A Graceful Bow

This is a transcription of a sermon that I gave on October 3, 2010 at the United Presbyterian Church in Havertown, PA. I was speaking on The Noahic Covenant. The Old Testament Reading was Genesis 8:20-9:17, and the New Testament Reading was Ephesians 1:1-8. This is the transcription from the morning service specifically. The sermon in the evening service was pretty much the same as the one posted here, with some addition of content and slight alteration.

INTRO

Please pray with me. Father in Heaven, You cannot be contained by any earthly vessel, and yet You have chosen to make our hearts Your dwelling place. Lord, we are broken and flawed – and we confess the depravity of our nature to You. But we come together in thanksgiving this morning, praising Your Holy name and yielding glory to You alone. And we ask for the provision of Your Spirit to illuminate Your words for the purposes of understanding and knowing You. In Your promises we place our trust – in Your love we place our hope. In the precious name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.

What a fine morning to praise the Lord! Can I get an amen? Amen! (repeat, if necessary). This is only my second sermon, and I know that at least some of you have yet to hear me preach, and so I would like to preface the message today with a short statement of my understanding of the philosophy of preaching.

Last year, theologian John Calvin turned 500 years-old, and there was a great celebration of the Gospel in commemoration of Calvin’s life and the Reformation. At Calvin’s church - St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland - preachers and theologians from all over the (Christian) world gathered together for a week of biblical teaching and, undoubtedly, Christian networking! One of the men who preached that week was Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of the Anglican Church of Uganda. I wish to share this passage from his sermon with you all because I believe that he very effectively illustrates a proper understanding of what effective preaching and teaching looks like. Don’t worry – I will not attempt his accent. And I quote:

“‘Feed my lambs’ is a very powerful command that the church today must follow. Why do I stand here fearing and trembling today? Because the man John Calvin was a teacher of the Word; the man John Calvin fed people the Word of God. And they came. The man John Calvin was used at a time when people had a hunger for the Word of God. And he was a good chef – he cooked very well.

“I would like to say that part of the difficulty today is the lack of appetite for the Word of God. I would also like to say that this is predominantly because of the way that the Word has been preached or even not preached. Part of the difficulty today is that the Word of God is not preached with the faithfulness of John Calvin, the faithfulness of Martin Luther, or the passion that they had, with the desire they had. They believed the Word of God. Today, the church of Christ has not believed with that passion that this is the transforming Word of God. And no wonder people may not come. And if they do come, they may want to stay two minutes, or three minutes, or five minutes, or ten minutes and then go as soon as possible.

“Instead of being fed, they are being poisoned. But when it is preached with power, and preached with such a passion, preached with faith because people believe what they are preaching, it is different” (ed. Hall, Daniel W. 2010. Preaching Like Calvin. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing. p. 44). Wow.

Notice that Calvin was a good chef not only because he believed what he preached, but also because he preached the Word of God. Calvin, Luther, Paul, Peter, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Noah, and Christ Jesus preached the Word of God – God’s revealed Truth – and believed it. One of these fine gentlemen was the absolutely obedient Son of God, so I guess He had to! Well, that’s a question for a different sermon.

Anyway, my point in prefacing my sermon with such a lengthy speech is just to say that I can’t call myself a good chef of anything. But I do believe that the Bible is true, and it is the message of this uniquely inerrant book that I am here to preach from. So, let’s get started.

In the Genesis passage, we see that Noah and his kin exit the ark and the next thing we know, the patriarch is building an altar to God – good man. And I want to come back to what is going on here in chapter eight a little bit later, for God says something very interesting which is crucial for a solid understanding of the Noahic, or Rainbow, Covenant contained in chapter nine.

Man’s Postdiluvian Purpose

In chapter nine, we see that God’s revealed will for mankind in the postdiluvian world is to perpetuate human life. We read the renewal of an old command from Genesis chapter one, verse twenty-eight: procreate and fill the earth. God recommissions Man to procreate, renewing the command from Genesis 1:28. Then we get some new things, such as God setting the fear of Man into the animal kingdom. This fear is specifically upon “every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky,” and not cattle, beasts of burden, or livestock. This is a restatement of the dominion mandate also from Genesis 1:28, but qualified with the work that God has done in the nature of the animals now that Satan has usurped that mandate, as indicated in 1 John 5:19. Again, that’s 1 John 5:19, which describes Satan’s jurisdiction of power – that is, the “whole world.” As a result of Satan’s usurpation of Man’s dominion, and God’s destruction of all life on account of Man’s complicity in that usurpation, God has made Man feared rather than obeyed by animals.

In conjunction with this change comes a dietary change – namely that God allows Man to eat meat. But, God makes clear that we are not to ingest blood. Verse four states, “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” We are not to consume blood because Blood symbolizes life. In fact, let us go so far to say that it is only by our blood that we have life. God made all flesh that way. Blood is Life, and life is to be offered to God, not consumed by men. Blood, which carries the life of animate creatures, is to be offered unto God, not spent away on men. This concept carries over to the next command that God instructs Noah.

God forbids the act of murder. Again, I emphasize that God’s revealed will for mankind in the postdiluvian world is to perpetuate human life. To end human life in murder is not permissible. Murder explicitly does not honor God, and so the shedding of human blood, the taking of human life in murder, cannot be done in service to God. Murder cannot honor God. However, God does not forbid killing per se. In fact, God institutes capital punishment. He institutes capital punishment in retribution for the act of Murder. This is how serious murdering someone is. We can infer that this particular crime was weighing on God’s heart because it was wildly prevalent in the antediluvian world, the world before the Flood. Similarly, there was no institution among men to administer justice, and so God establishes legal authority in order to enforce this mandate that He hands down to Noah.

Verse 5 reads, “Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.” The word “require” is a judicial term. And we see that God requires the life of man from every man’s brother. At this point in human history, there are four men. God is talking to Noah and directly referring to his three sons, who are obviously brothers. If God is saying “from every man’s brother I will require the life of man,” it’s pretty clear to us that He is telling all of the men in the entire world, “you are responsible for making sure this punishment is enforced.” This is pre-Mosaic Law. This command is not unique to the Jews – it is part of a universal command given by God to all of mankind, and it precedes a universal Covenant between God and all of mankind that extends to the present day, and shall continue until the End of Days.

“Whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man. As for you, be fruitful and multiply; populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.” God finishes this section of commands with a reason. This is a privilege, to be given a reason for a command. God really doesn’t need to give us reasons for what He does – for the secret things belong to God. But it was His purpose to give a reason for why it is so wrong to shed the blood of men even though it’s certainly permissible to kill animals. “For in the image of God He made man.” Unlike animals, we have an eternal soul, not merely a temporary spirit residing in the blood of the flesh. God makes the distinction between men and animals that so many incredibly intelligent fools in schools and universities around the world are trying to undermine all for the sake of progressive evolution. May God have mercy. If the distinction between men and animals is unclear, as it is in evolutionary theory, there really is no reason to view man as specially created in the image of God. There really is no reason to believe that the murder of men is much different than the killing of animals. May God have mercy.

The Noahic Covenant

Let’s move on to the Noahic Covenant. At verse eight, God formally begins the covenant that He makes with ALL flesh – Noah, his sons, his daughters in-law, and every living creature. And I love how God starts up His speech – “Now (that I got the legalities out of the way) behold.” He says behold to this new idea, this new concept, this new promise, this new covenant with your mind. But also – behold this beautiful new phenomenon with your eyes.

God will never again unleash a global flood. He will never again destroy all flesh by water. He will never again destroy the earth by water. And He gives Noah the bow as a Sign of the Covenant. In verse thirteen, He calls the rainbow “my bow,” and it is truly for the covenant the He is making. He seals the covenant with this, His bow. He seals the covenant firmly with a beautiful refraction of white light into all the colors of the light spectrum so that His glory may be seen in its entire splendor.

And this rainbow commemorates the Covenant; it commemorates the covenant. Whenever and wherever there is a rainbow, this covenant is reaffirmed in a sense. Whenever and wherever there is a rainbow, God sees this beautiful postdiluvian phenomenon and remembers His promise to all flesh upon the earth. God remembers. And we should remember as well. There are many things that men have made the rainbow stand for these days. I don’t need to mention them directly, and I don’t really want to either. Whatever a rainbow means to us, we should remember that God has given it to us as a sign of this covenant – and it is meant to glorify Him.

In my last sermon, I suggested that God allowed the Fall of Man because He desires to show Himself as redeemer and savior. It would be logically impossible to redeem or save a perfect, untarnished Creation – so He let the Fall happen. The Fall thus established God’s role as Redeemer, which He had reserved – for His Son – since before time began. Please let me point out that before the Flood, there was no rain, there were no clouds, there was water in the form of some kind of vapor canopy in the firmament above. But now that canopy is gone, and the rain cycle that we know has been set in place, as I will talk about a little bit more in a moment. Only in the postdiluvian world can God display His glorious mercy and grace in this specific way. God redeems the great catastrophe of the Flood with this rainbow and the covenant it stands for. Hallelujah. When I see His bow in the sky above, I am reminded that my redeemer lives!

Heart of the Covenant

Bear with me a little while longer, as I want to go back to chapter 8, verses 20 to 22 in order to really get at the heart of this covenant as I understand it. First of all, this is the first covenant mentioned in the Bible. God did in fact make a promise with the serpent in Genesis 3:15 that the seed of Eve would one day crush his head, but God did not use the word covenant in Genesis 3. Trust me, I would have told you if He did. And so the Noahic Covenant is the first covenant of the Bible.

This covenant is God’s response to Noah’s response to God’s grace, which was extended through Noah’s faith. Again, this covenant is God’s response to Noah’s response to God’s grace, which was extended through Noah’s faith. In short, the Noahic Covenant is God’s response to Noah’s faith. Hebrews chapter 11, verses six and seven make this abundantly clearer than I can. Hebrews 11:6-7 read, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” There it is, folks. I can’t do better than that. That was Hebrews 11:6-7. Write that down next to point 3.A. Hebrews 11:6-7

Grace was extended to Noah. Yet, the faith that made such an extension of grace successful was also a gift from God. Grace and faith are divine gifts. Grace and faith are divine gifts. Again, the Bible can explain this concept with greater clarity and concision than I am able. Ephesians 2:8-9 is a familiar little passage in which Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” What is the gift of God? “It.” What is “it?” The entire preceding clause – “by grace you have been saved through faith.” Both grace and faith are the gift of God. Both are divine gifts, and they go together. They always go together. Again, that was Ephesians 2:8-9. Write that address down next to point 3.B. Ephesians 2:8-9. Thank you.

And God chose Noah and his kin, or else they wouldn’t have had the faith to go onto the ark at all – but why? God chose Noah to be holy and to give praise to God’s glorious grace. This brings us to our New Testament reading for today. Recall Ephesians 1:4-6. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” And just as He chose Noah to be holy and to give praise to God’s glorious grace, He chose us that we would be holy before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption through Jesus Christ to Himself to the praise of the glory of His grace, according to His will.

It’s very easy to get hung up on passages like this one from Ephesians, for it takes away human agency. It’s not up to me to be saved?!? While I would very emphatically say “Hallelujah,” it is very reasonable to reply with a “Then how do I know if I’m saved? I can never be sure.” In fact, I have grappled with that quandary, and I still do in my lowest spiritual states. First of all, I call those of you who struggle with the doctrine of predestination to not listen to the lies of the Devil. He will distort this Scripture, and all Scripture, to not only immobilize you, but to turn you away from God’s Word, and more than a few people have fled from God because of a mistreating or misunderstanding of predestination. Remember that this is an exhortation to a beleaguered church that needed reassurance of not just God’s sovereignty, but of His fatherhood.

Like Noah, we shall see the floodgates open and fountains burst as things happen in our church, our families, and our individual lives. But, our Father - who art in Heaven - has better things in store for us. He has designs for us as His adopted heirs to be set apart and blameless, and to praise the glory of His grace.

Noah had been through the strangest year. Almost everyone and everything he had ever known or been familiar with had been wiped out. Our neat little bastardizations of the Flood account leave out the mass carnage left in the wake of the Flood just as these little retellings leave out the deaths of Noah’s friends, acquaintances, and extended family. Yup – the Flood killed people. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news to those of you who graduated from Mainline Protestant Sunday School. Yet God carried our ancient ancestor through it all so that the very name of God – Yahweh – would be praised.

The first promise that God made back in Genesis 3:15 spoke of redemption. This first covenant that God establishes with Noah in Genesis 9 demonstrates God’s grace. Chapter 8, verse 21 reads, “The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.” God graciously gives us a reason for His decision – this is such a great passage to preach on! He tells us that He will never again curse the ground and kill every living thing because “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Wow – that doesn’t really make any sense. What was God thinking? “So, the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth...what do I do now? I will never again curse the ground or kill every living thing. Sounds good.” This is what God’s grace looks like. We don’t deserve it, yet He chooses to give it, and Noah’s action is an example of what God wants us to do, why He extends that grace.

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” This is a covenant of sustaining grace. God finishes laying down the predictable way in which the world currently works right here in Genesis chapter 8, verse 22. And the pattern of movement and development has not changed since then. And we still have rainbows. This is a covenant of sustaining grace.

What Shall We Do?

So what do we do? I apologize for not giving a clear exhortation in my last sermon, and I desire to give one now, as this is really too important not to do so. First of all, turn over your inserts and prepare to take a couple of short notes on the back. (Are you turning them over? Good.) Remember that we, like Noah, were predestined for holiness and praisegiving, not necessarily happiness and a fun life of ease. In the Odyssey, Achilles tells Odysseus, “It is better to be a slave on earth than to be a king in the underworld.” Similarly, it is better to be a slave in heaven than a king on earth. No matter how good your life is, no matter how comfortable we in America are, no matter how happy and fun our lives may seem most of the time, remember that we are in exile. And until we are in the presence of God the Father giving praise to His glorious grace, we will have that sense of being a wanderer, of not really belonging. If you’re not uncomfortable in this world, and you’re old enough to know better, then be aware that God is even now preparing to shake things up.

I’ve been shaken up a lot – in good and bad ways – these past couple of years, and I will be the first to tell you that this world is not my home, no matter how snazzy it seems. As Eliphaz correctly said to Job in Job 5:7, “For man is born for trouble, as sparks fly upward.” As surely as fire rises into the air, man is born for trouble. The Christian life can be fun, but that’s not its purpose. It’s okay to be a happy Christian. I may be Reformed, but I even think that it’s good to smile! My point is that fun and happiness are not the purpose of our salvation. Holiness and God’s glory are the purposes of our salvation.

Next, in Ephesians 2:10 Paul asserts, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which Christ prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” So you’re saved by grace through a faith that was just as much a gift as the grace was – now what? Do something with your life.

Stop engaging in selfish worldly consumption and make a sacrifice of time and energy to God by studying His word and praising His glorious grace on your own, with your families, at home. If you can’t do that much in response to God’s glorious grace – which is a lot easier than building an altar and cooking some animals on it, much less building an ark and caring for animals in it – if you can’t do that much, then please don’t volunteer to serve in this church. I will say that again: if you can’t receive a sense of God’s glorious grace from the salvation that ONLY comes through His son, then you have no place to be performing good works, because they are dead. I don’t care how philanthropic somebody is. If that person isn’t doing it for Jesus – it’s all for naught. I don’t care how pro-life or pro-family someone is. If that person isn’t doing it for Jesus – it’s worthless. Soli Deo Gloria – to God alone be the glory. Your service, my service, our service, this service would be nothing but a sham if we were only concerned with the good works, and not the reception of God’s grace, through faith, which makes them worthwhile in the first place.

Now, the basics: read the Word of God to learn about Him. Come to this church, or go to another bible-believing church, and learn about God. Pray both alone and with others to listen to and bring supplication before God. Listen to God. Listen to God. Rest in Him. Christ said, “Come all you weary and heavy-laden. Lay down your burdens and find rest for your souls.” Allow Him to carry you through the Flood of trouble this world has to offer.

Do as Noah did and rest assured knowing that God knows our sick and evil hearts where we cannot understand them. And He extends grace anyway, because God is Love. Please join with me in singing Hymn #8: To God Be the Glory.

[Sing]

Benediction

I want to close our service today, and send you on your way to coffee and delightful little snacks with this meditation from Spurgeon. I read this on Friday night, so this is as fresh as it gets from the visiting preacher’s desk:

“Grace and glory always go together. God has married them, and none can divorce them. The Lord will never deny a soul glory to whom He has freely given to live upon His grace; indeed, glory is nothing more than grace in its Sabbath dress, grace in full bloom, grace like autumn fruit, mellow and perfected. How soon we may have glory none can tell! It may be before this month of October has run out we shall see the Holy City; but the interval longer or shorter, we shall be glorified ere long. Glory, the glory of heaven, the glory of eternity, the glory of Jesus, the glory of the Father, the Lord will surely give to His chosen. Oh, rare promise of a faithful God! Two golden links of one celestial chain: Who owneth grace shall surely glory gain.” Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be the Glory. Amen and Amen.

Please join us for refreshments in the Green Room/Fellowship Hall, and stick around for Discipleship Hour. If you have any questions or concerns, I will be around, so please stop me. Thank you.

Impact of the Fall

This is a transcription of a sermon that I gave on June 27, 2010 at the United Presbyterian Church in Havertown, PA. I was speaking on The Fall of Man. The Old Testament Reading was Genesis 3:1-19, and the New Testament Reading was Romans 8:18-25.

INTRO

Elder Bob Bell read the Genesis passage in the morning service. Mike Scorzetti read it in the evening service. It is transcribed here for easy reference:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' " "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Thanks for reading, Bob/Mike. Good morning/evening, everyone. Please turn in your Bibles to the eighth chapter of Romans, beginning at verse 18, and going through to verse 25.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

May God bless the reading of this His Word. Before we get into the message that I’ve prepared, please join with me in a prayer.

Father in Heaven,

We come before you in the humility of our brokenness, but also with the confidence of our salvation, freely bestowed by grace in the person of Jesus Christ. Father, please open our hearts for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit which was promised by Your Son. Lord God, we ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to infuse this message for the betterment of our small community here at Manoa Presbyterian Church, and the community of saints at-large. Please also allow this time to be a blessing to our visitors, Lord. But most importantly, we ask that this message be true to Your Word, and pleasing to You, oh God our Father. In the name of our Lord Jesus, Your Son, Amen.

I have to say that when Brown invited me to preach, I got really excited. I had a hankering to do so for a time, and the invitation was also a great honor for me. Then he told me what the topic was. The conversation went a bit like this, and this will be my only reenactment – I promise. “Zack, I’d like you to preach.” “Wow, thanks for the invitation! What am I preaching on?” “Genesis 3, and I want you to focus on the Fall and curses.” “Oh...cool...let me pray about it, and I’ll get back to you.”

I admit that the conversation wasn’t quite that up and down, but I have certainly been approaching this passage with fear and trembling. Not only is this one of the most challenging and humbling passages in Scripture, it is also one of the most influential pieces of literature in the Western World. It also hits very close to home to a sinner like me – as it should for all of us. Suffice it to say that I’ve been preparing quite a bit these past couple of weeks by spending time in prayer and reading a lot on how to approach Scripture from the office of preacher.

One of the resources I’ve been going back to over and over again is a book by a Scottish Presbyterian minister named Eric J. Alexander. The book is called What is Biblical Preaching? and it has been helpful as both a launching pad for my preparations and a succinct reference during my composition. At one point, Mr. Alexander describes an encounter he had with another Presbyterian man on a flight to the United States. He writes,

“A few years ago I was traveling on a plane, and my companion in the seat beside me had a fairly thorough glance at the books I was reading. I suppose they immediately identified the work in which I was engaged. He told me that he worshipped in a Presbyterian church every Sunday. It seemed too much of a coincidence not to tell him that I was also a Presbyterian and I was going to a seminary to speak to students for the ministry about preaching. He immediately began to give me some advice: ‘Do you know that I think is wrong with almost every preacher I hear? I think they spend most of their time preaching to one another and trying to impress one another.’”

The first thing I thought was, “well, at least I can really emphasize the fact that I’m not a preacher!” But the man went on to say to Mr. Alexander, “Now my dad used to tell me that if you wanted to hear the pure Christian gospel presented so that you would understand it you should go to a Presbyterian church service because that’s what they did.” After I read this, I thought to myself, “I have a responsibility – and not just to my Presbyterian Church and denomination to uphold our sterling reputation – but to God and His people.” Yet, God is good, and Christ came for the weary, to take up their burdens so that they may find rest for their souls – and I’ve found that coming to church this morning was not difficult or burdensome. I’ve come here with rest in my soul, and by the power of the Holy Spirit within me, I’m ready to preach the gospel.

The passages which are before us are loaded with items for consideration, and there are many approaches to Genesis 3 which we could take. In Genesis 3, we have the first occurrence, and therefore the origin, of sin. By this fact, we could certainly discuss the nature of sin, as certain patterns come out of that first instance. We could explore the full scope of guilt as we experience it in much the same way as Adam and Eve. We could even continue on the theme of the roles God plays in Genesis, and explore his role as disciplinarian and judge of mankind, especially as this is the first time he puts on the gloves, so to speak. While I’m going to touch on a couple of these major themes, we are largely going to open up Genesis 3 as an historical account that specifically defines the nature of conflict in our world.

PRE-EXISTING CONFLICTS

In the Genesis 3 passage, we do not begin with an unblemished Creation. There are already certain conflicts at play before The Fall. We can safely assume that there has already occurred a rebellion in the heavens. Out of that rebellion against God comes an evil character that would try to tempt man into sin. Satan is that evil character. Thus, the first conflict at play in the universe is the “Satan vs. God” conflict. Isaiah 14, 12 to 14 is one place in Scripture that gives a very good look into the nature of Satanic rebellion. Again, that’s Isaiah 14, 12 to 14. You can check that out on your own. Scripture does not give a strict chronology of events prior to The Fall of Man, but I would contend that Lucifer’s rebellion and consequent fall come after God proclaims that all He had made was “very good” at the end of Genesis 1. Whether that rebellion took place in Heaven with a cosmic battle, or in Eve’s ear with a deceitful whisper, I do not know. All we can be sure about is that Lucifer’s pride drove him to rebel against God in an effort to usurp His throne and become king of the universe, and this happened sometime after Creation Week, when God beheld all Creation as “very good.”

Christ gives a very powerful description of Satan in John, chapter 8, verse 44. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” We can pick up that Satan is a deceiver composed of falsehoods, and devoted to spreading lies. But before Jesus pounds that into the heads of some difficult new followers of His, he says that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning.” This doesn’t mean the very beginning, just generally – the beginning. Remember that Christ was teaching in a different style of communication than Genesis was written in. But by saying that Satan “was a murderer”, Christ implies the second pre-existing conflict which all of Genesis 3 testifies to: Satan vs Man.

Genesis 3 clearly indicates this conflict, which began in earnest with the tempting of Eve and culminated in the eating of the Forbidden Fruit. Satan had a target, and that target was the crown of Creation – mankind. This conflict is principally characterized by what Satan attacks. He did not attack Adam as bachelor, but rather chose to target the family. Satan hates families, and he does all in his power to wreck them. This isn’t to say that he won’t attack single people, but it is pertinent that he withheld his attack until Adam was married. And Satan chose to attack the family through Eve. I want to take this one level deeper. Recall that Eve was taken from Adam’s side. Therefore, Eve is naturally close to Adam’s heart. Our sides, particularly our ribs, serve to protect the vital organs, especially the heart. Is it fair to say that Satan aims his attack against the heart of a man, and does so through the helper who was designed to serve and protect that man’s heart?

Whatever the case may be, we know that the covenant between husband and wife, the marriage bond, is representative of the relationship between God and His chosen people – Israel and the church. Satan seeks to make a mockery of that representation by attacking families, driving couples apart, and destroying hearts. This country has seen plenty of that. This church, being a Christ-loving and Bible-believing communion of saints, is very much focused on the family, and so I really want to open up this picture as we explore the dimensions of Satan’s attack on men.

In his book Reforming Marriage, pastor Douglas Wilson of Moscow, Idaho writes this:

In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us that husbands, in their role as head, provide a picture of Christ and the church. Every marriage, everywhere in the world, is a picture of Christ and the church. Because of sin and rebellion, many of these pictures are slanderous lies concerning Christ. But a husband can never stop talking about Christ and the church. If he is obedient to God, he is preaching the truth; if he does not love his wife, he is speaking apostasy and lies – but he is always talking. If he deserts his wife, he is saying that this is the way Christ deserts His bride – a lie. If he is harsh with his wife and strikes her, he is saying that Christ is harsh with the church – another lie. If he sleeps with another woman, he is an adulterer, and a blasphemer as well. How could Christ love someone other than His own Bride? It is astonishing how, for a few moments of pleasure, faithless men can bring themselves to slander the faithfulness of Christ in such a way.

Just as Christ said that Satan is the father of lies, so we can expect Satan to push husbands to be liars in our marriages. But Satan does not only attack families. The Bible tells us that Satan sidled up to an individual’s ear – not that he addressed Adam and Eve jointly. “And he said to the woman...” I would contend that Satan also attacks individuals in particular. His goal is for domination of the world, and all the souls in it. He also knows that in order to gain control of families, societies, and global orders, he must go through individuals.

Ultimately, we should know that Satan is opposed to God, God wants the best for Man, and so Satan is opposed to Man. Yet we must also understand that God is Sovereign in all of this. As Martin Luther once said, “The devil is God’s devil.” The LORD God is almighty, and is in control of all. We aren’t dealing with a simple picture of Good vs Evil dualism. We are looking at God’s will being worked out in the history of the universe, and Satan playing a part – albeit an evil part – in that story.

AFTER THE FALL

And then we have the Fall of Man. “But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” God said to Adam in Genesis 2. Genesis 3, verse 6: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” This is one of the clearest examples of outright disobedience and rebellion in all of literature. A mere 13 verses separate the Lord’s command from Man’s disobedience.

So what are the results? I will begin with the most basic and far-reaching component of the curse. In verses 17 to 19 of Genesis 3 God says to Adam: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The Adamic curse clearly indicates the beginning of the Man vs Nature conflict. No longer would Adam be able to harvest his food in a leisurely way. The world is such that the man who works is the man who eats. You cannot be the latter without first being the former. Implicated in this conflict is another, more subtle conflict, however. Not only is Man opposed to Nature, but Nature is opposed to itself. We live in a world cursed by the Nature vs. Nature conflict. The curse God levels at Adam is first leveled at the ground because of him. The curse ends with God pointing out to Adam that he is from dust and will return to it. Man is a part of Nature, and so if Man is in conflict with Nature, the implication is that Nature is in conflict with Nature. From our New Testament reading, we read that “the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”

The second major conflict coming out of the Fall is that of Man vs Man. This not only includes the big picture of nation against nation, family against family, but also the more intimate conflicts that take place in our homes on the personal level. So we have both intra-family and inter-family conflict. The nature of this conflict can be found in the interaction between Adam and Eve after they had sinned. First they felt shame towards each other in their nakedness. They had been laid bare before each other, their innocence gone, and they felt shameful in that nakedness. Then when God questions Adam about what he had done, the first man does what so many of his descendents do, and that is to blame someone else for his sin. And so this conflict is characterized by shame and blame.

The next conflict is closely related, as it involves a different kind of turmoil among men. This is the conflict of Man vs Self. Paul writes in Romans 7, verses 19 to 20: “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.” The very nature that we are born with is entrenched in the pain and sin of this world. In Jeremiah, chapter 17, verse 9, the prophet speaks – “the heart is desperately sick,” and this is the truth. And it is not just the kleptomaniac or the compulsive that is enslaved to sin, but all of us without the salvation provided for at the Cross of Calvary. What we have in Genesis 3 is the first example of a Broken Image of God. Paul writes in Romans 16:18 and Philippians 3:18 to 19 of Man’s inborn slavery to the appetite. We must understand that this condition is NOT merely a conflict of appetite and reason, but Man’s slavery to appetite, to the exclusion of righteousness. In the Western traditions of medical practice and education, we have been told that the application of Reason and information can correct bad behavior. This is not true! Righteousness is not contained merely in right reason and conditioning through curricula. Righteousness is contrasted to reason by means of inspiration. Righteousness comes from the Lord, not from the schoolteacher or the doctor’s prescription.

Finally, we turn to the last conflict detailed in Genesis 3 – that of Man vs God. “Where are you?” God says in verse 9. A great gulf has opened up between Man and God as a result of the Fall, and God calls out across the void “where are you?” Man’s reaction indicates the condition of shame and fearfulness that he’s in. “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.” When God asks “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” we know that Adam blames the woman, but he also blames God. “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Eve gets it a little bit more right when she says, “the serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Yet neither of them repent, neither of them say sorry. There is evident sorrow in the loss of innocence and in the separation from that friend who lovingly gave them warning of what was in store. Again, there is NO REPENTANCE. This is what Man vs God looks like. No repentance. No admission of fault or guilt. While there’s a feeling of shame, there is only a compulsion to blame others.

First John chapter 1, verses 8 to 9: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We can ask, what if the first couple had said to God, “Father forgive us, for we have sinned. We ate of the tree because we wanted that which was forbidden to us, and we didn’t believe You when You said that we would die from it. We disregarded You and did our own thing. Please forgive us.” But this was not in God’s plan. We read from Paul – Romans chapter 8, verse 23: “We ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”

And this is where I wish to uncover the deepest impact of the Fall. The Fall is essentially the enabling of God as Redeemer. From this point in Genesis 3 onward to the final verse of Revelation, we come to know God as our comforter, our healer, the judge of the world, the Savior of the Elect, the transformer of sinful man, and the Redeemer of the world. Remember the words of Romans 8, verses 20 and 21: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” In His reaction to the Fall, God’s full character is revealed to us! We have been studying God as Creator for the past few weeks, and from this Sunday on, we will be exploring how God means history for good. From this moment in history on, God reveals his roles of Redeemer, Comforter, Healer, and Savior.

Please pray with me

Father God,

You are the redeemer of a fallen and broken world. You are the comforter of a distraught and woeful people, suffering under shame and pride. And through Your son, we are made free. May this prayer be ever on our lips, Lord – that Your redemption sweeps over this world and that the few be many Lord. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Please rise for the Benediction.

From Ephesians 3:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

How Can I Love A God Who Allows So Much Evil?

This is a transcription of a message that I gave at a Wednesday morning Lenten breakfast at the United Presbyterian Church in Havertown, PA on March 10, 2010. I was speaking on a topic based on a reading from a little book by John Piper called For Your Joy.

Good morning everyone! I’m so glad that we are able to start the day off together in fellowship and fine dining. Before I dive into the message, please pray with me:

Father God,

We lift You up this morning. You are faithful and praiseworthy, strong and true. With joy and gladness in my heart, I come before You as Your servant boldly asking for Your wisdom and truth to drive this short message. I thank You for the time that I have had with You over the last several days in preparation for this morning, and I’m excited to share with my brothers and sisters these words that You have blessed me with. Father, please make me into a blessing – use me this morning, and may this devotional time be one in which You are at the center, and You are glorified.

The question that we are asking – and seeking to answer – today is How Can I Love A God Who Allows So Much Evil? Has anyone ever been presented with this issue before? In the academic traditions of the humanities and theology, a form of this question comes up as the Problem of Evil. By raising this problem, philosophers and writers have for centuries challenged the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of God as all-knowing, all-powerful, and absolutely loving. Essentially, it boils down to “How can God know everything, be capable of anything, and at the same time be the very pinnacle – even essence and being – of love? Look at all the senseless evil and suffering in the world!” Many apologists and authors have tackled this issue head on, but I’m not doing that this morning.

Rather, I’m hoping to answer the question at-hand. How Can I Love A God Who Allows So Much Evil? This question is different, for it is more personal. It’s the kind of question that says, “I’m hurting. I am in pain – my life is overwhelming me. Why, God, why? Are you even there? Is He even listening?” This is a lot more visceral than some philosophical problem or riddle to be solved. Even so, we recognize that the source of evil is shrouded in mystery – be it Free Will, the Sovereignty of God, the bottom line is that we can only dig so deep into the Mystery of Evil. Unlike a problem, it really cannot be solved by reason alone. The great mysteries of God and people are unpacked only after we leave the Academic and enter into the Personal.

In Deuteronomy 29:29, we read that The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law. The Word also has this to say about knowledge and wisdom in Proverbs, chapter 1 verse 7: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. God makes very clear that He has given us the law explicitly, and also that true knowledge comes with fearing God – trusting Him, spending time with Him, worshipping Him fully submitted to His will. Again, God’s mysteries are for Him to grasp, but we are able to receive His Truth by drawing near to Him in Personal relationship. By fearing Him.

We can only understand the famous verses and passages on God’s purpose in Christ through a personal connection to God. Jesus Christ, who was God, entered into the evil and suffering so present in this world, and suffered under it according to His Father’s design in order to redeem it. Otherwise, the truths ring emptily. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:16-17). To the Christian in fellowship with God on a daily basis, these verses are joyful and beautiful. But to the dead “Christian” or nonbeliever who either can’t seem to fit some time in for God – one on one – every day, these verses are at best quaint, and at worst foolish drivel.

Let us turn now to the end of Genesis. The account of Joseph is historically true, but also serves to foreshadow the Messianic mission of Christ. Among the last recorded words from Joseph, we have these in verses 19-21 of chapter 50 in Genesis: Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones. Similarly, Paul wrote in Romans 8: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. . . . He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? . . . For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Note that Paul does not deny that those things will not come and stand in our way. They will show up to box us out of that intimacy with God, but God’s love – that is, Christ Jesus – will wipe all of these obstacles out. Ultimately, they cannot stand in our way. For God works all things for good.

I mentioned that Christ came to redeem the evil and suffering by entering into it. He suffered the nine tails, he bled under a crown of thorns, and he was posted onto a cross like so much worthless flesh. But He did not only redeem the evil of Pilate, Herod, and the Sanhedrin. He also redeemed the evil desire of Israel recorded in Samuel. First Samuel 12:19 reads: Then all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king.” But God redeemed that evil. He sent His son through a humble virgin who gave to Jesus the blood of King David. Still further, we have records that the earthly guardian father of Christ – Joseph – was also descendant from the line of King David, and so Jesus had legal, as well as Jewish matrilineal blood, claim to the kingship of Israel. By His blood, the misguided and despicable request for a king is redeemed. God worked it for good.

In Christ’s life, we know God’s designs from Isaiah. The tenth verse of chapter 53 reads: But the LORD was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. And we have in Acts, chapter four: For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. God was pleased to crush Christ, and he predestined it. For He so loved the world . . .

The most horrible and awesome fact of Christ’s life, and especially His death, is that by slaying Him, his executors perpetrated the greatest sin ever committed. Greater than all the atrocities of genocide, greater than any kind of environmental damage, greater than corporate greed that leaves hundreds of millions starving. For Christ was perfectly blameless. He was spotless. This is a person who, bleeding on a cross, intercedes even then saying, Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

But He needed to die for us to be able to be with God the Father. God needed to come into the temporal and material existence of humanness to meet with us. He needed to die for our sins to be wiped away in order to bring us to Himself, and He needed to rise again to assure us of life everlasting with Him so that our spirits may thrive in the assurance of His promises. John 20:30-31 reads, Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

But we mustn’t forget that for God to enter into Death – for God to die – He needed to do something more mysterious than any of us can really wrap our minds around. He needed to separate Himself from . . . Himself. We believe in a triune God. He is Jesus Christ the Son, He is the Holy Spirit, and He is God the Father Almighty. I wish to turn to a passage now and read it very carefully, for this is the crucial moment in history when we can read how it is that God felt at the imminence of separation. How our Lord the Son felt at the terrible knowledge that our Lord the Father would despise Him – would turn His gaze from Him and break the indestructible: break the bonds of the Trinity with cold Death.

And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. When He arrived at the place, He said to them, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done." Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation." (Luke 22:39-46)

Christ not only bares all here. We are not merely seeing a powerful outpouring of God’s emotion. We are given an example of what to do in light of the devastation of evil and suffering. This is the passage that gives that personal answer to the question we are addressing today. What is Christ doing? He first encourages His disciples to pray against the temptation to sin. He then submits to His Father, and prays earnestly. He boldly supplicates. Yet, according to the desire of His own heart, He exalts God’s will above His own request – as righteous and just a request it is. Afterwards, He catches the disciples in slumber – having fallen to the sin – and exhorts them to get up and by any means necessary, to avoid temptation to sin.

God gives us even more than a perfect example. God promises to give us strength, just as He gave His son that angel of strength. Acts 1:8 records the promise of Christ to us, his disciples, when he says You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. But even this strength cannot hold back Christ’s agony. It is actually possible to sweat blood. When in extreme agony and stress, subcutaneous capillaries (blood vessels underneath our skin) may expand and burst, causing blood to commingle with our sweat as both eke out. It is a condition known as hematidrosis. So why was Christ feeling such agony – such torment. I don’t think that it was merely the cross – that was frightening enough, surely.

Christ was facing the effects of sin as He was on the threshold of entering into them, under the full weight of punishment. What is this punishment? The wages of sin is death. Death is Hell. Hell is separation from God. So, God was to be separated from God. In personal terms, a son was looking into the sorry future in which he knew that his dad was to forsake him, despise him, and crush him. But this Jesus is innocent of any and all guilt. He is totally pure! But as a guilt offering, God sentences himself to death so that we may have life.

How Can We Love A God Who Allows So Much Evil? We can recognize that He entered into it Himself so that we may live. It is true that He uses suffering and trials to make us stronger, but at the root of my answer to this question (and Piper’s as well, I believe) is the reality that God did not spare Himself. In fact, He laid the most horrible sin ever committed upon Himself.

I want to close our time together today with a reading from Deuteronomy, chapter 4. I’m starting in the 32^nd verse, and continuing to the 40^th. Remember these words from Moses to the people of Israel as you go through your day today meditating on the weight of Christ’s mission.

"Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him. Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire. Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the LORD, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other. So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time."

Let Justice Roll Down Like Water

This piece was written in response to the book Justice in a Global Economy, which was edited by Pamela K. Brubaker, Rebecca Todd Peters, and Laura A. Stivers. I wrote it for Religion 2900: Interrogating Globalization at Temple University with Prof. John Raines.

It seems as though we live in a climate of change. While we do not have to look beyond the literature of this course to find evidence for an evolving national consciousness geared towards newfound awe for the majesty of our dynamic world, all arenas of opinion in mainstream society point in the same direction. We have an adventurous president that has won a consensus among Americans by promising to do what is peaceable, the American economy is finally feeling the pain of years of ruthless societal manipulation by corporate dragons, and international tensions over aggressive American policies are slowly fading into history along with the Bush administration. The worlds of academia and news media seem to be in agreement about a promising future, alive with the Earth Charter’s inspirational message that “Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life.”

However, there is much to be done. As made clear in Justice in a Global Economy, the work of conscientious people to rescue the Earth and her denizens is not over. Our final text clearly points toward the need for a justice that is currently absent in our massive global economy. The common thread through almost all of the essays is the need for a consciousness rooted in the idea that our emerging global system is comprised of interdependent agents.

Each essayist sets a clear example that we can no longer allow an unquestioned, reckless, and ruthless hegemonic corporatism masquerading as American to be the definitive factor in shaping the future of economic globalization. Instead, these writers call for widespread recognition of the interdependence implicit in the Earth community, which includes the animal kingdom, the human race, and Earth itself. As the editors write in the Introduction:

We are called to respond to God’s desire for the well-being of the whole creation by taking responsibility for our lives and the ways in which we help and hurt others – intentionally or unintentionally. We are indeed freed by God’s forgiveness, but we are freed for a new life in Christ that requires us to live differently, a new life that asks us to participate in building God’s vision of a new heaven and a new earth. (Brubaker et al. 3)

Many authors come together in the writing to offer a reprioritization for the driving forces of economic globalization. They nobly seek to articulate “the interests of people and the environment,” as opposed to “the interests of money” (Brubaker et al. 8). One author in particular attacks the ill-conceived methodology of many American corporations by equating their profits with the Hebrew designation of plunder.

Professor Mary Elizabeth Hobgood claims that “wealth creates impoverishment” and correctly states that “many of the teachings of the Torah, the Hebrew prophets, and Jesus recognize an unjust relationship between wealthy people and economically insecure people” (Brubaker et al. 152, 153). Furthermore, she paints a picture of the Christian Right in America as woefully ignorant of the Scripture on this point. She writes, “A version of Christianity, bereft of the centrality of social justice, tells them that God will take care of them in all ways, including economically, if they oppose abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, immigrants, and terrorists” (Brubaker et al. 156). She gives a challenge to the Christian Left (particularly mainline Protestants) to develop a grassroots network as strong and expansive as that of the Right in order to counteract the “social conservative” agenda with so-called “social justice.” However, the Christian Right has something to say of the economic injustices perpetrated on its side of the political spectrum.

In The Long War Against God, Christian Hydrologist Dr. Henry Morris gives a scathing critique of the insidious forces of the Right Wing, and how it has let down the Christian community that has supported it since the rise of Reagan:

It is a mistake to assume, as many do, that political “conservatism” is necessarily compatible with biblical Christianity....many leaders in the present-day Republican Party (e.g., the Rockefellers and other leaders in Wall Street and the interlocking directorates of the giant corporations) are really the spiritual heirs of the nineteenth-century social Darwinists. Most of them are firmly committed to evolutionism and the amassing of great fortunes by whatever methods will succeed in the economic struggle for existence. The recent betrayal of the “religious right” is a painful reminder of this fact to disillusioned Christians. This group joined forces with the ostensibly conservative Republican establishment in order to help restore traditional “Americanism” (family values, prayer and creationism in schools, sexual morality in society, etc.) and to elect Ronal Reagan as president. Its members then saw their own concerns ignored in favor of concentration on economic measures designed to restore a greater degree of Darwinist laissez-faire capitalism. (Morris 59)

Dr. Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and is typically lumped into the so-called “Christian Right.” I believe that the mistake that Prof. Hobgood makes with regard to the people of the Christian Right that she forgets to represent what they actually believe. They are just as discontented with their two-faced political leaders as Prof. Hobgood. While the voters of the religious right do care very much for hot topic issues like abortion, euthanasia, and gay marriage, they are not ignorant of the economic injustices perpetrated by the forces of laissez-faire economics. Another mistake that Prof. Hobgood makes is in her reading of Scripture.

In her essay, she writes, “As I have observed, Scripture and tradition are quite clear that economic justice and peacemaking are at the heart of Christian values” (Brubaker et al. 158). I believe that she has obsessively focused on passages stressing economic transgression while forgetting the beautiful words of Amos 5:24, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (NASB).

The book of Amos records the message of a layman (a sheepherder and fig farmer) from Judah who has been called by God to travel northwards to call Israel back to holiness. A good exegesis of Amos, or any passage of Scripture dealing with economic injustice and inequity, cannot leave out the message that such disparity comes as a result of unrighteousness. In actuality, there is no justice without righteousness. In a fallen world – a world groaning under the weight of sin – righteousness cannot come from any action that we take on our own. Rather, the righteousness of Christ inspires holiness among those who truly believe in His work on the cross and afterwards in the Resurrection.

“So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men” (Romans 5:18 NASB). This is the point that Prof. Hobgood and other Process Theologians miss. Process Theology is the system of belief that inspires the editors of this book to write, “[By Christ, we are freed to live] a new life that asks us to participate in building God’s vision of a new heaven and a new earth” (Brubaker et al. 3). I am not putting down the Christian responsibility to act on behalf of Christ by going out into the world to do what is good. Rather, I am rejecting the false claim that we participate with Christ in resuscitating this world out of the death from sin that is strangling it. As a Christian, I believe that Christ took care of that on His own. He was the blameless One that died as a propitiation for the sin of Adam and the sins of Zack. He is the One that has righted the wrongs of this world, and will come again to restore His kingdom on Earth.

What then shall the Christian do? What is the Christian responsibility? After His resurrection, Christ says to His disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned” (Mark 16:15 NASB). I believe that one accompanying Old Testament text to this Great Commission is found in Ezekiel:

Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me....Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus you have spoken, saying, “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we are rotting away in them; how then can we survive?” ’ Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! ...When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, then he shall die in it. But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live by them. (Ezekiel 33:7, 10-11, 18-19 NASB)

I believe that the authors of the essays in Justice in a Global Economy hit on the key fact that there is evil in the world today, and that people are acting in a way that clearly reveals the depravity inherent in the human condition. They continue in this vein to offer recommendations on personal, community, and national levels for revision of behavior and consciousness. However, I believe that they miss the righteousness. They miss the fact that Jesus Christ died for the sin, and what needs to happen is a commitment to Him as Lord. This commitment to the Christ entails a commitment to all aspects of righteousness, and this includes the concerns of the “religious right,” what Prof. Hobgood calls “a conservative social agenda.”

It’s important to remember that justice and righteousness flow together, and both are rooted in the holiness that is the rock of Jesus Christ. If we build our lives upon this rock, then we need not be fearful of the forces of this world wrecking us, and we can live with Him forever! This is the glorious message of Christianity: Christ died for our sins – let’s go and tell everybody! Part of sharing that reality is to do what Christ says in the fifth chapter of Matthew: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16 NASB). We are called to first be made right with God through the atonement of Christ, and then to serve others – particularly the poor.