the context that, by “Him,” John means Jesus: in other words, John said that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory in his vision. However, whose glory does Isaiah say he saw? If you read the account in Isaiah 6, he clearly says he saw Yahweh sitting on a throne in glory. Therefore, again, according to the New Testament writer, Jesus is Yahweh.
This, it seems to me, is very convincing proof of Jesus’ deity and identity as Yahweh- if one holds to the authority of Scripture, that is. Obviously, this argument wouldn’t work with someone who doesn’t; the most it could show is that the New Testament writers held Jesus to be Yahweh (and possibly that the Old Testament prophets allude to it as well), but not that he actually was. But here’s one of the coolest apologetic uses of the above points: Jehovah’s Witnesses, though they have changed certain readings in their New World Translation to hide the more obvious declarations of Jesus’ deity (e.g., John 1:1), borrowed all their cross-reference notes from some other translation, and the cross-references in their own bible point from both of these NT passages about Jesus to the quoted OT passages that clearly refer to Jehovah. In fact, the NWT uses “Jehovah” and not just “God” in both Psalm 102 and Isaiah 6. This, for the JW, is huge because of the extremely high regard for the name of Jehovah in their thinking – if they can see that Jesus is called Jehovah by the New Testament, they will be deeply shaken by this. Hopefully we can, using their own “translation” (which they are taught to trust), lovingly and gently bring them to see the truth and escape from their error. Jesus Christ is not a created being, however highly exalted, but the very Yahweh of Israel – in sharing the divine name, He shares the divine essence.
July 22, 2009 Posted by David NcloseAuthor: David NName: Email: dvnilsen@gmail.com Site:http://reasonfromscripture.blogspot.com About: In 2003 I graduated from high school with no set direction for my life. I spent a year in Iowa before returning to California to attend Junior College. I changed majors 3 times; from Physics to Business to Film (as you can see, no direction). I was a Christian, attending church regularly, but furthering the cause of Christ in this fallen world was not a high priority.
In 2005 I picked up an issue of TableTalk magazine, and I was re-introduced to the work of R. C. Sproul (whom I had read once in high school). Later that year, while taking a biology class with an ardent atheist professor, I picked up a copy of Lee Strobel's "The Case For A Creator." In the Fall of 2006 I came to Biola University and was introduced to the works of J. P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds. My fate was sealed.
Just a few years ago, I was passionless. Now I have two passions: Studying the Word of God and engaging in the task of Apologetics. 1 Peter 3:15 exhorts all Christians to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have. My goal is to be able to give my answer articulately and powerfully, but even more importantly, in love. There are many purposes for apologetics, but by far the most important is the opening of minds and the softening of hearts for the work of the Holy Spirit. If we don't care about and pray for those with whom we engage in apologetics, we fail to fulfill this purpose. As a wise man once said, "Take a stand for the Truth, but do it in love fool!"
Education Info:--Currently: M.A. in Historical Theology student, Westminster Seminary California
--2008: B.A. in Philosophy, Biola University
--2006: A.A. in Liberal Arts, Palomar CollegeSee Authors Posts (75)
I’m the sort of person who puts 5 dollars in the offering plate. This is partly because I don’t ever carry much cash on me. If I’m thinking ahead I’ll write a check for 15 or 20 dollars, but that isn’t very often. I’ve been in the “starving student” cruise control mode for 6 years now. Then last Sunday I had an eye-opening experience. I glanced over at the family sitting next to me and saw a check for 400 dollars! I had always had a vague idea that I wasn’t giving as generously as I should, but this experience brought that vague idea home in a vivid way.
Now obviously the family next to me probably makes a lot more money than I do, and they probably don’t give that much every week, but that’s not the point. The point is that I had literally never seen or heard of anyone putting that much money into a church offering plate before. That’s a sad thing, and according to most statistics my experience is not unique, since only some 4 percent of professing Evangelicals actually give 10 percent or more of their income.
The August issue of Tabletalk Magazine has been dubbed “The Money Issue.” R. C. Sproul reminds us, using Malachi 3:8 as his text, that failing to tithe is the equivalent of robbing from God. He has blessed us with everything we have and graciously He has only asked for a small percentage in return. Moreover, God has promised to bless us with even more riches when we do faithfully tithe as He has asked.
Lest we are tempted into tithing only out of selfish desires for more wealth, however, John Piper reminds us that the primary reward we hope to reap from our generous giving to others is not earthly, but heavenly. But the order is actually the reverse of what most would think. We don’t give generously and thereby show love to others in order to gain heaven. Rather, by first setting our hearts on Christ and making Him our joy, generosity and love will naturally flow out of us from Him. This, says Dr. Piper, is the teaching of John 12:33-34.
Speaking as someone who definitely does not tithe as much or as often as I should (I am now a sad statistic!), I would encourage all of you to reflect on how much you give back to God. Remember, it doesn’t have to be exclusively in monetary terms, nor does it have to be exclusively to your local church. John Piper provides us with a helpful guideline when he describes the Christian attitude as one of “simplicity and service”, rather than accumulation of possessions, with the ultimate goal of maximizing our joy in Christ. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where is your heart?
How often we approach the throne of grace as desperate beggars. Yet He never once turns us away, but lavishes the richest of riches upon us. 2009-10-06
August 18, 2009 Posted by Amy Hall 
Posted in Amy's Posts, Apologetics, Religion (General), Theology 
3 Comments » 
Perhaps the most obvious references to beauty that come to mind are the romantic visions of it found in Song of Solomon. Additionally, a number of women are called beautiful, one being when Abraham referred to his wife as “a beautiful woman” (Gen 12:11), as well as men (1 Sam 25:3; 2 Sam 14:25; Is 44:13) and children (Acts 7:20). Proverbs 20:29 tells us that “the glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair” (RSV).
The second is in John 12:39-41, which reads: “For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, ‘HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.’ These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.” It is clear from the context that, by “Him,” John means Jesus: in other words, John said that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory in his vision. However, whose glory does Isaiah say he saw? If you read the account in Isaiah 6, he clearly says he saw Yahweh sitting on a throne in glory. Therefore, again, according to the New Testament writer, Jesus is Yahweh.
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