GOD’S WARNINGS, OMNIPOTENCE, AND THE GUILT OF HUMANITY

Job was not the first or the last to indict God, charging Him with “injustice.” In fact, such indictments are ubiquitous in Western society today, where any form of punishment is disparaged as “insensitive” and “mindless.” Even now, students at OSU are mourning the death of a terrorist who had knifed and plowed down a number of students with his car. In another case, a woman refused to bring charges against a migrant who had raped her because she felt that he had been driven to commit the rape.

In our moral and intellectual climate, it should not be surprising that God is scorned as a vengeful, medieval deity. “Christian” evolutionist, Karl Giberson, affirmatively quoted atheist Richard Dawkins in this regard:

·       [God is a] “tyrannical anthropomorphic deity” and “commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages.” But who believes in this [OT] deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God.” http://biologos.org/blog/exposing-the-straw-men-of-new-atheism-part-five/

The late and renowned atheist, Bertrand Russell had been asked, “What if you meet God after you die and he asks, ‘Why didn’t you believe in me?’ How will you answer him?” Russell answered:

·       God, there was simply not enough evidence, just not enough evidence.

Is this true? Does God punish without sufficient warning? Scripture gives us a resounding “No.” Why then do people claim that there is no evidence? According to Scripture, humanity suppresses this evidence (Romans 1:18-20) and prefers the darkness to the light of truth (John 3:19-20).

Scripture gives us many accounts that substantiate this claim. For example, Pharaoh continued to harden his heart, even after the horrific 10 plagues. His chariots even pursed the fleeing Israelites into the sea with waters walled up on either side – an unmistakable testimony to the fact that Israel’s omnipotent God was with them.

How can we account for such willful blindness and foolishness? Only in this way: that humanity’s hatred of God is so great that it overrides every other consideration.

The Book of Revelation provides another stunning portrait of the sin-hardened. Even after the plagues that had accompanied the opening of the seven seals and the six trumpets, we read:

·       The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Revelation 9:20-21; ESV)

Can we indict God because of our stubbornness? Even after this, God provided many other signs that He meant business. He sent two supernatural prophets to prophesy against the nations for 1,260 days. When they had succeeded in killing the two, humanity gloated over their death and refused to allow them to be buried. However, this worked against them. After several days, God raised them and brought a terrible earthquake upon the land (Rev. 11).

Did they repent? No! Was God finished with His warnings to repent? Certainly not:

·       The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish  and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds. (Revelation 16:8-11)

Instead of repenting and confessing their sin to their Creator and Provider, they “cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores.” Did they not know what they were facing? They must have, but they had hardened their hearts like Pharaoh. They were no longer amenable to reason.

At this point, we tend to raise another objection:

·       God, you are omnipotent. You can do all things. If you have the power to change the hearts of men, why didn’t you change all their hearts so that they would come to you? To know to do good and to not do it is to sin.

This objection represents a misunderstanding of God’s omnipotence. While He can accomplish all the things He wants to accomplish, He cannot accomplish them through any means. He cannot sin; He cannot violate His Word. Besides, He is also constrained by His very character. Jesus had prayed that the Father would spare Him from going to the Cross:

·       And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

Evidently, there was no other way. God’s character constrains Him. His holy nature demands that there had to be a sufficient payment for sin. There was no other way.

I don’t understand why there must be eternal punishment, at least, not completely. However, I am resigned to the fact that I only see in part (Deut. 29:29) and that there is much about my Savior that I still do not understand. However, I am willing to wait and to abide with the understanding that He has offered to us.

Tony Jones: Re-Modeling God according to Updated Specifications

We want life to make sense to us – and this is a good impulse – and so we re-shape God according to our understanding and lifestyle. And this is not a good impulse. Why not? For one thing, we are warned against doing this. Many verses declare that He is above our understanding. We are finite and He is infinite:

•         "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The Creator of the universe is further beyond our understanding than even the universe itself! Therefore, we shouldn’t go beyond what He has revealed to us (Isaiah 8:20; 1 Cor. 4:7).

But how do we understand the recent devastating earthquake in Nepal? Why would our omniscient God allow this horror? He certainly could have intervened!

In order to preserve his belief in an all-loving, non-judging God, the Emergent Church teacher, Tony Jones, rhetorically asks:

•         What if, instead, God is traveling through time with us? What if God abdicated all the sovereignty so as to give creation room to flourish? What if God is in a dynamic love-relationship with us, and both we and God are being changed as a result? http://tonyj.net/blog/2015/04/28/where-is-god-in-the-earthquake/

In order to justify his philosophy of life, Jones is willing to reject God’s biblical self-disclosure – His unchanging-ness (immutability), omniscience, and omnipotence:

•         If this [above] is the case — and there’s ample biblical evidence that it is — then the earthquake in Nepal caught God by surprise. God is neither planning earthquakes nor sitting back and allowing them to happen. God is a victim of the earthquake because thousands of God’s beloved children perished.

“Ample biblical evidence?” Well, let’s take a look:

IMMUTABILITY:

•         Malachi 3:6 – “For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.

•         James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

•         James 1:10-12 - “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; And they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will fold them up, And they will be changed.  But you are the same, and Your years will not fail.”

•         Hebrews 13:8 - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

OMNISCIENCE:

•         Psalm 139:4 – For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.

•         Hebrew 4:13 – And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must given account.

•         Psalm 147:5 – Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.

•         Psalm 139:16 – Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.  And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

•         Isaiah 42:9 – “Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

•         Isaiah 45:11 – Thus says the LORD, The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:  “Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons; And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me.

OMNIPOTENCE:

•         Psalm 37:23 – The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.

•         Matthew 10:29 – “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin?  And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”

•         Romans 8:28 – And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Job’s three friends also tried to construe God and His actions according to their worldview. They were correct that God was involved in Job’s misfortunes and attributed “good” motives to God. However, they were convinced that Job had some massive secret sins that were responsible for His suffering and misrepresented God in their attempt to bring God into conformity with their philosophy, and God was angry at them:

•         After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)

We are not at liberty to conform God to our ideological preferences. Instead, the measure of our love for God isn’t a matter of how “nice” we want to make Him seem, but instead, how faithful we remain to His Self-revelation:

•         Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. (John 14:23-24)

Not only is Jones’ views unbiblical, they are also illogical and beneath the dignity of God. How can we account for the fine-tuning of the universe, the immutable and elegant, laws of nature, DNA, the cell, life, logic, reason, freewill, and consciousness, if even an earthquake had “caught God by surprise?”

Why does Jones invent such a God – one who will also be caught by surprise by our diseases, failures, and even death and therefore helpless before them? I’ll leave that up to you!

The Proof of God from Evil

Does the presence of evil discount the existence of a good and omnipotent God? No! Actually, the presence of evil proves the existence of God! Here’s how the argument goes (I thank W.L. Craig for this):

1.     Evil Exist

2.     Evil (and objective moral truths/laws) cannot exist without an objective basis for evil – God!

3.     God must exist!

The fact that evil exist is self-evident. However, premise #2 requires a little explanation. Without an immutable, universal, all-wise, and good God, objective evil cannot exist. If there is nothing greater than the human being, then there is nothing greater than their millions of differing moral opinion, and there is nothing to make my opinion any more correct than yours. Consequently, there is no objective standard by which we can say genocide and sex slavery is wrong.

Also, if morality doesn’t have an immutable source, then it changes and cannot be taken seriously. If you tell me that rape is wrong, I can simply respond, “Maybe not next year!”

If the source is not universal, then we encounter other absurdities. If murder is wrong here but not in Hawaii, I can go to Hawaii if I want to murder. In any event, a moral law that is not universal is laughable.

Also, if the moral law is not given by a good and all-wise God, then there is little reason to follow it apart from rewards and punishments – something that can only breed cynicism. Consequently, God must exist if evil and objective moral law exist.

Freedom, the Character of God, and the Cross

Tony Jones, an Emergent Church guru, questions the necessity of the cross and the death of Christ for the sins of the world:

• I do not think that a bloody, violent death of a divine being was the only way to save the world. I believe that God has more freedom than that.

Perhaps Jones has an incorrect understanding of “freedom.” Biblically speaking, while God can do anything He wants, He does not want to do anything. Some things would contradict His promises; other would contradict His character.

For one thing, God will not sin. This might seem like a limitation to His freedom. However, freedom loses all of its meaning if God is totally free to do anything. The game of chess loses all its meaning if we can move the pieces however and whenever we want. In light of this, freedom only has meaning in the context of limitation.

Jesus understood this. He didn’t want to go to the cross and therefore prayed:

• Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)

Could not the omnipotent God have done it another way, as Jones suggests? Evidently, it was necessary that Christ die for our sins. But why? God’s holy character required this:

• God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—  he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:25-26)

God must act justly! Do we understand this? Not really! There is no way that we can fully understand the character of God. Rather, those of us who know Him accept it!

Christian Universalism: Does it Agree with Scripture?

A Christian Universalist (CU) asked me to provide a few verses that would contradict universalism – the belief that God will save everyone. I did, but then began thinking that universalism defies so many of the teachings of the Bible, not simply the doctrine of a final and eternal judgment. Let me try to demonstrate with several doctrines:

FAITH: Faith is regarded as necessary for salvation. Jesus taught that those who have faith would not “perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16), suggesting that those without faith would not have everlasting life. Jesus also warned the Pharisees:

• “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins.” (John 8:24)

While the CU will claim that it is one thing to “die in your sins,” but it’s another thing for God to leave them in torment without bringing them to heaven. However, if Jesus’ concern was just a matter of their dying experience, His warning would hardly have been worth the words.

REPENTANCE: Repentance is so closely associated with faith that it is also a condition of salvation. Peter implies this:

• The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

Coming to repentance is opposite from perishing. According to Peter, if we don’t come to repentance, we will perish. The CU, however, will argue that perishing is not the end of the story, since God will save after perishing.

However, there seems to be a note of finality attached to these warnings. For instance, the Book of Hebrews warns:

• Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:27-28)

There is no mention of the possibility of Jesus bringing salvation to all but just to those “who are waiting for him.”

HOLINESS: Similarly, holiness is taught as a necessary fruit of salvation, without which no one will be saved:

• Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

There is no suggestion here that those who refuse to follow our Lord will be reunited with Him after death. If this were the case, someone could easily retort:

• Well, I’m just having too good of a time here to worry about holiness. Anyway, we’re all going to be saved, so why bother!

OBEDIENCE: Obedience is the inevitable fruit of a living faith. Therefore, James was able to say that he could show his faith through his obedience. Therefore, if obedience isn’t present, neither is salvation:

• “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)

These would never enter the kingdom, according to Jesus. Instead, they would be part of the resurrection of the evil:

• “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.” (John 5:28-29)
  
  

There is no hint that this condemnation would later give rise to a free pass to heaven. Instead, Jesus warned that we should fear God who could punish us beyond the grave:

• “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

According to Jesus, there is a fate worse than death. However, the CU discounts or minimizes this fate.

Paul repeatedly warned about the fate of those who were not living for Christ:

• I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:21)

While Paul claimed that the eternal kingdom of God was at stake, the CU must deny these stakes.

FORGIVENESS: Forgiveness is necessary for salvation. However, the CU claims that God can grant all people forgiveness after the grave. However, this does not seem to be a possibility for all:

• “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.  Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” (Matthew 12:31-32)

In order to retain the viability of his theory, the CU must re-construe Scripture in a strained manner.

The Book of Hebrews also indicates that forgiveness will not be universal:

• If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. (Hebrews 10:26-27)

If God’s enemies will be consumed, this doesn’t seem to give much hope for an eternal life.

PRAYER: Should the unrepentant expect to receive good from God if they do not ask for it? Not according to James:

• You do not have because you do not ask God. (James 4:2)

• That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:7-8)

However the CU claims that the unrepentant can expect to receive eternal life from God. This seems to be a contradiction.

MEDITATION ON SCRIPTURE: After describing the faithful man who is blessed by meditating on Scripture, the Psalmist contrasts him with the evil man:

• Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalm 1:4-6)

It appears that at death, the fate of the wicked is sealed. They will not be in the assembly of the righteous but will be destroyed.

EVANGELISM: Concern about the fate of the unbeliever is to motivate evangelism. However, if everyone is ultimately going to be saved, why bother!

THE INEVITABILITY OF AN ETERNAL JUDGMENT: Clearly, Scripture wants us to take these many warnings seriously:

• For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly… the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. (2 Peter 2:4-9)

Peter argued that we must take the final judgment seriously, because if God judged in the past, there is no reason to doubt that He will judge in the future. In the next chapter, Peter equates this judgment with “the destruction of the ungodly” (3:7).  Other verses are even more emphatic about the finality of this judgment (Rev. 10:20; 21:8, 27).

These verses only represent a small sampling of verses that teach an eternal punishment. Nevertheless, I must admit that there remain perplexing questions:

1. Of what will this judgment consist? Annihilation? Torment?
2. How will the judgment be transacted? Will the condemned go willingly? Will judgment be self-chosen?

There are also philosophical problems:

1. How can heaven be blissful if we know that our loved ones are suffering?
2. The severity of eternal judgment seems unwarranted.

However, there is one final problem that I find intractable. CU Gregory MacDonald lays out the problem this way:

1. God, being omnipotent, could cause all people to freely accept Christ.

2. God, being omniscient, would know how to cause all people to freely accept Christ.

3. God, being omnibenevolent, would want to cause all people to freely accept Christ.

Now 1–3 entail: 4. God will cause all people to freely accept Christ. From which it follows that:

5. All people will freely accept Christ. (The Evangelical Universalist, Introduction)

MacDonald is claiming that if God is all-loving and all-powerful (omnipotent), He will save all. If He has both the will and ability to save all, there is no reason why He won’t save all.

However, MacDonald’s case is built on some shaky suppositions. It does not seem that God’s love, when biblically understood, requires Him to save all. Perhaps even more troublesome for MacDonald’s case is his understanding of God’s omnipotence.

Omnipotence cannot mean that God can do anything. Instead, Scripture reveals several things that He cannot do. He cannot sin or violate His Word. To violate His character is also to sin.

I used to wonder why, if God is omnipotent, He couldn’t just forgive without the cross. However, if He could, Jesus would have died needlessly. However, Scripture asserts that the cross wasn’t needless but the centerpiece of God’s plan. But to my thinking, this implied a limitation within God. How then could He be omnipotent if He couldn’t forgive apart from the cross?

Biblical omnipotence does not teach that God can do anything, but only those things He wants to do, but these are not necessarily the things that we’d expect Him to do, especially in a manner we regard as fitting.

I began to understand that the explanation for the cross lied buried within the Deity Himself – that there is something in His very nature that requires a just payment for sin. Is there also something within the nature of God that prevents Him from saving all? Perhaps, but He hasn’t disclosed this to us!

I am still perplexed by this question, but does this mean that I have to reject the concept of eternal judgment because of these unanswered questions? Certainly not! Commitment to any ideal or belief doesn’t require perfect understanding.

It couldn’t possibly! If it did, we’d have to reject science – a world filled with perplexities. In fact, we don’t even understand the basics of science – time, space, matter – let alone the behavior of sub-atomic particles.

The teaching of an eternal judgment is so thoroughly intertwined within Scripture, we cannot reject it without also rejecting Scripture and everything that we cherish. We are prone to come to quick and comfortable judgments like Nicodemus, who had been so hasty to dismiss the possibility of being “born again,” even though this was something he should have understood from Scripture. Lovingly, Jesus humbled him:

• Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? (John 3:11-12)

The Bible speaks of heavenly things. Let us not be hasty to override Scripture merely because it doesn’t make complete sense to us.